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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:31 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:31 -0700 |
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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/10435-0.txt b/10435-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67948b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10435-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8554 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10435 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. II.--OCTOBER, 1858.--NO. XII. + + + + + + +THE NEW WORLD AND THE NEW MAN. + +Half a dozen rivulets leap down the western declivity of the Rocky +Mountains, and unite; four thousand miles away the mighty Missouri +debouches into the Mexican Gulf as the result of that junction. Did the +rivulets propose or plan the river? Not at all; but they knew, each, +its private need to find a lower level; the universal law they obeyed +accomplished the rest. So is it with the great human streams. Mighty +beginnings do not lie in the minds of the beginners. History is a +perpetual surprise, ever developing results of which men were the +agents without being the expectants. Individual actors, with respect to +the master claim of humanity, are, for the most part, not unlike that +fleet hound which, enticed by a tempting prospect of meat, outran a +locomotive engine all the way from Lowell to Boston, and won a handsome +wager for his owner, while intent only on a dinner for himself. +Humanity is served out of all proportion to the intention of service. +Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait, +but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations +of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a +voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to +calculate consequences makes the preĆ«minent grandeur of his position; +or he is urged by the high inevitable impulse to publish or verify an +idea: the Divine Destiny _works_ in their hearts, and _plans_ over +their heads. + +Socrates felt a sacred impulse to test his neighbors, what they knew +and were: this is such account of his life as he himself can give at +its close. His contemporaries generally saw in him an imperturbable and +troublesome questioner, fatally sure to come at the secret of every +man's character and credence, whom no subterfuge could elude, no +compliments flatter, no menaces appall,--suspected also of some +emancipation from the popular superstitions: this is the account of him +which _they_ are able to give. At twenty-three centuries' distance _we_ +see in him the source of a river of spiritual influence, that yet +streams on, more than a Missouri, in the minds of men,--more than a +Missouri, for it not only flows as an open current, but, percolating +beneath the surface, and coming up in distinct and distant fountains, +it becomes the hidden source of many a constant tide in the faiths and +philosophies of nations. + +The veil covers the eyes of spectators and agents alike. Columbus +returns, freighted with wondrous tidings, to the Spanish shore; the +nation rises and claps its hands; the nation kneels to bless its gods +at all its shrines, and chants its delight in many a choral Te Deum. +What, then, do they think is gained? Why, El Dorado! Have they not +gained a whole world of gold and silver mines to buy jewelled cloaks +and feathers and frippery with? Have they not gained a cornucopia of +savages, to support new brigades at home by their enslavement, and new +bishoprics abroad by their salvation? Touching, truly, is the childish +eagerness and _bonhommie_ with which those Spaniards in fancy assume, +as it were, between thumb and finger, this continent, deemed to be +nothing less than gold, and feed with it the leanness of hungry purses; +and the effect is not a little enhanced by the extreme pains they are +at to say a sufficient grace over the imagined meal. "Oh, wonderful, +Pomponius!" shouts the large-minded Peter Martyr. "Upon the surface of +that earth are found rude masses of gold, of a weight that one fears to +mention!... Spain is spreading her wings," etc. He is of the minority +there, who does not suppose this New World a Providential donation to +aid him to dinners, dances, and dawdling, or at best to promote his +"glory" and pride of social estimation. Even Columbus, more magnanimous +than most of his contemporaries, is not so greatly more wise. The +noblest use he can conceive for his discovery is to aid in the recovery +of the Holy Sepulchre. With the precious metals that should fall to his +share, says his biographer, he made haste to vow the raising of a force +of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the +Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even +the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, +and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of +the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not +individuals alone, but whole nations, may lawfully claim. + +The Old World, we say, seized upon this magnificent new force now +thrown into history, and harnessed it unsuspiciously to its own car, as +if it could have been designed for no other possible use. Happily, +however, the design was different, and Providence having a peculiar +faculty of protecting its own plans, the holding of the reins after +such a steed proved anything but a sinecure. Spain, indeed, rode in a +high chariot for a time, but at length, in that unlucky Armada drive, +crashed against English oak on the ocean highways, and came off +creaking and rickety,--grew thenceforth ever more unsteady,--finally, +came utterly to the ground, with contusions, fractures, and much +mishap,--and now the poor nation hobbles hypochondriacally upon +crutches, all its brave charioteering sadly ended. England drove more +considerately, but could not avoid fate; so in 1783 she, too, must let +go the rein with some mental disturbance. For the great Destiny was not +exclusively a European Providence,--had meditated the establishment of +a fresh and independent human centre on the western side of the sea. +The excellent citizens of London and Madrid found themselves incapable +of crediting this until it was duly placarded in gunpowder print.--It +is, indeed, an unaccountable foible men have, not to recognize a plain +fact till it has been published in this blazing hieroglyphic. What were +England and France doing at Sebastopol? Merely issuing a poster to this +effect,--"Turkey is not yours,"--in a type that Russia could feel free +to understand. Terribly costly editions these are, and in a type +utterly hideous; but while nations refuse to see the fact in a more +agreeable presentation, it may probably feel compelled to go into this +ugly, but indubitable shape.--Well, somewhat less than a century since, +England had committed herself to the proposition, that America was +really a part or dependency of Europe, a lower-caste Europe, having +about the same relation to the Cisatlantic continent that the farmer's +barn has to his house. Mild refutations of this modest doctrine having +been attempted without success, posters in the necessary red-letter +type were issued at Concord, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc., which might +be translated somewhat thus:--"America has its own independent root in +the world's centre, its own independent destiny in the Providential +thought." This important fact, having then and there exploded itself +into legibility, and come to be known and read of all men, admits now +of no dispute, and requires no confirmation. It is evidently so. The +New World is not merely a newly-discovered hay-loft and dairy-stall for +the Old, but is itself a proper household, of equal dignity with any. +To draw the due inferences from this, to see what is implied in it, is +all that we are here required to do. + +Be it, then, especially noted that the continent by itself can take no +such rank. A spirituality must appear to crown and complete this great +continental body; otherwise America is acephalous. Unless there be an +American Man, the continent is inevitably but an appendage, a kitchen +and laundry for the European parlor. American Man,--and the word Man is +to receive a large emphasis. Observe, that it does not refer to mere +population. The fact required will hardly be reported in the census. +Indeed, there is quite too much talk about population, about +prospective increase of numbers. We are to have thirty millions of +inhabitants, they say, in 1860; soon forty, fifty, one hundred +millions. Doubtless; and if that be all, one yawns over the statement. +Could any prophet assure us of _one_ million of men who would stand for +the broadest justice as Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans stood +for Lacedaemon! But Hebrew David was thought to be punished for taking +a census; nor is the story without significance. To reckon numbers +alone a success _is_ a sin, and a blunder beside. Russia has sixty +millions of people: who would not gladly swap her out of the world for +glorious little Greece back again, and Plato and Aeschylus and +Epaminondas still there? Who would exchange Concord or Cambridge in +Massachusetts for any hundred thousand square miles of slave-breeding +dead-level? Who Massachusetts in whole for as many South American (or +Southern) republics as would cover Saturn and all his moons? Make sure +of depth and breadth of soul as the national characteristic; then roll +up the census columns; and roll out a hallelujah for each additional +thousand. + +Thus had the great Genoese been destined merely to make a new highway +on the ocean and new lines on the map,--to add the potato, maize, and +tapioca to the known list of edibles, and tobacco to that of +narcotics,--to explode Spain, give England a cotton-field, Ireland a +hospital, and Africa a hell. This could by no means seem sufficient. +The crew of the Pinta shouted, "Land! Land!"--peering through the dark +at the new shores; the Spanish nation chanted, "Gold! Gold!"--gazing +out through murky desires toward the wondrous West; but it is only with +the cry of "Man! Man!" as at the sight of new cerebral shores and +wealth of more than golden humanities, that the true America is +discovered and announced. So whatever reason we have to assert for +America a really independent existence and destiny, the same have we +for predicting an opulence of heart and brain, to which Western +prairies and Californian gold shall seem the natural appurtenance. + +And this noble man must be likewise a _new_ man,--not merely a migrated +European. Western Europe pushed a little farther west does not meet our +demand. Why should Europe go three thousand miles off to be Europe +still? Besides, can we afford to England, France, Spain, a larger room +in the world? Are we more than satisfied with their occupancy of that +they already possess? The Englishman is undeniably a wholesome picture +to the mental eye; but will not twenty million copies of him do, for +the present? It would seem like a poverty in Nature, were she unable to +vary, but must go helplessly on to reproduce that selfsame British +likeness over all North America. But history fully warrants the +expectation of a new form of man for the new continent. German and +Scandinavian Teutons peopled England; but the Englishman is _sui +generis_, not merely an exported Teuton. Egypt, says Bunsen, was +peopled by a colony from Western Asia; but the genius and physiognomy +of Egypt are peculiar and its own. Mr. Pococke will have it that Greece +was a migrated India: it was, of course, a migration from some place +that first planted the Hellenic stock in Europe; but if the man who +carved the Zeus, and built the Parthenon, and wrote the "Prometheus" +and the "Phaedrus," were a copy, where shall we find the original? +Indeed, there has never been a great migration that did not result in a +new form of national genius. And it is the thoroughness of the +transformations thus induced which makes the chief difficulty in +tracing the affinities of peoples. + +So it is that the world is enriched. Every new form of man establishes +another current in those reciprocations of thought, in those electrical +streams of sympathy,--of wholesome attraction and wholesome +repulsion,--by which the intellectual life is kindled and quickened. +Thought begins not until two men meet. Col. Hamilton Smith makes it +quite clear that civilization has found its first centres there where +two highways of national movement crossed, and dissimilar men looked +each other in the face. They have met, it may be, with the rudest kind +of greetings; but have obtained good thoughts from hard blows, and +beaten ideas _out_ of each other's heads, if not _into_ them, according +to the ancient pedagogic tradition. Higher culture brings higher terms +of meeting; traffic succeeds war, conversation follows upon traffic; +ever the necessity of various men to each other remains. There is no +pure white light until seven colors blend; so to the mental +illumination of humanity many hues of national genius must consent: and +the value of life to all men is greater so soon as a new man has made +his advent. + +All this is matter of daily experience with us. We do not, indeed, tire +of old friends. A soul whose wealth we have once recognized must be +ever rich to us. Gold turns not to copper by keeping; and perhaps old +friends are rather like old wine, and can never be too old. Yet who +does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a _new_ +rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly +its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our +conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the +spectacle of drunken Helots;--though he who makes habitual _talk_ about +his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there be +sermons in stones, no less is there blessing in bores and in bullies. +We found one day in the face of a black bear what could not be so well +found in libraries. The creature regarded us attentively, and with +affection rather than malice,--saw simply certain amounts of savory +flesh, useful for the satisfaction of ursine hungers,--and saw nothing +more. It was an incomparable lesson to teach that the world is an +endless series of levels, and that each eye sees what its own altitude +commands; the rest to it is non-extant. _That_ bear was in his natural +covering of hair; his brothers we frequently meet in broadcloth. + +Now, as Nature keeps up this inexhaustible variety of individual genius +which individual quickening requires, so on the larger scale is she +ever working and compounding to produce varieties of national genius. +Her aim is the same in both cases,--to enrich the whole by this +electrical and enlivening relation between its parts. And thus an +American man, no copy, but an original, formed in unprecedented moulds, +with his own unborrowed grandeur, his own piquancy and charm, is to be +looked for,--is, indeed, even now to be seen,--on this shore. + +Yes, the man we seek is already found, his features rapidly becoming +distinct. He is the offspring of Northern Europe; he occupies Central +North-America. Other fresh forms are doubtless to appear, but, though +dimly shaping themselves, are as yet inchoate. But the Anglo-American +is an existing fact, to be spoken of without prognostication, save as +this is implied in the recognition of tendencies established and +unfolding into results. The Anglo-American may be considered the latest +new-comer into this planet. Let us, then, a little celebrate his +advent. Let us make all lawful and gentle inquiry about the +distinguished stranger. + +First, what is his pedigree? He need not be ashamed to tell; for he +comes of a noble family, the Teutonic,--a family more opulent of human +abilities, and those, for the most part, the deeper kind of abilities, +than any other on the earth at present. He reckons among his +progenitors and relatives such names as Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, the +two Bacons, Lessing, Richter, Schiller, Carlyle, Hegel, Luther, Behmen, +Swedenborg, Gustavus Adolphus, William of Orange, Cromwell, Frederick +II., Wellington, Newton, Leibnitz, Humboldt, Beethoven, Handel, Turner; +and nations might be enriched out of the names that remain when the +supreme ones in each class have been mentioned. Consider what +incomparable range and variety, as well as depth, of genius are here +affirmed. Greece and India possessed powers not equally represented +here; but otherwise these might stand for the full abilities of +mankind, each in its handsomest illustration.--It is remarkable, too, +that our Anglo-American has no "poor relations." Not a scurvy nation +comes of this stock. They are the Protestant nations, giving religion a +moral expression, and reconciling it with freedom of thought. They are +the constitutional nations, exacting terms of government that +acknowledge private right. _Resource_ may also be emphasized as a +characteristic of these nations. Hitherto they have honored every draft +that has been made upon them. The Dutch first fished their country out +from under the sea, and afterwards defended it in a war of eighty +years' duration against the first military power on the globe: two +feats, perhaps, equally without parallel. + +Being thus satisfied upon the point of pedigree, we may proceed to +inquire about estate. To what inheritance of land has Nature invited +our New Man? He comes to the country of highest organization, perhaps, +upon either hemisphere. Brazil and China suggest, but probably do not +sustain, a rivalry. What is implied in superior organization will +appear from the items to be mentioned. + + 1. Elaboration. Central North-America is to an extraordinary degree +worked out everywhere in careful detail, in moderate hill and valley, +in undulating prairie and fertile plain,--not tossed into barren +mountain-masses and table-lands, like that vast desert _plateau_ which +stretches through Central Asia,--not struck out in blank, like the +Russian _steppes_ and the South American _llanos_, as if Nature had +wanted leisure to elaborate and finish. Indeed, these primary +conditions of fertility and large habitability appertain to America, as +a whole, to such degree, that, with less than half the extent of the +Old World, it actually numbers more acres of fertile soil, and can, of +course, sustain a larger population. + + 2. Unity. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast, and +between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern wheat-limit, a larger space +of fertile territory, embracing a wider variety of climate and +production, is thrown into one mass, broken by no barrier, than can, +perhaps, elsewhere be found. + + 3. Communication. No mass of land equal in other advantages is to the +same extent thrown open and enriched by natural highways. The first +item under this head is access to the ocean, which is the great +road-space and highway of the world. Not mentioning the Pacific, as +that coast is not here considered, we have the open sea upon two sides, +while upon the northern boundary is an inclosed sea, the string of +lakes, occupying a space larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and of +a form to afford the greatest amount of coast-line and accommodation in +proportion to space. But coast-_line_ is not enough; land and sea must +be wedded as well as approximated. The Doge of Venice went annually +forth to wed the Adriatic in behalf of its queen, and to cast into its +bosom the symbolic ring; but Nature alone can really join the hands of +ocean and main. By bays, estuaries, ports, spaces of sea lovingly +inclosed by arms of sheltering shore, are conversation and union +established between them. + +"The sea doth wash out all the ills of life," sings Euripides; and it +is, indeed, with some penetration of wonder that one observes how deep +and productive a relation to man the ocean has sustained. Some share in +the greatest enterprises, in the finest results, it seldom fails to +have. Not capriciously did the subtile Greek imagination derive the +birth of Venus from the foam of the sea; for social love,--that vast +reticulation of wedlock which society is--has commonly arisen not far +from the ocean-shore. The Persian is the only superior civilization, +now occurring to our recollection, which has no intimate relation +either with river or sea; and that pushed inevitably toward the Tigris +and Euphrates. Now to Europe must be conceded the supremacy in this +single respect, that of representing the most intimate coast relation +with the sea; North America follows next in order. Africa, washed, but +not wedded, by the wave, represents the greatest seclusion,--and has +gone into a sable suit in her sorrow. After the ocean, rivers, which +are interior highways, claim regard. The United States have on this +side the Rocky Mountains more than forty thousand miles of river-flow, +that is, eighty thousand miles of river-bank,--counting no stream of +less than one hundred miles in length. Europe, in a larger space, has +but seventeen thousand miles. The American rivers are nearly all +accessible from the ocean, and, owing to the gentle elevation of the +continent, flow at easy declivities, and accordingly are largely +navigable. The Mississippi descends at an average of only eight inches +_per_ mile from source to mouth; the Missouri is said to be navigable +to the very base of the Rocky Mountains; and these monarch streams +represent the rivers of the continent. Thus here do these highways of +God's own making run, as it were, past every man's door, and connect +each man with the world he lives in. + +Rivers await their due celebration. We easily see that Nile, Ganges, +Euphrates, Jordan, Tiber, Thames, are rivers of influence in human +history, no less than water-currents on the earth's surface. They have +borne barks and barges that the eye never saw. They have brought on +their soft bosoms freight to the cities of the brain, as well as to +Memphis, Rome, London. Some experience of their spiritual influence +must have fallen to the lot of most men. The loved and lovely Merrimac +no longer accedes to the writer's eye, but, as of old, glides securely +seaward in his thought,--like a strain of masterly music long ago +heard, and, when heard, identical in its suggestions with the total +significance and vital progress of one's experience, that, intertwining +itself as a twin thread with the shuttled fibre of life, it was woven +into the same fabric, and became an inseparable part of the +consciousness; so, hearken when one will, after the changes and +accessions of many peopled years, and amid the thousand-footed trample +of the mob of immediate impressions, still secure and predominant it is +heard subtly sounding. Deep conversation with any river readily +interprets to us that venerable mythus which connects Eden with the +four rivers of the world; as if water must flow where man is chiefly +blest. + +But the point here to be emphasized is, that rivers are the progressive +and public element in its geographical expression. They throw the +continent open; they are doors and windows, through which the nations +look forth upon the world, and leave and enter their own household. +They are the hospitality of the continent,--every river-mouth chanting +out over the sea a perpetual, "Walk in," to all the world. Or again, +they are geographical senses,--eyes, ears, and speech; for of these +supreme mediators in the body, voice, vision, and hearing, it is the +office, as of rivers, to open communication between the interior and +exterior world; they are rivers of access to the outlying universe of +men and things, which enters them, and approaches the soul through the +freighted suggestions of sight and sound. Rivers, lastly, are the +geographical symbol of public spirit, the flowing and connecting +element, suggesting common interests and large systems of action. + +Thus in these characteristics of Various Productiveness, Unity, and +Openness or Publicity, the continent indicates the description of man +who may be its fit habitant. It suggests a nation vast in numbers and +in power, existing not as an aggregate of fragments, but as an organic +unit, the vital spirit of the whole prevailing in each of its parts; +and consequently predicts a man suitable for wide and yet intimate +societies. Let us not, however, thoughtlessly jump to accept these easy +prognostics; first let it be fully understood what an enormous demand +they imply. Americans speak complacently of their prospective one +hundred millions of inhabitants; but do they bear well in mind that the +requisition upon the individual is augmented by every multiplication +and extension of the mass? It is not without significance, that great +empires have uniformly been, or become, despotisms. Liberty lives only +in the life of just principle; and as the weight of an elephant could +not be sustained by the skeleton of a gazelle,--as, moreover, the bones +must be made stouter as well as longer,--so must a vast body politic be +permeated by a sturdier element of justice than is required for a +diminutive state. It is, indeed, the chief recommendation of our +federative form of government, that this, so far as may be, localizes +legislation, and thus, by lessening the number of interests that demand +a national consent, lessens equally the strain upon the conscience and +judgment of the whole. Near at hand, the mere good feeling of +neighbors, the companionable sentiment of cities and clans, proves a +valuable succedaneum for that deeper principle which is good for all +places and times. But this sentiment, like gravitation, diminishes in +the ratio of the square of the distance, and at any considerable remove +can no longer be reckoned upon as a counter-balance to the lawlessness +of egotism. Athenians could be passably just, or at least not +disastrously unjust, to Athenians; Spartans to Spartans; but Sparta +must needs oppress the other cities of Laconia, while Athens was at +best a fickle ally; and when Grecian liberty could be strong only in +Grecian union, the common sentiment was bankrupted by too great a draft +upon its resources. How far beyond the range of egotism of neighborhood +a _free_ state may go is determined chiefly by limits in the souls of +its constituents. At that point where equal justice begins to halt, +fatigued by too long a journey, the inevitable boundaries of the state +are fixed. Nor is it the mere sentiment of justice alone that suffices; +but this must be sustained in its applications by a certain breadth of +nature, a certain freedom and flexibility, akin to the dramatic +faculty, which enables us to enter into the feelings and wants of +others. Nothing, perhaps, in the world can be so unjust as a narrow and +frigid conscience beyond its proper range. The bounds of the state may, +indeed, not pause where the sustenance of its integral life fails. But +then its extension will be purchased with its freedom,--the quality be +debased as the quantity increases. Jelly-fish, and creatures of the +lowest animation, may sustain magnitude of body, not only with a slight +skeleton, but with none at all; and society of a cold-blooded or +bloodless kind follows the analogy. But these low grades of social +organization, having some show of congruity with the blank levels of +Russia, can pretend to none with the continent we inhabit. Yet some +species of arbitrament between man and man is sure to establish itself; +if it live not, as a part of freedom, in the bosom of each, then does +it inevitably build itself into a Fate over their heads; and despotism, +war, or similar brutal and violent instrumentalities of adjustment, +supply in their way the demand that love and reason failed to meet. + +Accordingly, in our American Man must be found, first, social largeness +and susceptibility,--whatsoever, in the breadth of a flexile and +sympathetic nature, may contribute to the keeping of the Golden Rule. +But the broadest good-feeling will not alone suffice. The great pledge +of peace, fellowship, and profitable co-working among such a population +as we anticipate must be sought in the deeper unity of moral principle. +For Right is one, and is every man's interest. Right is better than +Charity; for Right meets, or even anticipates, normal wants, while +Charity only mends failures. Nothing, therefore, that we could discover +in the New Man would be such a security for his future, nothing so fit +him for his place, as a tendency to simple and universal principles of +action. In the absence of this, he will infallibly be compelled one day +to enter Providence's court of chancery, and come forth bankrupt. But +let him be, even by promise, a seer of those primary truths in which +the interests of all are comprehended and made identical, and the +virtue of his vision will become the assurance of his welfare. +Doubtless, sad men will say that our own eyes are clouded with some +glittering dust of optimism, when we declare that this Man for the +Continent is the very one whose advent we celebrate. This might, +indeed, seem a fatuitously dulcet song to sing just now, when a din of +defection and recreancy is loud through all the land,--now, when we +have immediately in view, and on the largest scale, an open patronage +of infamous wrong-doing, so brazen-fronted and blush-proof that only +the spectacle itself makes its credibility;--the prior possibility of +it we should one and all hasten, for the honor of human nature, to +deny. Yet in the midst of all this are visible the victorious +influences that mould the imported Teuton to the spiritual form which +his appointed tasks imply. These we now hasten to indicate. + +And first, every breath of American air helps to make him the American +Man. The atmosphere of America was early noted as a wonder-worker. Ten +years subsequent to the landing at Plymouth, the Rev. Francis +Higginson, an acute observer, wrote to the mother country,--"A sup of +New England air is better than a whole flagon of old English ale." Jean +Paul says that the roots of humankind are the lungs, and that, being +rooted in air,--we are properly children of the aether. Truly, children +of the aether,--and so, children of fire. For the oxygen, upon which +the lungs chiefly feed, is _the_ fiery principle in Nature,--all that +we denominate fire and flame being but the manifestation of its action. +We are severe upon fire-eaters, Southern and other; yet here are we, +cool Northerns, quaffing this very principle and essence of fire in +large lung-draughts every moment, each of us carrying a perpetual +furnace in his bosom. Now it is doubtless true that we inhale more +oxygen, or at least inhale it less drenched with damp, than the people +of Europe, and are, therefore, more emphatically children of fire than +they. Be this, or be some other, the true theory of the fact, the fact +itself unquestionably is, that our climate produces the highest nervous +intensity. As there are conditions of atmosphere in which the magnetic +telegraph works well, and others in which it works ill, so some +conditions stimulate, while others repress nervous action. The air of +England seems favorable to richness and abundance of blood; there the +life-vessels sit deep, and bring opulent cargoes to the flesh-shores; +and the rotund figure, the ruddy solid cheek, and the leisurely +complacent movement, all show how well supported and stored with vital +resources the Englishman is. But to the American's lip the great +foster-mother has proffered a more pungent and rousing draught,--not an +old Saxon sleeping-cup for the night, but a waking-cup for the bright +morning and busy day. It is forenoon with him. He is up and dressed, +and at work by the job. Bring an Englishman here, and nothing short of +Egyptian modes of preservation will keep him an Englishman long. Soon +he cannot digest so much food, cannot dispose of so much stimulant; his +step becomes quicker, his eye keener, his voice rises a note on the +scale, and grows a trifle sharper. In fine, the effects observed in our +autumn foliage may be traced in the people themselves, a heightening of +colors; and while this accounts for much that is prurient and bizarre, +it infolds also the best promise of America. + +The effect of this upon American physiology and physiognomy is already +quite visible. Of course we must guard against hasty generalizations, +since the interfusing of various elements in our Western States is +producing new types of manhood. But the respective _physiques_ of Old +and New England can easily be compared, and the difference strikes +every eye. The American is lean, he has a paler complexion, a sharper +face, a slighter build than his ancestors brought from the Old World. +Mr. Emerson is reported as saying (though the precise words escape us) +that the Englishman speaks from his chest, the American more from the +mouth or throat,--that is, the one associates his voice more with the +stomach and viscera, the other with the head; and, indeed, the pectoral +quality of the prevailing tones catches the ear immediately upon +setting foot on British soil. Every man instinctively apprehends where +he is strongest, and will tend to associate voice and movement with the +centre of his strengths. The American, since in him the nervous force +predominates, instinctively lifts his voice into connection with the +great household of that force, which is the brain; for an equally good +reason the Englishman speaks from the visceral and sanguineous centres. +The American (we are still dwelling chiefly on the New England type) is +also apt to throw the head forward in walking,--thereby indicating, +first, his chief reliance upon the forces which that part harbors, and, +secondly, his impulse to progress; so that our national motto, "Go +ahead," may have a twofold significance, as if it were in some sort the +antipodes of going a-foot, and suggested not only the direction of +movement, but also the active agent therein! + +Mr. Robert Knox, of England, somewhat known as an ethnological lecturer +and author,--a thinker in a sort, though of the "slam-bang" school, of +far more force than faculty, and of a singular avidity for ugly +news,--dogmatically proclaims that all Americans are undergoing a +physical degeneration, involving, as he thinks, an equal lapse of +mental power, proceeding with swift fated steps, and sure ere long to +land them in sheer impotence and imbecility; and he appeals to the +common loss of adipose tissue and avoirdupois as proof. This author +belongs to a class of well-meaning gentlemen, so unfortunately +constituted that the distractions of their time induce in them an +acetous fermentation (as milk sometimes sours during thunder); and from +acid becoming acrid, they at length fall fairly in love with the +Erinnyes, and henceforth dote upon destruction and ugliness as happier +lovers do upon cosmical health and beauty. Concluding that the universe +is a shabby affair, they like to make it out shabbier still,--and so, +seldom brighten up till they have an ill thing to say. They are not +persons toward whom it is easy to feel amiable. Dogmatism is ever +unlovely, though it be in behalf of the sweetest hopes; but chronic +doubt and disbelief erected into a dogmatism are intolerable. Yet Mr. +Knox's misinterpretations of the facts are taking root in many minds +that do not share his fierce hypochondria and hunger for bitter herbs. +That the American has lost somewhat in animal resources is +incontestable; but Mr. Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the +man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial +paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and +silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical +constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; but +as a china vase is not necessarily less sound than a stone jug or iron +kettle, so delicacy and fragility in man are no proof of disease. The +ominous prognosis of this doctor, therefore, seems no occasion for +despair, perhaps not even for alarm. But to perceive what different +harping can be performed on this string, hear Carus:--"Leanness, as +such," says the master, "is the symbol of a certain lightness, +activity, rapidity, and mental power." Thus the adipose impoverishment, +which to the yellow-eyed Englishman seems utter bankruptcy, is at once +recognized by a superior man as denoting an augmentation, rather than +diminution, of proper human wealth. + +But while the typical American organization is of this admitted +delicacy and lightness, it is still capable, under high and powerful +impulse of extraordinary feats of endurance. This has of late been +admirably illustrated. Not long since, there returned to our shores a +hero who--as Dante was believed by the people of Italy to have entered +the Inferno of Fire--had actually descended into the opposite Inferno +of Frost, and done unprecedented battle with the demons of that realm. +Dr. Kane was slight, delicately framed, lean, with sharp, clear-cut +features, of quivering mobility and fineness of texture, having the +aspect rather of an artist than an explorer,--not at all the personage +to whom most judges would assign great power of endurance. And as one +follows him through those thrice Herculean toils,--sees him not only +bearing cheerfully the great burden of his own cares and ills, but +lifting up, as it were, from his companions, and assuming upon his own +shoulders, the awful oppression of the polar night, as Atlas of old was +fabled to support the heavens,--not even one's admiration at such force +of soul can wholly exclude wonder at such fortitude of body. Whence, we +ask, this power of endurance? We can trace it to no ordinary physical +resource. It _comes_ from no ordinary physical resource. It is pure +brain-power. It streams down upon the body, in rivers of invigoration, +from the cerebral hemispheres. A conversational philosopher, +discoursing to a circle of intelligent New England mechanics, +said,--"It is commonly supposed that the earth supports man. Not so; +man upholds the earth!" "How!" exclaimed a wide-eyed auditor; "upholds +the earth? How do you make that out?" "How?" answered the philosopher, +with superb innocence,--"don't you see that it sticks to his heels?" +When the question is asked, How the slight frame of this Arctic hero +could support such tests, the answer must be analogous,--It clung to +his brain. The usual order of support is reversed; and here is that +truer Mercury, in whom the winged head, possessing as function what its +prototype only exhibited as ornament and symbol, really soars in its +own might, bearing the pendent feet. + +Dr. Kane was one of the purest examples of the American organization; +and as he issued victorious from that region where "the ground burns +frore, and cold performs the effect of fire," the Man of the New World +was represented, and in him came forth with proven strength. The same +significance would not attach to all feats of endurance, even where +equally representative. Here are Hercules and Orpheus in one,--the +organization of a poet, and the physical stamina of a gladiator. + +Now this peculiar organization offers the physical inducement for two +great tendencies,--one relating to the perception of truth, the other +to the feeling of social claims,--while these tendencies are supported +on the spiritual side by the great disciplines of our position; and the +genius which these foreshow is precisely that which ought to be the +genius of the New Man. + +This organization is that of the seer, the poet, the spiritualist, of +all such as have an eye for the deeper essences and first principles of +things. Concede intellectual power, or the spiritual element, then add +this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, +radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. +And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as +well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable +to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,--How +far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like +the winds. Near the earth's surface winds blow in variable directions, +and the weathercock becomes the type of fickleness. So there is a class +of little truths, dependent upon ever-variable relations, with which it +is the function of cunning, shrewdness, tact, to deal, and numbers of +men seldom or never lift their heads above this weathercock region. Yet +the upper air, alike of the spiritual and the physical atmosphere, has +its perpetual currents, unvarying as the revolution of the globe or the +sailing of constellations; and these fail not to represent themselves +by eternal tradewinds upon the surface of our planet and of our life. +Now the grand inquiry about any man is,--Does he belong to the great +current, or to the lesser ones? He appertains to the great in +proportion to his access to principles. Or we may illustrate by another +analogy a distinction, of importance so emphatic. The Arctic voyagers +find two descriptions of ice. The field-ice spreads over vast spaces, +and moves with immense power; but goes with the wind and the +surface-flow. The bergs, on the contrary, sit deep, are bedded in the +mighty under-currents; and when the field-ice was crashing down with +tide and storm, Dr. Kane found these heroes holding their steady +inevitable way in the teeth of both. Thus may one discover men who are +very massive, very powerful, engrossing such enormous spaces that there +hardly seems room in the world for anybody else; but they are Field-ice +Men; they represent with gigantic force the impulse of the hour. But +there is another class, making, perhaps, little show upon the surface, +or making it by altitude alone, who represent the grand circulations of +law, the orbital courses of truth. It is a question of depth, of +penetration. And depth, be it observed, secures unity; diversity, +contrariety, contention are of the surface. Numbers need not concern +us, whether one hundred, or one hundred millions, provided all are +imbedded in the central, commanding truths of the human consciousness. +And if the Man of the New World be characteristically one who will +attach himself to the eternal master-tides, that fact alone fits him +for his place. + +Of course no sane man would intimate that organization alone can bring +about such results. The Arabian horse will hardly manufacture a Saladin +for his back. But let the Saladin be given, and this marvel of nerve +and muscle will multiply his presence,--will, as it were, give two +selves. So, if the Teutonic man who comes to our shores were innately +empty or mean, this nervous intensity would only ripen his meanness, or +make his inanity obstreperous. But in so far as he has real depth of +nature, this radical organization will aid him, quickening by its heat +what is deepest within him; and when he turns his face toward +principles, this flying brain-steed will swiftly bring him to his goal. +Nay, it is best that even meanness should ripen. The slaveholder of +South Carolina must avouch a false principle to cover his false +practice,--must affirm that slavery is a Divine institution. It is +well. A Quaker, hearing a fellow blaspheme, said,--"That is right, +friend; get such bad stuff out of thee!" A lie is dangerous, till it is +told,--like scarlatina, before it is brought to the surface: when +either breaks out, it is more than half conquered. The only falsehoods +of appalling efficacy for evil are those which circulate subtly in the +vital unconsciousness of powerful but obscure or undemonstrative +natures,--deadly from the intimacy which also makes them secret and +secure, and silently perverting to their own purposes the normal vigors +of the system. A Mephistopheles is not dangerous; he is too +clear-headed; he knows his own deserts: some muddiness is required to +harbor self-deceptions, in order that badness may reach real working +power. To all perversion iron limits are, indeed, set; but obscure +falsehood works in the largest spaces and with the longest +tether.--Thus the expressive intensity which appertains to this +organization is serviceable every way, even in what might, at first +blush, seem wholly evil effects. + +While thus the brain-hand of the American is formed for grasping +principles, for apprehending the simple, subtile, universal truths +which slip through coarser and more sluggish fingers, there is also an +influence on the moral and intellectual faculties, coming in to accept +and use these cerebral ones. We are more in conversation with the heart +and pure spiritual fact of humanity than any other people of equal +power and culture. We necessarily deal more with each other on a bond +and basis of common persuasion, of open unenacted truth, than others. +This matter is of moment enough to justify somewhat formal elucidation. + +Nations, like individual men, birds, and many quadrupeds and fishes, +are house-builders. They wall and roof themselves in with symbols, +creeds, codes, customs, etiquettes, and the like; they stigmatize by +the terms heresy, high-treason, and names of milder import, any attempt +to quit this edifice; and send such offenders into purgatory, +penitentiary, coventry, as the case may be. Some nations omit to insert +either door or window; they make penal even the desire to look out of +doors, even the assertion that a sky exists other than the roof of +their building, or that there is any other than a very unblessed +out-of-doors beyond its walls. Such are countries where free speech is +forbidden, where free thought is racked and thumb-screwed, and where +not only a man's overt actions, but his very hopes, his faith, his +prayers, are prescribed. Here man is put into his own institutions, as +into a box; and a very bad box it proves. Now these blank walls not +only encompass society as a mass, but also run between individuals, +cutting off bosom from bosom, and rendering impossible that streaming +of heart-fires, that mounting flame from meeting brands, out of whose +wondrous baptism come the consecrate deeds of mankind. Go to China, and +to any living soul you obtain no access, or next to none,--such +disastrous roods of etiquette are interposed between. It is as if one +very cordially shook hands with you by means of a pair of tongs or a +ten-foot pole. Indeed, it is hardly a man that you meet; it is a piece +of automatic ceremony. Nor is it in China alone that men may be found +who can hardly be accredited with proper personality. As one dying may +distribute his property in legacies to various institutions and +organizations,--so much, for example, to the Tract Society, so much to +the Colonization Society, and the like,--in the same manner do many +make wills at the outset of life for the disposal of their own personal +powers, and do nothing afterward but execute this testament,--executing +themselves in another sense at the same time. They parcel out +themselves, their judgment, their conscience, and whatsoever pertains +to their spiritual being, among the customs, traditions, institutions, +etiquettes of their time, and renounce all claim to a free existence. +After such a piece of spiritual _felo-de-se_, the man is nothing but +one wheel in a machine, or even but one cog upon a wheel. Thenceforth +he merely hangs together;--simple cohesion is the utmost approximation +to action which can be truly attributed to him. + +And as nothing is so ridiculous, so, few things are so mischievous, as +the sincere insincerity, the estrangement from fact, of those who have +thus parted with themselves. It is worse, if anything can be worse, +than hypocrisy itself. The hypocrite sees two things,--the fact and the +fiction, the gold and its counterfeit; he has virtue enough to know +that he is a hypocrite. But the _post-mortem_ man, the walking legacy, +does not recognize the existence of eternal Fact; it has never occurred +to his mind that anything could be more serious than "spiritual +taking-on" and make-belief. An innocent old gentleman, being at a play +where the heroine is represented as destroyed in attempting to +cross a broken bridge, rose, upon seeing her approach it, and in tones +of the deepest concern offered his opinion that said bridge was unsafe! +The _post-mortem_ man reverses this harmless blunder, and makes it +anything but harmless by the change; as that one took theatricals to be +earnest fact, so this conceives virtue itself to consist in posturing; +he thinks gold a clever imitation of brass, and the azure of the sky to +be a kind of celestial cosmetic; in fine, formalities are the realest +things he knows. It is said, that, in the later days of Rome, the +augurs and inspectors of entrails could not look each other in the face +during their ceremonies, for fear of bursting into a laugh. But still +worse off than these pitiful peddlers of fraud is he who feigns without +knowing that he feigns,--feigns unfeignedly, and calls God to witness +that he is faithful in the performance of his part. This is ape's +earnest, and is, perhaps, the largest piece of waste that ever takes +place upon this earth. _Ape's earnest_,--it is a pit that swallows +whole nations, whole ages; and the extent to which it may be carried is +wellnigh incredible, even with the fact before our eyes. A Chinese +gentleman spends an hour in imploring a relative to dine with +him,--utterly refusing, so urgent is his desire of company, to accept +No for an answer,--and then flies into a rage because the cousin +commits the _faux pas_ of yielding to his importunity, and agreeing to +dine. Louis Napoleon perpetrates the king-joke of the century by +solemnly presenting the Russian Czar with a copy of Thomas Ć Kempis's +"Imitation of Christ,"--a book whose great inculcation is to renounce +the world! + +Now no sooner do men lose hold upon fact than they inevitably begin to +wither. They resemble a tree drawn with all its roots from the earth; +the juices already imbibed may sustain it awhile, but with every +passing day will sustain it less. If Louis Napoleon is so removed from +conversation with reality as not to perceive the colossal satire +implied in his gift, it will soon require more vigor than he possesses +to keep astride the Gallic steed. That Chinese etiquette explains the +condition of the Chinese nation. Indeed, it is easy to give a recipe +for mummying men alive. Take one into keeping, prescribe everything, +thoughts, actions, manners, so that he never shall find either +permission or opportunity to ask his own intellect, What is true? nor +his own heart, What is right? nor to consider within himself what is +intrinsically good and worthy of a man; and if he does not rebel, you +will make him as good a mummy as Egyptian catacombs can boast. + +The capital art of life is to renew and augment your power by its +expenditure. It was intimated some eighteen centuries since that the +highest are obtained only by loss of the same; and the transmutation of +loss into gain is the essence and perfection of all spiritual +economies. Now of this art of arts he is already master who steadily +draws upon his own spiritual resources. The soul is an extraordinary +well; the way to replenish is to draw from it. It is more miraculous +than the widow's cruse;--that simply continued unexhausted,--never +less, indeed, but also never more; while from this the more you take, +the more remains in it. Were it, therefore, desired to arrange with +forethought a scheme of life that should afford the highest +invigoration, in such scheme there should be the minimum of +prescription, and nothing be so sedulously avoided as the superseding +of inward and active _principles_ by outward and passive _rules_;--that +is, life would be made as much moral and spontaneous, as little +political and mechanical, as possible. + +And this does not ill describe our own case. No civilized nation is so +little imprisoned in precedents and traditions. Our national maxim is, +"The world is too much governed." In the degree of this release we are, +of course, thrown back upon underlying principles and universal +persuasions,--since these of necessity become, in the absence of more +artificial ties, the chief bond of such peace and coƶperation as +obtain. Leave two men to deal with each other, not merely as subjects +or citizens, but as men, and they must recur to that which is at once +native and common to both, to the universal elements in their +consciousness, that is, to principles; and thus the most ordinary +mutual dealing becomes, in some degree, a spiritual discipline. Harness +these men in precedents, and whip them through the same action with +penalties, and they will gain only such discipline as the ox obtains in +the furrow and the horse between the thills. Statutes serve men, but +lame them. They render morality mechanical. Men learn to say not, "It +is right," but, "It is enacted." And the difference is immense. "Right" +sends one to his own soul, and requires him to produce the living law +out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the +Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the +former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are +not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;--they pilfer power +from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they +incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not +only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations +which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency toward a +fresh life daily gains impetus. That repeal of the Missouri Compromise, +however blamable, has several happy features, and prominent among these +must be reckoned the illustration it affords of a growing disposition +to say, "No putting To-day into Yesterday's coffin; let the Present +_live_ and be its own lord." + +We need be at no loss to discover the effects of the combined +influences here stated. The ordinary phrases of our country-people +denote an alert judgment,--as, "I reckon," "I calculate," "I guess." +The inventiveness which characterizes Americans, the multiplicity of +patents, comes from the tendency to go behind the actual, to test +possibilities, to bring everything to the standard of thought. Emerson +dissolves England in the alembic of his brain, and makes a thought of +that. Our politics are yearly becoming more and more questions of +principle, questions of right and wrong. There is almost infinite +promise and significance in this gradual victory of the moral over the +political, of life over mechanism. Mr. Benton complains of the +"speculative philanthropy" of New England, because it suggests +questions upon which he could not meet his constituents, and interferes +with his domestic arrangements. It is much as if one should pray God to +abolish the sun because his own eyes are sore! + + * * * * * + +We now pass to the second great tendency which, as is here affirmed, +organization and moral discipline are unitedly tending to establish on +this shore. An inevitable consequence of the nervous intensity and +susceptibility characteristic of Americans is an access of personal +magnetism, or influence; we keenly feel each other, have social +impressibility. The nervous is the public element in the body, the +mediating and communicating power. It is the agent of every sense,--of +sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell,--and of the power of speech. It is +the vehicle of all fellow-feeling, of all social sympathy. It +introduces man to man, and makes strangers acquainted. And a most +unceremonious master of these ceremonies it is;--running +indiscriminately across ranks; introducing beggar and baron; forcing +the haughtiest master, spite of his theories, to feel that the slave +_is_ a man and a fellow; compelling the prince to acknowledge the +peasant,--not with a shake of the hand, perhaps, but, it may be, with +knee-shakings and heart-shakings. A terrible leveller and democrat is +this master element in the human frame; yet king and kaiser must +entertain him in courts and on thrones. Now the high development of +this in the American Man renders him communicative, gives him a quick +interest in men; he cannot let them pass without giving and taking. +Hence the much-blamed inquisitiveness,--"What is your name? Where do +you live? Where are you going? What is your business? Do you eat baked +beans on Sunday?" Mrs. Trollope is horrified; it is a bore; but one +likes the man the better for it. He is interested in you;--that is the +simple secret of all. King Carlyle calls us "eighteen millions of +bores." To be sure; is that so bad? The primitive English element was +pirate; let the primitive American _be_ bore. The fathers of the +Britain that is took men by the throat; let the fathers of the America +that is to be take them by the--button;--that is amelioration enough +for one thousand years! In truth, this intense personal interest which +characterizes the American, though often awkwardly manifested and +troublesome, is an admirable feature in his constitution, and few +traits should awaken our pride or expectation more. It is this keen +fellow-feeling that fits him for the broadest and most beneficent +public interest. This makes him a philanthropist. And his philanthropy +is peculiar. It is not merely of the neighborhood sort, such as sends a +Thanksgiving turkey to poor Robert and a hat that does not fit well to +poor Peter. For here the predilection for principles and +generalizations comes in, and leads him to translate his fellow-feeling +into social axioms. Thus it occurs that the American is that man who is +grappling most earnestly and intelligently with the problem of man's +relation to man. In every village is some knot of active minds that +brood over questions of this kind. The monarch newspaper of America is +deeply tinged with the same hue; nor could one with a contrary +complexion attain its position. This great current of human interest +floats our politics; it feeds the springs of enthusiasm, coming forth +in doctrines of non-resistance, of government by love, and the like; +and our literature contains essays upon love and friendship which, in +our judgment, are not equalled in the literature of the world. + +Nor is a moral discipline wanting to second this tendency. A terrible +social anomaly has been forced upon us,--has had time to intertwine +itself with trade, with creeds, with partisan prejudice and patriotic +pride, and, having become next to unconquerable, now shows that it can +keep no terms and must kill or be killed. And through this the question +of man's duties to man, on the broadest scale, is incessantly kept in +agitation. It is like a lurid handwriting across the sky,--"Learn what +man should be and do to his fellow." And the companion sentence is +this,--"Thy justice to the strangers shall be the best security to +thine own household." + + * * * * * + +By the co-working of these two grand tendencies we obtain at once the +largest speculative breadth and the closest practical and personal +interest. What sweeter promise could any one ask than that of this rare +and admirable combination? Thought and action have been more than +sufficiently separated. The philosopher has discoursed to a few, and in +the dialect of the few, in Academic shades; sanctity has hidden itself +away, lost in the joy of its secret contemplations; the great world has +rolled by, unhearing, unheeding,--like London roaring with cataract +thunder around St. Paul's, while within the choral service is performed +to an audience of one. Thinking and doing have hardly recognized each +other. Now we are not of those vague, enthusiastic persons who fancy +that all truths are for all ears,--that the highest spiritual fact can +be communicated, where there is no spiritual apprehension to lay hold +upon it. _He that hath ears_, let him hear. Nor would we attempt to +confuse the functions of sayer and doer. But let there be a sympathy +and understanding between them, that, when achieved, will mark an epoch +in the world's history. Nowhere, at least in modern times, have thought +and action approached so nearly and intimately as in America; nowhere +is speculative intellect so colored with the hues of practical interest +without limiting its own flight; nowhere are labor and executive power +so receptive of pure intellectual suggestion. The union of what is +deepest and most recondite in thought with clear-sighted sagacity has +been well hit by Lowell in his description of the typical American +scholar,-- + + "Sits in a mystery calm and intense, + And looks round about him with sharp common-sense." + +That is, the New Man has two things that seldom make each other's +acquaintance,--Sight and Insight. Accordingly, our subtilest thinker, +whom the scholarly Mr. Vaughan classes with the mystics and accuses of +going beyond the legitimate range even of mystics, has written such an +estimate of the most practical nation in the world as has never been +written of that or any other before. The American knows what is about +him, has tact, sagacity, conversance with surfaces and circumstances, +is the shrewdest guesser in the world; and seeing him on this side +alone, one might say,--This is the man of to-day, a quick worker, good +to sail ships, bore mountains, buy and sell, but belonging to the +surface, knowing only that. The medal turns, and lo! here is this 'cute +Yankee a thinker, a mystic, fellow of the antique, Oriental in his +subtilest contemplations, a rider of the sunbeam, dwelling upon Truth's +sweetness with such pure devotion and delight that vigorous Mr. +Kingsley must shriek, "Windrush!" "Intellectual Epicurism!" and disturb +himself in a somewhat diverting manner. Pollok declaimed against the +attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the +other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is +born,--to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice, +eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes. +True, but to _both_ extremes; he belongs to the two antipodes. To the +one he appertains by intellectual emancipation and penetrative power; +to the other by his pungent element of sympathy with persons. Speaking +of the older Northern States, and of the people as a whole, we affirm +that their inhabitants are more speculative _and_ more practical, the +scholars know more of immediate common interests and speak more the +dialect of the people, while the mechanics know more of speculative +truth and understand better the necessary vocabulary of thought, than +any other people. + +Lyell says, that the New World is really the Old World,--that there, +preĆ«minently, the antique geological formations are found, and nearer +the surface than elsewhere. Thus the physical peculiarity of our +continent is, that here an elaborate and highly finished surface is +immediately superimposed upon the oldest rock, rock wrought in fire and +kneaded with earthquake knuckles. We discover in this a symbol of the +American Man. He likewise brings into near association the most ancient +and the most modern. By insight he dwells in the old thoughts, the +eternal truths, the meditations that rapt away the early seers into +trance and dream; but he brings these into sharp contact with life, +associates them with the newest work, the toil and interests of this +year and day. + +We shall find space to mention but one peril which besets the New Man. +It is danger of physical exhaustion. Dr. Kane, the hero of two Arctic +nights, came forth to the day only to die. That which makes the +preĆ«minence of our organization makes also its peril. Denmark is said +to be impoverished by the disproportion of the learned to the +industrial class; production is insufficient, and too much of a good +thing cripples the country. The nervous system is a learned class in +the body; it contributes dignity and superior uses, but makes no corn +grow in the physiological fields. A brain of great animation and power +is a perilous freight for the stanchest body; in a weak and shattered +body it is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket,--the richer it would +make him on dry land, the less chance it gives him of arriving there. +That this danger is not imaginary too many are able to testify.--Few +scenes in Rabelais are more exquisitely ludicrous than that in which he +pictures the monk Panurge in a storm at sea. The oily ecclesiastic is +terrified as only a combination of hypocrite and coward can be; and, in +the extremity of his craven distress, he fancies that any situation on +shore, no matter how despicable, would be paradise. So at length he +whines, "Oh that I were on dry land, and somebody kicking me!" In a +similar manner--similar, save that farce deepens to tragedy--many a man +in America of opulent mental outfit, but with only a poor wreck of a +body to bear the precious cargo, must often have been tempted to cry, +"Oh that I had a sound digestion, and were some part of a dunce!" In +truth, we are a nation of health-hunters, betraying the want by the +search. It were to be wished that an accurate computation could be made +how much money has been paid in the United States, within a score of +years, for patent medicines. It would buy up a kingdom of respectable +dimensions. So eager is this health-hunger, that it bites at bare +hooks. The "advertising man" of Arnold's Globules offers his services +as nostrum-puffer-general, and appeals to past success as proof of his +abilities in this line. But Arnold's Globules will sell no whit the +worse. Is the amiable Mr. Knox right, after all? Doubtless, we answer, +the American organization is more easily disordered than the +English,--just as a railway-train running at forty miles an hour is +more liable to accident than one proceeding at twenty. Besides, +Americans have not learned to live as these new circumstances require. +The New Man is a clipper-ship, that can run out of sight of land while +one of the old bluff-bowed, round-ribbed craft is creeping out of port; +but, from the very nature of his superiorities, he is apt to be +shorter-lived, and more likely to spring a leak in the strain of a +storm. He demands nicer navigation. It will not do for him to beat over +sand-bars. Yet dinner-pilotage in this country is reckless and +unscientific to a degree. The land is full of wrecks hopelessly snagged +upon indigestible diet. As yet, it is difficult to obtain a hearing for +precaution. Men answer you out of their past experience,--much like a +headstrong personage who was about to attempt crossing a river in a +boat sure to sink. "You will drown, if you go in that thing," said a +bystander. "Never was drowned yet," was the prompt retort; and pushing +off, he soon lost the opportunity to repeat that boast! But this +resistance is constantly becoming less. Meantime, numbers of foreseeing +men are waking up, or are already awakened, to the importance of +recreation and physical culture,--members of the clerical profession, +to the credit of the craft be it said, taking the lead. Messrs. +Beecher, Bellows, and Hale plead the cause of amusements; the author of +"Saints and their Bodies" celebrates the uses and urges the need of +athletic sports; gymnasia are becoming matters of course in the cities +and larger towns; "The New York Tribune" attends to the matter of +cookery; and it is safe to predict that the habits of the people will +undergo in time the necessary changes. That health is possible to +Americans ought not to be questioned. Of despair we will not listen to +a word. In crossing the ocean, in the backwoods-experience which +everywhere precedes cultivation, in the excitement which has followed +the obliteration of social monopolies and the throwing open of the +wealth of a continent to free competition, the old traditional +precautions have been lost, the old household wisdoms, the old +economies of health; and these we have now to reproduce for ourselves. +It will be done. And when this is done, though ancient English brawn +will not reappear, there will be health, and its great blessing of +cheerful spirits. The special means by which this shall be accomplished +we leave to the care of the gentlemen abovenamed, and their +compeers--merely putting in one word for _gentle_ exercise, and two +words for the cherishing of mental health, the expulsion of morbid +excitements, assume what guise they may. We should take extreme care +not to admit decay at the summit. A healthy soul is a better +prophylactic than belladonna. Refusing to despond respecting American +health, we cheerfully trust that the genius of the New Man will find +all required physical support, and due length of time for demonstrating +its quality. + +And now we may notice a doubt which some readers will cherish. Is not +all this, they may say, over-sanguine and enthusiastic? Is it not a +self-complacent dream? Are the tendencies adverted to so productive? Is +any such genius really forming as is here claimed? Is it not, on the +contrary, now fully understood that the Americans are a commonplace +people, meagre-minded money-makers, destitute of originality? What have +they done to demonstrate genius yet?--These skepticisms are somewhat +prevalent nowadays, and are a natural enough reaction from +Fourth-of-July flatulencies. Let them have their day. The fact will +vindicate itself. Meanwhile we may remark, that the appeal to attained +performance, in justification of the view taken in this paper of +American abilities and prospects, would obviously place us at undue +disadvantage. We speak here, and are plainly entitled to speak, rather +of tendencies than of attainments, of powers forming themselves in man, +and not of results produced without him. Nevertheless, results there +are,--admirable, satisfactory results. + +As first of these may be mentioned American Reform. In depth, in +breadth, in vigor, in practical quality, this may challenge comparison +with anything of a similar kind elsewhere. This is the direct outburst +of a new life, arising and wrestling with the old forms, habitudes, +institutions, with whatsoever is imported and traditional, on the one +hand, and with the crude or barbarous improvisations of native energy, +on the other. It is a force springing out of the summit of the brain, +the angel of its noblest sentiment, going forth with no less an aim +than to construct a whole new social status from ideas. And the token +of its superiority is this, that it builds its new outward life only +from the most ancient incorruptible material, out of the eternal +granite of Moral Law. Sweeping social _schemes_ prevail in France. But +American Reform is not a scheme; it is the service of an _idea_. It is +made conservative by that which also makes it radical, by working in +the interest of the moral sentiment. + +The Literature of the New World is also worthy of the New Man. We are +quite aware that a large portion of this literature is trash. So was a +large part in Shakspeare's, in Cervantes's, in Plato's age and place. +But we admit even that the comparison does not hold,--that an especial +accusation may be brought against the issues of the press in this +country. Wise men should have anticipated this, and, instead of +reasoning from the size of our lakes, prairies, and mountains, and +demanding epics and philosophies of us before we are fairly out of our +primitive woods, the critics should have hastened to say,--A colony +must have time to strike root, and to draw up therefrom a new life, +before it can arrive at valuable and genuine literary expression. The +Life must come before the Thought. Nothing could be more absurd than +the expectation that American literature should spring away into the +air from the top of European performance. Our first literature was +colonial,--that is, imitative, written for the approbation of European +critics,--of course, having somewhat the empty correctness of good +school-boy composition. Next followed what we may call fire-weed +literature,--the first rank, raw product of new lands. Under these two +heads a vast number of books must of course be reckoned. But beyond +these American literature has already passed, and now can point to +books that spring out of the pure genius of the New Man. And having +only these in mind, we hesitate not to say that there is now sounding +upon these shores a deeper, subtler, and more universal note than is +heard in any other land touched by the Atlantic Sea. We have now +writings in several departments of literature, and in both prose and +verse, which are characterized by a breadth and largeness of +suggestion, by a spirituality and a prophetic adherence to the moral +sentiment, which justify all that has here been affirmed or reasoned. +And our deepest thought finds a popular reception which proves it not +foreign or exceptional. Wilkinson's "Human Body," the largest piece of +speculative construction which England has produced in two centuries, +has not yet, after some eight years, we believe, exhausted its first +edition. Emerson's Poems, still less adapted, one would say, than the +work just mentioned, to the taste of populaces, had reached its fourth +edition in about the same period. Learned works have, of course, a +superior reception in the mother-country; works of pure thought in the +daughter. Said to us, during the past season, the subtilest thinker of +Great Britain,--"I must send to America whatever I wish to put in +print, unless I pay for its publication from my own pocket." + +And beyond this, there is a hush in the nation's heart, an expectancy, +a waiting and longing for some unspoken word, which sometimes seems +awful in the bounty of its promise. I know men educated to speak, with +the burden of a speaker's vocation on their hearts, but now these many +years remaining heroically silent; the fountains of a fresh +consciousness sweet within them, but not yet flowing into speech, and +they too earnest, too expectant, too sure of the future to say aught +beneath the strain. "Why do you not speak?" was inquired of one. +"Because I can keep silent," he said, "and the word I am to utter will +command me." No man assumes that attitude until he is already a party +to the deepest truth, is the silent side of a seer; and in a nation +where any numbers are passing this more than Pythagorean lustrum, a +speech is surely coming that will no more need to apologize for itself +than the speech of the forest or the ocean-shore. The region of the +trade-winds is skirted with calm. Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, that +his talk, to render it charming, "needed only a few brilliant flashes +of silence." We are talkative, but the flashes of silence are not +wanting, and there is prophecy in them as well as charm. Said one, of a +speaker,--"He was so rarely eloquent, that what he did not say was even +better than what he did." And here, not only are some wholly silent, +but in our best writings the impressive not-saying lends its higher +suggestion than that expressly put forth. What spaces between Emerson's +sentences! Each seems to float like a solitary summer-cloud in a whole +sky of silence. + +Yes, the fact is already indubitable, a rich life, sure in due time of +its rich expression, is forming here. As out of the deeps of Destiny, +the Man for the Continent, head-craftsman, hand-craftsman, already puts +his foot to this shore. All hail, new-comer! Welcome to great tasks, +great toils, to mighty disciplines, to victories that shall not be too +cheaply purchased, to defeats that shall be better than victories! We +give thee joy of new powers, new work, unprecedented futures! We give +the world joy of a new and mighty artist to plan, a new strong artisan +to quarry and to build in the great architectures of humanity! + + + +THE POET KEATS. + + His was the soul, once pent in English clay, + Whereby ungrateful England seemed to hold + The sweet Narcissus, parted from his stream,-- + Endymion, not unmindful of his dream, + Like a weak bird the flock has left behind. + + Untimely notes the poet sung alone, + Checked by the chilling frosts of words unkind; + And his grieved soul, some thousand years astray, + Paled like the moon in most unwelcome day. + + His speech betrayed him ere his heart grew cold; + With morning freshness to the world he told + Of man's first love, and fearless creed of youth, + When Beauty he believed the type of Truth. + + In the vexed glories of unquiet Troy, + So might to Helen's jealous ear discourse + The flute, first tuned on Ida's haunted hill, + Against OEnone's coming, to betray + In what sweet solitude her shepherd lay. + + Yet, Poet-Priest! the world shall ever thrill + To thy loved theme, its charm undying still! + Hearts in their youth are Greek as Homer's song, + And all Olympus half contents the boy, + Who from the quarries of abounding joy + Brings his white idols without thought of wrong. + + With reverent hand he sets each votive stone, + And last, the altar "To the God Unknown." + + As in our dreams the face that we love best + Blooms as at first, while we ourselves grow old,-- + As the returning Spring in sunlight throws + Through prison-bars, on graves, its ardent gold,-- + And as the splendors of a Syrian rose + Lie unreproved upon the saddest breast,-- + So mythic story fits a changing world: + Still the bark drifts with sails forever furled. + An unschooled Fancy deemed the work her own, + While mystic meaning through each fable shone. + + + +HER GRACE, THE DRUMMER'S DAUGHTER. + + +Foray, a mass of crags embellished by some greenness, looked up to +heaven a hundred miles from shore. It was a fortified position, and a +place of banishment. In the course of a long war, waged on sea and land +between two great nations, this, "least of all," became a point of some +importance to the authority investing it; the fort was well supplied +with the machinery of death, and the prison filled with prisoners. But +peace had now been of long continuance; and though a nation's banner +floated from the tower of the fort, and was seen afar by +mariners,--though the cannon occupied their ancient places, ordered for +instant use,--though all within the fort was managed and conducted day +by day with careful regard to orders,--the operations indicated, in the +spirit of their conduct, no fear of warlike surprises. No man gave or +obeyed an order as if his life depended on his expedition. Neither was +the prison the very place it had been; for, once, every cell had its +occupant,--an exile, or a prisoner of war. + +The officials of the island led an easy life, therefore. Active was the +brain that resisted the influences of so much leisure as most of these +people had. But, under provocation even, Nature must be true. So true +is she, indeed, that every violation of her dignities illustrates the +meaning of that sovereign utterance, VENGEANCE IS MINE. She will not +bring a thorn-tree from an acorn. Pray, day and night, and see if she +will let you gather figs of thistles. Prayer has its conditions, and +faith is not the sum of them. + +But Nature's buoyant spirits must needs conquer the weight of +influences whose business is to depress. And they, seeking, find their +centre among things celestial, in spite of all opposing. Much leisure, +light labor, was not the worst thing that could befall some of the men +whose lot was cast on Foray. + +Adolphus Montier was a member of the military band. He was drummer to +the regiment by the grace of his capacity. Besides, he played on the +French horn, to the admiration of his wife, and others; and he could +fill, at need, the place of any missing member of the company, leaving +nothing to be desired in the performance. + +Adolphus came to Foray in the first vessel that brought soldiers +hither. He saw the first stone laid in the building of the fort. Here +he had lived since. He was growing gray in the years of peace. He had +some scars from the years of strife, he was a brave fellow, and +idleness, a devil's bland disguise, found no favor with him. + +His daughter Elizabeth was the first child born on the island. Bronzed +warriors smiled on her fair infancy; sometimes they called her, with +affectionate intonation, "The Daughter of the Regiment." She deserved +the notice they bestowed,--as infancy in general deserves all it +receives,--but Elizabeth for other reasons than that she had come +whence none could tell, and was going whither no man could +predict,--for other reason than that she was the first discovered +native of the island. She was a beautiful child; and I state this fact +not specially in deference to the universal expectation that a +character brought forward for anybody's notice should be personally +capable of fascinating such. Indeed, it seems inevitable that we find +our heroines and heroes in life beautiful. Miss Nightingale must needs +remain our type of pure charity in person, as in character. Elisha Kent +Kane among his icebergs must stand manifestly efficient for his +"princely purpose," his eye and brow magnificent with beauty. Rachel, +to every woman's memory, must live the unparalleled Camille. + +Little Elizabeth--I smile to write her name upon the page with +these--it were a shame to cheat of beauty by any bungle of description. +Is not a fair spirit predestined conqueror of flesh and blood? Have we +not read of the noble lady whose loveliness a painter's eye was the +very first to discover? Where the likeness? The soul saw it, not the +eye; and he understood, who, seeing it, exclaimed, "Our friend--in +heaven!" While Adolphus Montier cleaned and polished his French horn, +an occupation which was his unfailing resource, if he could find +nothing else to do, or when he practised his music, business in which +he especially delighted when off duty, it was his pleasure to have wife +and child with him. + +Imagination was an active power in the Drummer's sphere. He, away off +in Foray, used to talk about the forms and colors of sounds, as if he +knew about them; and he had not learned the talk in any school. He +would have done no injury to transcendentalism. And he was a happy man, +in that the persons before whom he indulged in this manner of speech +rather encouraged it. Never had his Pauline's pride and fondness failed +Adolphus the Drummer. Life in Foray was little less than banishment, +though it had its wages and--renown; but Pauline made out of this +single man her country, friends, and home. Never woman endeavored with +truer single-heartedness to understand her spouse. In her life's aim +was no failure. Let him expatiate on sound to the bounds of fancy's +extravagance, she could confidently follow, and would have volunteered +her testimony to a doubter, as if all were a question of tangible fact, +to be definitely proved. So in every matter. For all the comfort she +was to the man she loved, for her confidence in him who deserved it, +for her patient endurance of whatsoever ill she met or bore, for +choosing to walk in so peaceful a manner, with a heart so light and a +face so fair, praise to the Drummer's wife! + +Elizabeth, the companion of her parents in all their happy rambling and +unambitious home-life, was their joy and pride. If she frolicked in the +grass while her father played his airs, she lost not a strain of the +music. She hearkened also to his deep discourse, and gave good heed, +when he illustrated the meaning of the tunes he loved to play. And +these were rarely the stirring strains with which the Governor's policy +kept the band chiefly busy when the soldiers gathered on summer nights +in knots of listeners, and the ladies of the fort, the Governor's wife, +and the wives of the officers, came out to enjoy the evening, or when a +vessel touched the rocky shore. + +Elizabeth's vision was clearer than even love could make her +mother's,--clearer than music made her father's; since a distinct +conception of images seems not to be inevitable among the image-makers. +The prophets are not always to be called upon for an interpretation. No +white angel ever floats more clearly before the eyes of those who look +on the sculptor's finished work than before the eyes of Elizabeth +appeared the shapes and hues of sounds which swept in gay or solemn +procession through the windings of her father's horn, floating over the +blue water, dissolving as the mist. No bright-winged bird, fair flower, +or gorgeous sunset or sea-wave, was more distinct to the child's eyes +than the hues of the same notes, stately as palm or pine,--red as +crimson, white as wool, rich and full as violet, softly compelling as +amethyst. + +Pauline Montier was by nature as active and diligent as Adolphus. She +was a seamstress before the days of Foray and the Drummer, and still +continued to ply her needle, though no longer urged by necessity. She +sewed for the officers' wives, she knit stockings and mufflers for the +soldiers. The income thus derived independently of Montier's public +service was very considerable. + +Born of such parents, Elizabeth would have had some difficulty in +persuading herself that her business was to idle through this life. + +Her early experiences were not as peaceful as those which followed her +tenth year. The noise of battle, the cries of defeat, the shouts of +victory, the sight of agonized faces, the vision of death, the +struggles of pain and anguish, the sorrow of bereavement,--she had seen +all with those young eyes. She had heard the whispered command in +hushed moments of mortal danger, and the shout of triumph--in the +tumult of victory,--had watched blazing ships, seen prisoners carried +to their cells, attended the burial of brave men slain in battle, had +marched with soldiers keeping time to funeral strains. Her courage and +her pity had been stirred in years when she could do no more than see +and hear. Once standing, through the heat of a bloody engagement, by +the side of a lad, a corporal's son, who was stationed to receive and +communicate an order, a random shot struck the boy down at her side. +She saw that he was dead,--waited for the order, transmitted it, and +then carried away the lifeless body of her fellow-sentinel, staggering +under the weighty burden, never resting till she had laid him in the +shelter of his father's quarters. After the engagement, this story was +told through the victorious ranks by the witnesses of her valor, and a +medal was awarded the child by acclamation. She always wore it, and was +as proud of it as a veteran of his ribbons and stars. + +But now, in times of peace, the fair flower of her womanhood was +forming. Like a white hyacinth she grew,--a lady to look upon, with +whom, for loveliness, not a lady of the fort could be compared. Not one +of them in courage or unselfishness exceeded her. + +The family lived in a little house adjoining the barracks. It was a +home that could boast of nothing beyond comfort and cleanliness;--the +word comfort I use as the poor man understands it. Neither Adolphus nor +Pauline had any worldly goods to bring with them when they came to +Foray. They lived at first, and for a long time, in the barracks; the +little house they now occupied had once been used for the storage of +provisions; but when the war ended, Adolphus succeeded in obtaining +permission to turn it into a dwelling-house. Here the child was +sheltered, and taught the use of a needle; and here she learned to read +and write. + +In the great vegetable garden which covered the space between the +prison and the fort was a corner that reflected no great credit on the +authorities. The persons who might reasonably have been expected to +take that neglected bit of ground under their loving care did no such +thing. The beds were weeded by Sandy, the gardener, and now and then a +blossom rewarded that attention; but the flower-patch waited for +Elizabeth. + +The gardener knew very well how she prized the pretty flowers;--they +appealed to his own rude nature in a very tender way. He loved to see +the young girl flying down the narrow paths as swiftly as a bird, if +she but spied a bloom from afar. There was a tree whose branches hung +over the wall, every one of them growing, with dreadful perversity, +away from the cold, hard prison-ground which held the roots so fast. +Time was never long enough when she sat in the shade of those branches, +watching Sandy at his work. + +By-and-by it happened that the flower-garden was given over to the +charge of the girl. It was natural that she, who had never seen other +flower-beds than these, should, aided by the home-recollections of her +mother, imagine far prettier,--that she should dare suggest to Sandy, +until his patience and his skill were exhausted,--that the final good +result should have come about in a moment when no one looked for +it,--he giving up his task with vexation, she accepting it with +humility, and both working together thereafter, the most helpful of +friends. + +It required not many seasons for Elizabeth to prove her skill and +diligence in the culture of this garden-ground,--not many for the +transformation of square, awkward beds into a mass of bloom. How did +those flowers delight the generous heart! With what particular splendor +shone the house of Montier through all the summer season! The ladies +now began to think about bouquets, and knew where they could find them. +From this same blessed nook the Governor's table was daily supplied +with its most beautiful ornament. Men tenderly disposed smiled on the +young face that from under the broad-brimmed garden-hat smiled back on +them. Some deemed her fairer than the flowers she cared for. + +One day in the spring of the year that brought her thirteenth birthday, +Elizabeth ran down through the morning mist, and plucked the first +spring flower. She stayed but to gather the beauty whose budding she +had long watched; no one must rob her mother of this gift. + +She carried off the prize before the gaze of one who had also hailed it +in the bleak, drear dawn. This was not the gardener;--and there was +neither man, woman, nor child in sight, during the swift run;--no +freeman; but a prisoner in an upper room of the prison. Through its +grated window, the only one on that side of the building, he had that +morning for the first time looked upon the island which had held him +long a prisoner. + +Since daybreak he had stood before the window. The evening before, the +stone had been rolled away from the door of his sepulchre,--not by an +angel, neither by force of the resistless Life-spirit within, shall it +be said? Who knows that it was _not_ by an angel? who shall aver it was +_not_ by the resistless Life? At least, he was here,--brought from the +cell he had occupied these five years,--brought from the arms of Death. +His window below had looked on a dead stone-wall; this break in the +massive masonry gave heaven and earth to him. + +The first ray of daylight saw him dragging his feeble body to the +window. He did not remove from that post till the rain was over,--nor +then, except for a moment. As the clouds rose from the sea, he watched +them. How strange was the aspect of all things! Thus, while he had +lived and not beheld, these trees had waved, these waters rolled, these +clouds gathered,--grass had grown, and flowers unfolded; for he saw the +scarlet bloom before Elizabeth plucked it. And all this while he had +lived like a dead man, unaware! Not so; but now he remembered not the +days, when, conscious of all this life, he had deathly despair in his +heart, and stones alone for friends. + +Imprisonment and solitude had told upon the man. He was still young, +and one whom Nature and culture had fitted for no obscure station in +the world. He could, by every evidence he gave, perform no mere +commonplaces of virtue or of vice. The world's ways would not assign +his limitation. He was capable of devising and of executing great +things,--and had proved the power; and to this his presence testified, +even in dilapidation and listlessness. + +His repose was the repose of helplessness,--not that of grace or +nature. The opening of this prospect with the daylight had not the +effect to increase his tranquillity. His dejection in the past months +had been that of a strong man who yields to necessity; his present mood +was not inspired with hope. The waves that leaped in the morning's +gloomy light were not so aimless as his life seemed to him. He had +heard a bird sing in the branches of a tree whose roots were in the +prison-yard,--now he could see her nest; he had heard the dismal +pattering of the rain,--and now beheld it, and the clouds from which it +fell; he saw the glimpses of the blue beyond, where the clouds were +breaking; he saw the fort, the cannon mounted on the walls, the flag +that fluttered from the tower, the barracks, the parade-ground, and the +surrounding sea, whose boundaries he knew not; he saw the trees, he saw +the garden-ground. Slowly his eyes scanned all,--and the soul that was +lodged in the emaciated figure grew faint and sick with seeing. But no +tears, no sighs, no indications of grief or despair or desperate +submission. He had little to learn of suffering;--that he knew. How +could he greet the day, hail the light, bless Nature for her beauty, +thank God for his life? Oh, the weariness with which he leaned his head +against those window-bars, faint and almost dying under the weight of +thoughts that rushed upon him, fierce enough to slay, if he showed any +resistance! But he manifested none. The day of struggle was over with +him. He believed that they had brought him to this room to die. If any +thought could give him joy, surely it was this. He was right. Yesterday +the Governor of the island, hearing the condition of the prisoner, this +one remaining man of all whose sentence had been endured within these +walls, had ordered a change of scene for him. His sentence was +imprisonment for life. Did they fear his release by the hands of one +who hears the sighing of the prisoner, and gives to every bondman the +Year of Jubilee? Were they jealous and suspicious of the approach of +Death? + +Though he had been so long a prisoner, he showed in his person +self-respect and dignity of nature. His hair and beard were grown long; +many a gray thread shone in his chestnut locks; his mouth was a firm +feature; his eyes quiet, but not the mildest; his forehead very ample; +he was lofty in stature;--outside the prison, a freeman, his presence +would have been commanding. But he needed the free air for his lungs, +and the light to surround him,--the light to set him in relief, the +sense of life to compel him to stand out in his own powerful +individuality, distinct from every other living man. + +By-and-by, while he stood at the window, looking forth upon the strange +scenes before him, this new heaven and new earth, the landscape became +alive. The first human creature he had seen outside his cell since he +became an inmate of this prison appeared before his eyes,--the young +girl skipping through the garden till she came to the flower-bed and +plucked the scarlet blossom. If she had been a spirit or an angel, he +could hardly have beheld her with greater surprise. + +She was singing when she came. He thought he recognized that +voice,--that it was the same he had often heard from the cell below. +Many a time the horrible stillness of that cell had been broken by the +sound of a child's voice, which, like a spirit, swept unhindered +through the walls,--an essence of life, and a power. + +It was but a moment that she paused before the flower; she plucked it, +and was gone. But his eyes could follow her. She did not really, with +her disappearing, vanish. And yet this vision had not to him the +significance of the bow seen in the cloud, whose interpreter, and whose +interpretation, was the Almighty Love. + +All day he stood before that window. The keeper hailed the symptom. The +Governor was satisfied with the report. Towards sunset the rain was +over, and with the sun came forth abundant indications of the island +life. The gardener walked among the garden-beds and measured his +morrow's work, calculating time and means within his reach,--and +vouchsafing some attention to the flower-garden, as was evident when he +paused before it and made his thoughtful survey. The prisoner saw him +smile when he took hold of the broken stalk which had been +flower-crowned. And Sandy saw the prisoner. + +The next day Elizabeth came out with the gardener, and they began their +day's work together. They seemed to be in the best spirits. The smell +of the fresh-turned earth, the sight of the fresh shoots of tender +green springing from bulb and root and branch, acted upon them like an +inspiration. The warm sun also held them to their task. Sandy was +generous in bestowing aid and counsel,--and also in the matter of his +land,--trenching farther on the ground allotted to the vegetables than +he had ever done before. + +"The land must pay for it," said he. "We'll make a foot give us a +yard's worth. Cram a bushel into a peck, though 'The Doctor' said you +never could do that! I know how to coax." + +"Yes, and you know how to order, if you have not forgotten, Sandy. You +frightened me once for taking an inch over my share." + +"That was a long while back," answered honest Sandy,--"before I knew +what the little girl could do. I've seen young folk work at gardening +afore, but you do beat 'em all. How could I tell you would, though? You +don't look it. Yes,--may-be you do, though. But you've changed since +_I_ first knew you." + +"Why, I was nothing but a baby then, Sandy." + +"Yes, yes,--I know; but you're changed since then!" + +So they all spoke to Elizabeth, praising her, confiding in her with +loving willingness,--the Daughter of the Regiment. + +The gardener was proud of his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part +she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly +a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his +window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new +perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while +before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual low +and rather mysterious tone,-- + +"There's some one will enjoy it when all's done." + +"Who is that?" asked she, thinking he meant herself, perhaps. + +"One up above," was the answer. + +But though Sandy spoke thus plainly, he did not look toward the +prison,--and the prison was the last place of which Elizabeth was +thinking. It was so long a time since the cell with the window had an +occupant, that she was almost unconscious of that gloomy neighborhood. +So, when the gardener explained that it was one up above who would +enjoy her work, her eyes instantly sought the celestial heights. She +was thinking of sun, or star, or angel, may-be, and smiling at Sandy's +speech, for sympathy. + +He saw her new mistake, and made haste to correct this also. + +"Not so high," said he, cautiously. + +Then, but as it seemed of chance, and not of purpose, the eyes of +Elizabeth Montier turned toward the prison-wall, and fixed upon that +window, the solitary one visible from the garden, and her face flushed +in a manner that told her surprise--when she saw a man behind the iron +bars. + +"Oh," said she, looking away quickly, as if conscious of a wrong done, +"what made you tell me?" + +"I guess you will like to think one shut up like him will take a little +pleasure looking at what he can't get at," said Sandy, almost +sharply,--replying to something he did not quite understand, the pain +and the reproof of Elizabeth's speech. + +"Oh, yes!" she answered, and went on with her work. + +But though she might be pleased to think that her labor would answer +another and more serious purpose than her own gratification, or that of +the pretty flowers, it was something new and strange for the girl to +work under this mysterious sense of oversight. + +"You have only got to speak the word," said the gardener, who had +perceived her perplexity, and was desirous of bringing her speedily to +his view of the case, "just speak, and he will be carried back to his +old cell below, t'other side." + +"Will he?" + +"Yes,--sure's you live, if he troubles you, Miss Elizabeth. Nobody will +think of letting him trouble you." + +"Oh, me!" she exclaimed, quickly, "I should die quicker than have him +moved where he couldn't see the garden." + +"I thought so," said Sandy, satisfied. + +"Did you think I would complain of his standing by his window, Sandy?" + +"How did I know you would like to be stared at?" asked he, with a +laugh. + +Elizabeth blushed and looked grave; to her the matter seemed too +terrible. + +"I might have said something," she mused, sadly. + +"And if it had been to the wrong person," suggested Sandy;--"for they +a'n't very fond of him, I guess." + +"Who is he, then? I never heard." + +"He has been shut up in that building now a'most five year, Elizabeth," +said Sandy, leaning on the handle of the spade he had struck into the +ground with emphasis. + +"Five years!" + +"Summer heat, and winter cold. All the same to him. No wonder he +sticks, as if he was glued, to the window, now he's got one worth the +glass." + +"Oh, let him!" + +"If he could walk about the garden, it would be better yet." + +"Won't he, Sandy?" + +"I can't say. He's here for some terrible piece of work, they say. And +nobody knows what his name is, I guess,--hereabouts, I mean. I never +heard it. He won't be out very quick. But let him _look_ out, any way." + +"Oh, Sandy! I might have said something that would have hindered!" + +"Didn't I know you wouldn't for the world? That's why I told you." + +The gardener now went on with his spading. But Elizabeth's work seemed +finished for this day. Above them stood the prisoner. He guessed not +what gentle hearts were pitiful with thinking of his sorrow. + +The next day the prisoner was not at the window, nor the next day, nor +the next. Sandy was bold enough to ask the keeper, Mr. Laval, what was +the meaning of it, and learned that the man was ill, and not likely to +recover. Sandy told Elizabeth, and they agreed in thinking that for the +poor creature death was probably the least of evils. + +But the day following that on which they came to this conclusion, the +sick man appeared before Sandy's astonished eyes. He was under the +keeper's care. The physician had ordered this change of air, and they +came to the garden at an hour when there was least danger of meeting +other persons in the walks. + +Sandy had much to tell Elizabeth when he saw her next. She trembled +while he told her how he thought that he had seen a ghost when the +keeper came leading the prisoner, whose pale face, tall figure, feeble +step, appeared to have so little to do with human nature and affairs. + +"Did he seem to care for the flowers? did he take any?" she asked. + +"No,--he would not touch them. The keeper offered him whatever he would +choose. He desired nothing. But he looked at all, he saw +everything,--even the beds of vegetables," Sandy said. + +"Did he seem pleased?" Elizabeth again asked. + +"Pleased!" exclaimed Sandy. "That's for you and me,--not a man that's +been shut up these five years. No,--he didn't look pleased. I don't +know how he looked; don't ask me; 'tisn't pleasant to think of." + +"I would have made him take the flowers, if I had been here," said +Elizabeth, in a manner that seemed very positive, in comparison with +Sandy's uncertain speech. + +"May-be,--I dare say," Sandy acquiesced; but he evidently had his +doubts even of her power in this business. + +She must take no notice of the prisoner, she was given to understand +one day, if she was to remain in the garden while he walked there. So +she took no notice. + +He came and went. Manuel, the keeper called him; and she was busy with +her weeding, and neither saw nor heard. Ah, she did not!--did _not_ see +the figure that came moving like a spectre through the gates!--did not +hear the slow dragging step of one who is weary almost to +helplessness,--the listless step that has lost the spring of hope, the +exultation of life, the expectation of spirit, the strength of +manhood!--She did hear, did see the man. We feel the nearness of our +friend who is a thousand miles away. Something beside the sunshine is +upon us, and receives our answering smile. That sudden shadow is not of +the passing cloud. That voice at midnight is not the disturbance of a +dream.--He walked about the garden; he retired to his cell. It might +have been an hour, or a minute, or a day. It does not take time to +dream a life's events. How is the drowning man whirled round the circle +of experiences which were so slow in their development! + +Compassion without limit, courageous purpose impatient of inaction, +troubled this young girl. + +"You behaved like a lady," said Sandy,--"you never looked up. You +needn't run now, I'm sure, when he thinks of taking a turn. All we've +got to do is to mind our own business, Mr. Laval says. I guess we can. +But I did want to let off those chains." + +"What chains?" asked Elizabeth, as with a shudder she looked up at +Sandy. + +"His wrists, you know,--locked," he explained. + +"Oh!" groaned the gentle soul, and she walked off, forgetful of the +flowers, tools, Sandy, everything. But Sandy followed her; she heard +him calling to her, and before the garden-gate she waited for him; he +was following on a run. + +"I can tell you what it's for," said he, for he had no idea of keeping +the secret to himself, and he dared not trust it to any other friend. + +"What is it?" she asked,--and she trembled when she asked, and while +she waited for his answer. + +"For lighting the Church. Would you think that? He did such damage, it +wasn't safe for him to be at liberty. That's how it was. I think he +must be a Lutheran;--you know they don't believe in the Holy Ghost! Of +course,--poor fellow!--it's right he should be shut up for warring with +the Church that came down through the holy Apostles, when you know all +the rest only started up with Luther and Calvin. He ought to have +knowed better." + +"Who told you, Sandy?" asked Elizabeth, as if her next words might +undertake to extenuate and justify. + +"It came straight enough, I understand. But--remember--you don't know +anything about it. His name is Manuel, though;--don't dare to mention +it;--that's what Mr. Laval calls him. Are you going? I wouldn't have +told you a word, but you took his trouble so to heart. You see, now, +it's right he should be shut up. But let on that you know anything, all +the worse for me,--I mean, him!" + +"Yes," said Elizabeth, "you're safe, Sandy. Thank you for telling me." + +Sandy walked off with a mind relieved, for he believed in Elizabeth, +and had found the facts communicated too great a burden to bear alone. + +She passed through the garden-gate most remote from the fort; it opened +into a lonely road which ran inland from the coast, between the woods +and the prison, and to the woods she went. The shadows were gloomy +to-day, for she went among them lamenting the fate of the +stranger;--the mystery surrounding him had increased, not lessened, +with Sandy's explanation. + +Fighting against _the Church_ was an unimagined crime. Of the great +conflict in which he had taken part, to the ruin of his fortunes, she +knew nothing. The disputes of Christendom, had they been explained, +would have seemed almost incredible to her. For, whatever was known and +discussed in the circle of the Governor of the island, Drummer Montier, +and such as he, kept the peace with all mankind. The Church took care +of itself, and appeared neither the oppressor nor the Saviour of the +world. What they had fought about in the first years of the possession +of Foray, Montier could hardly have told,--and yet he was no fool. He +could have given, of course, a partisan version of the struggle; but as +to its real cause, or true result, he knew as little as the other five +hundred men belonging to the regiment. + +While Elizabeth wandered through those gloomy woods, she saw no +flowers, gathered no wild fruits,--though flowers and berries were +perfect and abundant. Now and then she paused in her walk to look +towards the prison, glimpses of whose strong walls were to be had +through the trees. At length the sound of her father's horn came loud +and clear from the cliffs beyond the wood. It fell upon her sombre +meditation and slightly changed the current. She hurried forward to +join him, and, as she went, a gracious purpose was shining in her face. + +When she returned home, it was by the unfrequented prison-way, her +father playing the liveliest tunes he knew. For the first time in their +lives they sat down by the side of the lonely road where they had +emerged from the wood; Elizabeth's memory served her to recall every +air that was sweet to her, and she listened while her father played, +endeavoring to understand the sound those notes would have to "Manuel." + +Montier could think of no worthier employment than the practice of his +music. Especially it pleased him that his daughter should ask so much +as she was now asking: he could not discern all that was passing in her +heart, nor see how many shadows moved before those sweet, serious eyes. + +They went home at night-fall together; and the young girl's step was +not more light, now that her heart was troubled by what she must not +reveal, even to him. + +The next morning Sandy was very busy with Elizabeth, tying up some +flowers which had been tossed about, and broken, many of them, in the +night gale, when the keeper came through the gate, leading this Manuel, +who, grim as a spectral shadow, that had been fearful but for its +exceeding pitifulness, stood now between her and all that she rejoiced +in. "There!" exclaimed Sandy. Looking up, she saw them approaching +straight along the path that led past the flowerbeds. + +"Your flowers had a pretty rough time of it in the storm," said Jailer +Laval, as he drew near. He addressed the drummer's daughter,--but his +eyes were on Sandy, with the suspicious and stern inquiry common to men +who have betrayed a secret. But Sandy was busy with his delving. + +"Yes," answered Elizabeth, and she looked from the ground up to the +faces of these men. + +"Is that a rose-bush? That was roughly handled," said Laval, pointing +with his stick to the twisted rose-stalk covered with buds, over whose +blighted promise she had been lamenting. + +"Yes," said Elizabeth again; but she hardly knew what she said, still +less was she aware of the expression her face wore when she looked at +the prisoner. Yes,--even as Sandy said, big wrists were chained +together; he was more like a ghost than a man; his face was pale and +hopeless, and woful beyond her understanding was the majesty of his +mien. + +At such a price he paid for fights against _the Church!_ But in truth +he had not the look of an evil, warring man. His gravity, indeed, was +such as it seemed impossible to dispel. But only pity stirred the heart +of Elizabeth Montier as she looked on him. Surely it was a face that +never, in any excess of passion, could have looked malignance. Ah! and +at such a price he purchased his sunshine, the fresh air, and a near +vision of this flower-garden!--in chains! + +When she looked at him, his gaze was on her,--not upon the roses. She +smiled, for pity's sake; but the smile met no return. His countenance +had not the habit of responding to such glances. Sombre as death was +that face. Then Elizabeth turned hastily away; but as the keeper also +moved on a step, she detained him with a hurried "Wait a minute," and +went on plucking the finest flowers in bloom. Like an iron statue stood +the prisoner while she plucked the roses,--it was but a minute's +work,--then she tied the flowers together and laid them on his fettered +hands; whether he would refuse them, whether the gift pained or pleased +him, whether the keeper approved, she seemed afraid to know,--for, +having given the flowers, she went away in haste. + +It was not long after this first act of friendly courtesy, which had +many a repetition,--for the keeper was at bottom a humane man, and not +disposed to persecute his charge, while he was equally far from any +carelessness in guarding or leniency of treatment that would have +excited suspicion as to his purpose, in the minds of the authorities of +the island,--not long after this day, when the fine sympathy betrayed +for him by Elizabeth fell on Manuel's heart like dew, that the wife of +the jailer died. + +Her death was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the +woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced. +Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that +when he called her there was no resistance. + +Jailer Laval took the bereavement in a remorseful mood. The first thing +to be done now was the very last he would have owned to purposing +during her life-time. Release from that prison had been the woman's +prayer, year in and year out, these ten years, and Death was the bearer +of the answer to that prayer,--not her husband. + +But now, from the day of her sudden decease, the prison had become to +him dreary beyond endurance. The mantle of her discontent fell on him, +and, having no other confidant beside honest, stupid Sandy, he talked +to him like a man who seriously thought of abandoning his labor, and +retiring to that land across the sea for which his wife had pined +during ten homesick years. + +Sandy, who might have regarded himself in the light of an "humble +instrument," had he been capable of a particle of vanity or +presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a +conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk +along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the +prison-wall. What was her answer? It came instantly, without +premeditation or precaution,-- + +"Then we must take his place, Sandy." + +"We, Miss?" said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise. + +"Yes," she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind +him and his blunders,--"papa must take the prison." + +"Oh!"--and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake. Then he +laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it. Then he looked grave, +and wondering, and doubtful. The idea of Adolphus Montier's pretty wife +and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark +prison startled him. He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange. +But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he +glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily, +before her. At what she was looking he could not divine. He saw +nothing. + +"I wouldn't be overly quick about that," said he, cautiously. + +"No danger!" was the prompt reply. + +"For I tell _you_, of all the places I ever see, that prison makes me +feel the queerest. I believe it's one reason I let the flower-garden go +so long," owned Sandy. He did not speak these words without an effort; +and never had Elizabeth seen him so solemn. She also was grave,--but +not after his manner of gravity. + +"You see what I did with the poor flower-beds, Sandy," said she. "Wait +now till you see what happens to the prison." + +But it is one thing to purpose, and another to execute. Far easier for +Elizabeth to declare than to conduct an heroic design. One thing +prevented rest day and night,--the knowledge that Laval's intended +resignation must be followed by a new application and appointment. With +such a degree of sympathy had the condition of the captive inspired +her, that the idea of the bare possibility of cruelty or neglect or +brutality assuming the jailer's authority seemed to lay upon her all +the responsibility of his future. She must act, for she dared not +hesitate. + +One evening Adolphus took his horn, and, attended by wife and child, +went out to walk. He meant to send a strain from the highest of the +accessible coast-rocks. But Elizabeth changed his plan. The time was +good for what she had to say. Instead of expending his enthusiasm on a +flourish of notes, he was called upon to manifest it in a noble +resolution. + +When Elizabeth invited her father to a prospect sylvan rather than +marine, to the shady path on the border of the wood between it and the +prison, Montier, easily drawn from any plan that concerned his own +inclination merely, let his daughter lead, and she was responsible for +all that followed in the history of that little family. So love defers +to love, with divine courtesy, through all celestial movements. + +After playing a few airs, Montier's anticipated evening ended, and +another set in. The sympathies of a condition, the opposite to that of +which he had been so happily conscious, pressed too closely against +him. The musician could not, for the life of him, have played with +becoming spirit through any one of all the strains of victory he knew. + +Near him, under a tulip-tree, sat Pauline, with her knitting in her +hand, the image of peace. Not so Elizabeth. She was doubting, troubled. +But when the bird her father's music moved to sing was still, she +spoke, as she had promised herself she would, asking a question, of +whose answer she had not the slightest doubt. + +"Papa, do you know that Mr. Laval is going away?" + +"Why, yes, that's the talk, I believe." + +"Will they get somebody to take his place?" + +"Of course. There's a prisoner on hand yet, you know,--and the house to +look after." + +"A big house, too, and dreadful dreary," remarked the mother of +Elizabeth. "Laval's wife used to say, when she came up to see me +sometimes, it was like being a prisoner to live in that building. And +now she's dead and gone, he begins to think the same." + +"Suppose we take Laval's place," suggested Montier, looking very +seriously at his wife; but the suggestion did not alarm her. Adolphus +often expressed his satisfaction with existing arrangements by making +propositions of exchange for other states of life, propositions which +never disturbed his wife or daughter. They understood these +demonstrations of his deep content. Therefore, at these words of his, +Pauline smiled, and for the reason that the words could draw forth such +a smile Elizabeth looked grave. + +"I wish we could, papa," said she. + +"You wish we could, you child?" exclaimed her mother, wondering. "It +looks so pleasant, eh?" and the fair face of Pauline turned to the +prison, and surveyed it, shuddering. + +"For the prisoner's sake," said Elizabeth. "Who knows but a cruel +keeper may be put in Laval's place? He is almost dead with grief, that +prisoner is,--I know by his face. After he is gone, there won't be any +prisoner there,--and we could make it very pleasant." + +"Pleasant! What do you mean by pleasant?" asked Pauline, inwardly vexed +that her child had suggested the question,--and yet too just, too +kindly disposed, to put the subject away with imperative refusal to +consider it. "I never was in a place so horrid." + +"But if it was our home, and all our things were there," urged +Elizabeth, "it would be different. It depends on who lives in a house, +you know." + +"Yes, that is so; it depends a little, but not entirely. It would be +more than your mother could do to make a pleasant-looking place out of +that prison. You see it is different in the situation, to begin with. +Up where we live the sun is around us all day, if it is anywhere; and +then the little rooms are so light! If you put a flower into them, you +think you have a whole garden. Besides, it's Home up there, and down +here it isn't."--Saying this, Adolphus rose up quickly, as though he +had a mind to quit the spot. + +"When they select a man to fill Laval's place, of course they will be +careful to choose one as good and kind," said Pauline, with mild +confidence. + +"The jailer before him was not good and kind," remarked her daughter. + +"They dismissed him for it," said Adolphus, quickly. + +"But they said the prisoners were half-starved, and abused every way. +It was a good while before it was found out. That might happen again, +and less chance of any one knowing it. He is so near dead now, it +wouldn't take much to kill him." + +No one replied to this argument. Pauline and Adolphus talked of other +things, and the musician returned to his music. But all in good time. +Elizabeth was capable of patience, and at last her father said, looking +around him to make sure that his remark would have only two +listeners,-- + +"That prisoner isn't a man to be talked of about here. You never heard +_me_ mention him. Laval used to give a--a--bad account of him. He had +to be kept alive." + +"Till he heard your music, papa, and was moved up to the room with a +window. Did he tell you that?" asked Elizabeth. + +"He said he thought the music did him good," acknowledged Adolphus. + +"May-be it was the same as with Saul when David played for him. But he +does not look like a bad man, papa. He looks grander than any of our +officers. And he has fought battles, they say. He is very brave." + +Both Adolphus and Pauline Montier looked at their daughter with the +most profound surprise when she spoke thus. Not merely her words, but +her manner of speaking, caused this not agreeable perplexity. Her +emotion was not only too obvious, it was too deep for their +understanding. The mother was the first to speak. + +"How did you hear all this, child? _I_ never heard him talked of in +this way. They don't talk about him at all,--do they, Adolphus?" + +"No," he answered; but he spoke the word very mildly. The tone did not +indicate a want of sympathy in the compassion of his daughter. + +Elizabeth looked from her mother to her father. What friends had she, +if these were not her friends? + +"The jailer told Sandy, and Sandy told me," she said. "But they never +talk to any other person. Oh! I was afraid to hear about it; but now I +have heard, I was afraid not to speak. Would it be so dreadful for you +to live here, when we could always have music and the garden? And these +woods seem pleasant, when you get acquainted. Day or night I can't get +him out of my mind. It is just as if you were shut up that way, papa. I +am afraid to be happy when any one is so wretched." + +The result was, that Elizabeth's words, and not so much her words as +the state of things she contrived to make apparent by them, brought +Adolphus Montier to a clear, resistless sense of the prisoner's fate. +Over the features of that fate he was for days brooding. Now and then a +word that indicated the direction of his thinking would escape him in +his wife's hearing. Silently Pauline followed Adolphus to the end of +all this thinking. Once she walked alone along the unfrequented road +that ran between the prison and the wood, down to the sea; and she +looked at the gloomy fortress, and tried to think about it as she +should, if certain that within its walls her lot would soon be cast. + +And more than once Montier walked home that way; and if it chanced that +he had his horn or his drum with him, he marched at quickstep, and +played the liveliest tunes, and emerged from the shadows of the wood +with a spirit undaunted. He had played for the prisoner, whom he had +never yet seen,--but not more for him than for himself. + +One Sunday, when the little family walked out together, Adolphus and +his wife fell into a pleasant train of thought,--and when they were +together, thought and speech were generally simultaneous. As they +passed the prison,--for Adolphus had led the way to this path,--Laval +was standing in the door. They stopped to speak with him; whereat he +invited them into his quarters. + +In this walk, Elizabeth had fallen behind her parents. When she saw +them going into the prison, she quickened her pace, for her father +beckoned to her. But she was in no earnest haste to follow, as became +sufficiently manifest when she was left alone. + +They had not gone far in their talk, however, when she came to the +doorway. Laval, in all his speech, was a deliberate man, and neither +Adolphus nor his wife showed any eagerness in the conduct of the +conversation now begun. The contrast between the gloom of the apartment +and the light and cheerfulness of their own home was apparent to all of +them. Elizabeth felt the oppression under which each of the little +party seemed to labor, the instant she joined her parents. Susceptible +as they all were to the influences of Nature, her sunshine and her +shadow, this gloom which fell upon them was nothing more than might +have been anticipated. + +Jailer Laval was homesick, and innocent of a suspicion of what was +passing in the minds of his guests; he was therefore free in making his +complaints, and acknowledged that he was not fit to keep the +prison,--it required a man of more nerve than he had. The dread of the +place which his poor wife had entertained seemed to have taken +possession of him since her death. All the arguments which he once +used, in the endeavor to bolster her courage, he had now forgotten. He +was very cautious when he began to speak of the prisoner, and tried to +divert Adolphus from the point by saying that he would much prefer a +house full of convicts to one so empty as this. There was at least +something like society in that, and something to do. + +Adolphus, in spite of his discontent at hearing merely these deductions +of experience, when his desire was to know something of Manuel, heard +nothing of importance. The speech of the jailer on this subject was not +to be had. His mind seemed to be wandering, except when his wife, or +his native land, was referred to; then he brightened into speech, but +never once into cheerfulness. As he sat there in the middle of his +chamber, he seemed to represent the genius of the place,--and anything +less enlivening or desirable in the way of human life could hardly be +imagined. Pauline looked at him and sighed. She looked at Adolphus;--a +pang shot through her heart; the shadow of the man seemed to overshadow +him. Out of this place, where all appeared to be fast changing into +"goblins damned"! + +It was she who led the way; but, pausing in the court-yard, Elizabeth +evinced still greater haste to be gone, for she ran on with fleet step, +and a heart heavy with foreboding as to the result of this interview. +She was also impatient to get into the open sunlight, and did not rest +in this progress she was making outward till she had come to the +sea-shore. Elizabeth Montier was in a state of dire perplexity just +then, and if she had been asked whether she would really choose to +effect the change proposed in their way of living, it would have been +no easy matter for her to discover her mind. + +By the sea-shore she sat down, and her father and mother followed +slowly on. They were not talking as they came. But as they approached +the beach, Adolphus could not resist the prospect before them. Loud was +the blast he blew upon his horn, nor did he cease playing until his +music had restored him to a more natural mood than that in which the +interview with Laval left him. The prison was becoming a less startling +image of desolate dreariness to him. And Adolphus was the master-spirit +in his family. If he was gay, it was barely possible for his wife and +child to be sad. Of the prison not one word was spoken by either. They +had not revealed to each other their inmost mind when they went into +Laval's quarters; they did not reveal it when they came thence. But as +they strolled along the rocky shore, or returned homeward, they thought +of little beside the prison and the prisoner. As to Elizabeth, nothing +required of her that she should urge the matter further. She had +neither heart nor courage for such urging. + +It was Adolphus himself who spoke to Pauline the next day, after he had +deliberately thrown himself in the way of the prisoner, that he might +with his own eyes see what manner of man he was; for seeing was +believing. + +"Pauline," said he, almost persuaded of the truth of his own words, +"you and Elizabeth would make a different place of that prison from +what it is now. I should like to see it tried." + +Pauline Montier made no haste to answer; she was afraid that she knew +what he expected of her. + +"Do you see," continued Adolphus, "Elizabeth won't speak of it again? +But what must she think of us? He is a man. They say we are all +brothers." + +"I know it," said, almost sighed, his wife. + +"Looking out for our own comfort!" exclaimed Adolphus. "So mighty +afraid of doing what we'd have done for us! Besides, I believe we could +make it pretty pleasant. Cool in summer, and warm in winter. I'd +whitewash pretty thorough. And if the windows were rubbed up, your way, +the light might get through." + +"Poor Joan Laval!" said Pauline. "Body and mind gave out. She was +different at first." + +"Do you think it was the prison?" asked Adolphus, quickly, like a man +halting between two opinions,--there was no knowing which way he would +jump. + +"Something broke her down," replied his wife. She was looking from one +window,--he from another. + +"Joan Laval was Joan Laval," said Adolphus, with an effort. "Always +was. Frightened at her own shadow, I suppose. But--there! we won't +think of it. I know how it looks to you, Pauline. Very well,--I don't +see why we should make ourselves miserable for the sake of somebody who +has got to be miserable anyhow,--and deserves it, I suppose, or he +wouldn't be where he is." + +"Poor fellow!" sighed Pauline,--as if it were now her turn on the rack. + +Here Adolphus let the matter rest. He had overcome his own scruples so +far as honestly to make this proposal to his wife. But he would do no +more than propose,--not for an instant urge the point. Surely, that +could not be required of him. Charity, he remembered, begins at home. + +But Pauline could not let the matter rest here. Her struggle was yet to +come. It was she, then, who alone was unwilling to sacrifice her +present home for the sake of a stranger and prisoner! + +Now Pauline Montier was a good Christian woman, and various words of +holy utterance began herewith to trouble her. And from a by no means +tranquil musing over them, she began to ask herself, What, after all, +was home? Was happiness indeed dependent on locality when the heart of +love was hers? Could she not give up so little as a house, in order to +secure the comfort of a son of misfortune,--a solitary man,--a dying +prisoner? What she would not give up freely might any day be taken from +her. If fire did not destroy it, the government, which took delight in +interference, might see fit to order that the house they occupied +should be used again for the original purpose of storage. + +And then the discomforts of the prison began to appear very +questionable. She remembered that Joan Laval was, as Adolphus hinted, +weakly, nervous, 'frightened at her own shadow,'--a woman who had +never, for any single day of her life, lived with a lofty purpose,--a +cumberer of the ground, who could only cast a shadow. + +She perceived that they would be close to the flower-garden; a minute's +walk would lead them to the pleasant woods,--and Pauline Montier always +loved the woods. + +Indeed, when she began to take this ground, the first steps of +occupation alone could be timid or doubtful. After that, her humanity, +her sympathy, her confidence in her husband and daughter, drew the +woman on, till she forgot how difficult the first steps had been. + +She surprised both husband and daughter by saying to Adolphus, the +moment she came to her conclusion, that he had better make inquiry of +Laval whether he had signified his intention to resign, and forthwith +seek the appointment from the Governor of the island. + +When Pauline said this, she attested her sincerity by making ready to +accompany Adolphus at once to the prison, that they might run no risk +of losing the situation by delay. Seeing that they were of one mind, +and entirely confiding in each other, they all went together to the +prison to consult with Laval. Thus it came to pass, that, before the +week ended, the charge of the prison had been transferred to Adolphus +Montier. + +The family made great efforts in order to impart an air of cheerfulness +and home-comfort to their new dwelling-place. Adolphus whitewashed, +according to promise; Pauline scrubbed, according to nature; they +arranged and rearranged their little stock of furniture,--set the +loud-ticking day-clock on the mantel-shelf, and displayed around it the +china cups, the flower-vase, and the little picture of their native +town which Adolphus cut from a sheet of letter-paper some old friend +had sent him, and framed with more tender feeling than skill. They did +their best, each one, and said to one another, that, when they got used +to the place, to the large rooms and high ceilings and narrow windows, +it would of course seem like home, to them, because--it _was_ their +HOME. Were they not all together? were not these their own household +goods, around them? Still, they needed all this mutual encouragement +and heartiness of coƶperation which was so nobly, so generously +manifested; and it was sincere enough to insure the very result of +contentment and satisfaction which they were so wise as to anticipate. +But the Governor thought,--_The Drummer is getting ambitious; he wants +a big house, and authority!_ + +Ex-jailer Laval was exceedingly active in assisting his own outgoing +and the incoming of Montier. He helped Adolphus in the heavy labors of +removal, and laughed more during the conduct of these operations than +he had been known to do in years. He said nothing to Prisoner Manuel of +the intended change in jail-administration until the afternoon when for +the last time he walked out with him. + +The information was received with apparent indifference, without +question or comment, until Laval, half vexed, and wholly sorrowful for +the sad state of the prisoner, said,-- + +"I am sorry for you, Sir. I can say that, now I'm going off. I've been +as much a prisoner as you have, I believe. And I wish you were going to +be set free to-night, as I am. I am going home! But I leave you in good +care,--better than mine. I never have gone ahead of my instructions in +taking care of you. I never took advantage of your case, to be cruel or +neglectful. If anything has ever passed that made you think hard of me, +I hope you will forgive it, for I can say I have done the best I could +or dared." + +Thus called upon to speak, the prisoner said merely, "I believe +you." + +Whereat the jailer spoke again, and with a lighter heart. + +"I am glad you're in luck this time,--for you are. You don't know who +is coming to take the charge,--come, I mean, for they are all in, and +settled. That's Montier, the little girl's father. He is a drummer, and +a little of everything else. It's his horn that you hear sometimes. And +you know Elizabeth, who was always so kind about the flowers. His wife, +too, she's a pretty woman, and kind as kind can be." + +"What have they come here for?" asked the prisoner, amazed. + +"I'll tell you," said Laval, more generous than he had designed to be; +but he knew how he should wish, when the sea rolled between him and +Foray, that he had spoken every comfortable word in his knowledge to +this man; he knew it by his recent experiences of remorse in reference +to his buried wife, and was wise enough to profit by the +knowledge;--"I'll tell you. It's on your account. They were afraid +somebody that didn't know how long you have been here, and how much you +have suffered, would get the place; so they all came together and asked +for it. They had a pretty little house up nigh the barracks, but they +gave it up to come here. You'll see Montier to-night. For when I go +back to your room with you, then I'm going off to--to"----he hesitated, +for foremost among his instructions was this, that he should remain +silent about his purpose of returning home; he was not to go as a +messenger for the prisoner across the ocean to their native land----"to +my business," he said. "If you'll be kind to him, you will make +something by it. I thought I would tell you,--so, when you saw a +strange face in your room, you would know what it meant without +asking." + +"I thank you," said the prisoner; and to the jailer it now seemed as if +the figure of the man beside him grew in height and strength,--as if he +trod the ground less feebly and listlessly while he spoke these words. +A divine consolation must have strengthened him even then, or he could +never have added with such emphasis, "Wherever you go, take this my +assurance with you,--you have not been cruel or careless. You have done +as well as you could. I thank you for it." + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," said the jailer, after a silence +that seemed but brief to him,--such a deal of argument he had +dispatched, so many difficulties he had overcome in those few moments, +whose like, for mental activity and conclusiveness, he had never seen +before, and never would see again. "I shall be asked if I have told +you. But--where did you come from? Do not tell me your name. But whom +did you leave behind you that you would care most should know you are +alive and in good hands?" + +These questions, asked in good faith, would have had their answer; but +while the prisoner was preparing such reply as would have proceeded, +brief and wholly to the point, from the confusion of hope and surprise, +the Governor of Foray came in sight, drew near, and, suspicious, as +became him, walked in silence by the prisoner's side, while Laval +obeyed his mute instructions, leading Manuel back to his cell. A vessel +was approaching the shore of Foray. + +Having disposed of his prisoner, the jailer in turn was marched, like +one under arrest, up to the fort, where he remained, an object of +suspicion, until his time came for sailing, and, without knowing it, he +went home under guard. + +When Adolphus Montier ascended to the prisoner's room that night, he +found him standing by the window. After Laval left him, he had looked +from out that window, and seen the white sail of a vessel; he could not +see it now, but there he stood, watching, as though he knew not that +his chance of hope was over. + +As Adolphus entered the room, the prisoner turned immediately to +him,--asking quietly, as if he had not been suddenly tossed into a gulf +of despair by the breeze that brought him hope,-- + +"Has Laval sailed?" + +"When the cannon fired," was the answer. + +Then Adolphus placed the dish containing the prisoner's supper on the +table; he had already lighted the lamp in the hall. And now he wanted +to say something, on this his first appearance in the capacity of +keeper, and he knew what to say,--he had prepared himself abundantly, +he thought. But both the heart and the imagination of Adolphus Montier +stood in the way of such utterance as he had prepared. The instant his +eyes fell on that figure, lonely and forlorn, the instant he heard that +question, his kind heart became weakness, he stood in the prisoner's +place,--he saw the vessel sailing on its homeward voyage,--he beheld +men stepping from sea to shore, walking in happy freedom through the +streets of home;--a vision that filled his eyes with tears was before +him, and he was long in controlling his emotion sufficiently to say,-- + +"We are in Laval's place, Sir, and we hope you will have no cause to +regret the change. I don't know how to be cruel and severe,--but I must +do my duty. But I wasn't put here for a tyrant." + +"I know why you are here; Laval told me," said the prisoner. + +"Then we're friends, a'n't we?" asked Adolphus; "though I must do my +duty by them that employ me. You understand. I'd set every door and +window of this building wide open for you, if I had my way; though I +don't know what you're here for. But I swear before heaven and earth, +nothing will tempt me to forget my duty to the government;--if you +should escape, it would be over my dead body. So you see my position." + +"Yes," said the prisoner; and if anything could have tempted a smile +from him, this manner of speech would have done it. But Adolphus was +far enough from smiling. + +"Come, eat something," said he, with tremulous persuasion. "My wife +knows how to get up such things. She will do the best for you she can." + +"Thank you." + +The prisoner again looked out of the window. It was growing dark; the +outline of sea and land was fading out of sight; dreary looked the +world without,--but within the lamp seemed shining with a brighter +light than usual. And here was a person and a speech, a human sympathy, +that almost warmed and soothed him. + +He approached the table where Adolphus had spread his supper. He sat in +the chair that was placed for him, and the Drummer waited on him, +recommending Pauline's skill again, much as he might have presented a +petition. The prisoner ate little, but he praised Pauline, and said +outright that he had tasted nothing so palatable as her supper these +five years. This cheered Montier a little, but still his spirits were +almost at the lowest point of depression. + +"You seem to pity me," remarked the prisoner, when Adolphus was +gathering up the remains of the frugal supper. + +"My God!--yes!" exclaimed Adolphus, stopping short, and looking at the +man. + +It was a sort of sympathy that could not harm the person on whom it was +bestowed. + +"I consider myself well off to-night," said he, quietly. "It is your +little daughter that works in the garden so much? I have often watched +her." + +"Yes," said Adolphus, almost with a sob. + +"And you are the man whose music has been so cheering many a time?" + +"I want to know what airs you like best," said the poor Drummer, +hurriedly. + +"I never heard you play one that I did not like."--Precious praise! + +"Then you like music? I can be pretty tolerably severe, Sir, if I make +up my mind!" said Adolphus, as if addressing his own conscience, to set +that at rest by this open avowal. "There's no danger of my doing wrong +by the government. I'd have to pay for you with my life. Yes,--for it +would be with my liberty. And there's my wife and child. So you +understand where I am, as I told you before; but, by thunder! you shall +have all the music you want, and all the flowers; and my little girl +can sing pretty well,--her mother taught her. And if you're sick, there +a'n't a better nurse in the hospital than Pauline Montier. There! good +night!" + +Adolphus took up the tray and hurried out of the room,--and forgot to +fasten the door behind him until he had gone half way down the stairs. +He came back in haste, and turned the great key with half the blood in +his body burning in his face,--not merely an evidence of the exertion +made in that operation, which he endeavored to perform noiselessly. He +was ashamed of this caging business; but he would have argued you out +of countenance then and there, had you ventured a word against the +government,--though, as he said, he was in the dark concerning the +prisoner's crime. + +When he went down stairs he found supper prepared, and Pauline and +their daughter waiting for him. He sat down in silence, seeking to +avoid the questioning eyes which turned toward him so expectant and so +hopeful. Discerning his mood, neither wife nor daughter troubled him +with questions; at last, of himself, he broke out vehemently,-- + +"I wouldn't for the world have lost the chance! Laval wasn't the man to +take care of that gentleman. But he don't say a word against Laval, +mind you. He spoke about the flowers and the music. Oh, hang it!" + +Here, in spite of himself, the Drummer was wholly overcome. He bowed +his head to the table and broke into violent weeping. Another barrier +gave way beside. Elizabeth flew to him. He seemed not to heed her, nor +the sudden cry, "Oh, father!" that escaped her. She sat down by his +side,--she wept as he was weeping. It was a stormy emotion that raged +through her heart, when her tears burst forth. She was not weeping for +pity merely, nor because her father wept. Long before he lifted his +head, she was erect, and quiet, and hopeful,--but a child no more. She +was a woman to love, a woman to dare,--fit and ready for the guiding of +an angel. By-and-by Adolphus said to Pauline,--"If any one else had +undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut +out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. +Why,--why,--he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We +aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, I take it." + +"No, indeed!" said Pauline, as if the bare idea filled her with +indignation. The three were surely one now. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + +WALDEINSAMKEIT. + + I do not count the hours I spend + In wandering by the sea; + The forest is my loyal friend, + Like God it useth me. + + In plains that room for shadows make + Of skirting hills to lie, + Bound in by streams which give and take + Their colors from the sky, + + Or on the mountain-crest sublime, + Or down the oaken glade, + Oh, what have I to do with time? + For this the day was made. + + Cities of mortals woebegone + Fantastic care derides, + But in the serious landscape lone + Stern benefit abides. + + Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, + And merry is only a mask of sad; + But sober on a fund of joy + The woods at heart are glad. + + There the great Planter plants + Of fruitful worlds the grain, + And with a million spells enchants + The souls that walk in pain. + + Still on the seeds of all he made + The rose of beauty burns; + Through times that wear, and forms that fade, + Immortal youth returns. + + The black ducks mounting from the lake, + The pigeon in the pines, + The bittern's boom, a desert make + Which no false art refines. + + Down in yon watery nook, + Where bearded mists divide, + The gray old gods that Chaos knew, + The sires of Nature, hide. + + Aloft, in secret veins of air, + Blows the sweet breath of song; + Ah! few to scale those uplands dare, + Though they to all belong. + + See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's looks. + + And if, amid this dear delight, + My thoughts did home rebound, + I should reckon it a slight + To the high cheer I found. + + Oblivion here thy wisdom is, + Thy thrift the sleep of cares; + For a proud idleness like this + Crowns all life's mean affairs. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE GERMAN POPULAR LEGEND OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS. + + +We doubt whether any popular legend has ever taken deeper root among +the common people and spread farther in the world than the story of Dr. +Faustus and his reckless compact with the Evil One. We do not intend to +compare it, of course, to those ancient traditions which seem to have +constituted a tie of relationship between the most distant nations in +times anterior to history. These are mostly of a mythological +character,--as, for instance, those referring to the existence of +elementary spirits. Their connection with mankind has, in the earliest +times, occupied the imagination of the most widely different races. A +certain analogy we can easily explain by the affinity of human hearts +and human minds. But when we find that exactly the same tradition is +reĆ«choed by the mountains of Norway and Sweden in the ballad of "Sir +Olaf and the Erl-king's Daughter," which the milkmaid of Brittany sings +in the lay of the "Sieur Nann and the Korigan," and in a language +radically different from the Norse,--when, here and there, the same +_forms_ of superstition meet us in the ancient popular poetry of the +Servians and modern Greeks, which were familiar to the Teutonic and +Cambrian races of early centuries,--must we not believe in a primeval +intimate connection between distant nations? are we not compelled to +acknowledge that there must have existed, in those remote times, means +of communication unknown to us? + +We repeat, however, that, in calling the legend of Dr. Faustus the most +widely-spread we know of, we cannot allude to these primitive +traditions, the circulation of which is perfectly mysterious. We speak +of such popular legends as admit of their origin being traced. Among +these the Faustus-tradition may be called comparatively new. To us +Americans, indeed, whose history commences only with the modern history +of Europe, a period of three hundred years seems quite a respectable +space of time. But to the Germans and the Scandinavians, from whose +popular lore the names of Horny Siegfried and Dietric of Berne, +(Theodoric the Great,) and of Roland, are not yet completely erased, a +story of the sixteenth century must appear comparatively modern. + +The popularity of the legend of Faustus, although of German origin, +was, almost from its first rise, not confined to German lands. The +French, Dutch, and English versions of the poor Doctor's adventurous +life are but very little younger than his German biographies; and it +was about the same time that he was made the subject of a tragedy by +Marlowe, one of the most gifted of Shakspeare's dramatic predecessors. +We are not afraid of erring, when we ascribe the uncommon popularity +and rapid circulation of this legend principally to its deep and +intrinsic _moral_ interest. Faustus's time of action was exactly the +period of the great religious reformation which shook all Europe. +During the sixteenth century, even the untaught and illiterate classes +learned to watch more closely over the salvation of their souls than +when they felt themselves safe beneath the guardianship of the Holy +Mother Church. And to those who remained under the guidance of the +latter, the dangers of learning and independent thinking, and of +meddling with forbidden subjects, were pointed out by the monks with +two-fold zeal. It cannot, therefore, surprise us, that the life and +death of a famous contemporary, who for worldly goods and worldly +wisdom placed his soul at stake, excited a deep and general interest. +In one feature, indeed, his history bears decidedly the stamp of the +great moral revolution of the time: we mean its awful end. There are two +legends of the Middle Ages--and perhaps many more--in which the +fundamental ideas are the same. The two Saints, Cyprianus, (the "Magico +Prodigioso" of Calderon,) and Bishop Theophilus, (the hero of Conrad of +WĆ¼rzburg,) were both tempted by the Devil with worldly goods and +worldly prosperity, and allured into the pool of sin perhaps deeper +than Faustus; but repentance and penitence saved them, and secured to +them finally a place among the saints of the Church. But for Faustus +there is no compromise; his awful compact is binding; and whatever hope +of his salvation modern poetry has excited for the unfortunate Doctor +is, to say the least, in direct contradiction of the popular legend. + +Faustus was the Cagliostro of the sixteenth century. It is not an easy +task to find the few grains of historical truth referring to him, among +the chaff of popular fiction that several centuries have accumulated +around his name. A halo so mysterious and miraculous surrounds his +person, that not only have various other famous individuals, who lived +long before or after him, been completely amalgamated with him, but +even his real existence has been denied, and not much over a hundred +years after his death he was declared by scholars to be a mere myth. A +certain J.C. Duerr attempted to prove, in a learned "Dissertatio +Epistolica de Johanne Fausto," (printed at Altorf, in 1676,) that the +magician of that name had never existed, and that all the strange +things which had been related of him referred to the printer John +Faust, or Fust,--who had, indeed, been confounded with him before, +although he lived nearly a century earlier. And when we think of the +superstitious fear and monkish prejudice with which the great invention +of printing was at first regarded, such a confusion of two persons of +similar name, and both, in the eyes of a dark age, servants of Satan, +cannot surprise us. Our John Faustus was also sometimes confounded with +two younger contemporaries, one of whom was called Faustus Socinus, and +made Poland the chief theatre of his operations; the other, George +Sabellicus, expressly named himself Faustus Junior, also Faustus Minor. +Both were celebrated necromancers and astrologers, who probably availed +themselves of the advantage derived from the adoption of the famous +name of Faustus.[1] + +A second attempt to prove the historical nonentity of Dr. Faustus was +made at Wittenberg, in the year 1683. Some of his popular biographers +had claimed for him a professorship at that celebrated university, or +at least brought him into connection with it,--a pretension which the +actual professors of that learned institution thought rather +prejudicial to their honor, and which they were desirous of seeing +refuted. Stimulated, as it would seem, by a zeal of this kind, J.G. +Neumann wrote a "Dissertatio de Fausto Praestigiatore," in which he not +only tried to prove that Dr. Faustus had never been at Wittenberg, but +pronounced his whole story fabulous. An attempt like this would not +surprise us in our own time, the age of historical skepticism; but the +seventeenth century gave credit to narratives having much slighter +foundation. Although this dissertation was full of historical mistakes +and erroneous statements, it made some sensation, as is proved by its +four successive editions. It was also translated into German. All +Neumann's endeavors, however, could not stand against the testimony of +contemporaries, who partly had known Faustus personally, partly had +heard of him from living witnesses, and allude to his death as an +occurrence of recent date. + +John Faustus, or rather, after the German form of his name, Faust, was +born in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, probably not before +the year 1490. According to the oldest "Volksbuch" (People's Book) +which bears his name,[2] his parents then lived at Roda, in the present +Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. The same place is likewise named as his native +village by G.R. Widmann, his first regular biographer, who says that +his father was a peasant.[3] Although these two works are the +foundation of the great number of later ones referring to the same +subject, some of these latter deviate with respect to Faustus's +birthplace. J.N. Pfitzer, for instance, who, seventy years after +Widmann, published a revised and much altered edition of his book, +makes Faust see the light at Saltwedel, a small town belonging then to +the principality of Anhalt, and must have had his reasons for this +amendment. A confusion of this kind may, indeed, have early arisen from +a change of residence of our hero's parents during his infancy. But the +oldest Volksbuch was written nearly forty years after the death of +Faustus, and Widmann's work appeared even ten years later,--both, +indeed, professing to be founded on the Doctor's writings, as well as +on an autobiographical manuscript, discovered in his library after his +death. Perhaps, however, the assertion of two of his contemporaries, +one of whom was personally acquainted with him, is more entitled to +credit in this respect. Joh. Manlius and Joh. Wier--the latter in his +biography of Cornelius Agrippa--name Kundlingen, in WĆ¼rtemberg, as his +birthplace. + +Manlius, in his work, "Collectanea Locorum Communium," (Basel, 1600,) +speaks of him as of an acquaintance. He says that Faustus studied at +Krakow, in Poland, where there was a regular professorship of Magic, as +was the case at several universities. Others let him make his studies +at Ingolstadt, and acquire there the honors of a Doctor of Medicine. +Both these statements may be true, as also that he was for some time +the companion and pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, the +celebrated scholar, whose learning and mysterious researches after the +philosopher's stone brought him, like many other wise men of the age, +into suspicion of witchcraft. Agrippa had a pet dog, black, like the +mystical companion of Dr. Faustus, and, in the eyes of a superstitious +multitude, like him, the representative of the Evil One. Black dogs +seem to have been everywhere considered as rather suspicious creatures. +The Pope Sylvester II. had also a favorite black poodle, in whom the +Devil was supposed to have taken up his abode. According to Wier, +however, Agrippa's black dog was quite a harmless beast, and remarkable +only for the childlike attachment which the great philosopher had for +him. It may be worth remarking, that this writer, although he speaks of +Faustus in his biography of Agrippa, makes no mention of his ever +having been a friend or scholar of the latter. + +In several of the old stories of Faustus, we read that he had a cousin +at Wittenberg, who took him as a boy to his house, brought him up, and +made him his heir when he died. If this was true, it would be more +probable that he was a native of Saxony than of Suabia. It is, however, +more probable that this narrative rests on one of the numerous cases +found in old writings in general, and above all in the history of +Faustus, in which the names Wittenberg and WĆ¼rtemberg are confounded. +Our hero's abode at the former place was very probably merely that of a +traveller; he left there, as we shall soon see, a very unenviable +reputation. It is true that Saxony was the principal scene of the +Doctor's achievements; but this very circumstance makes it improbable +that he was born and brought up there, as it is well known that "a +prophet hath no honor in his own country." + +Faust's studies were not confined to medicine and the physical +sciences. He was also considered eminent as a philologist and +philosopher. Physiology, however, with its various branches and +degenerate offshoots, was the idol of the scholars of that age, and of +Faustus among the rest. A passionate desire to fathom the mysteries of +Nature, to dive into the most hidden recesses of moral and physical +creation, had seized men of real learning, and seduced them into +mingling absurd astrological and magical fancies with profound and +scholarlike researches. The deepest thinkers of their time, like +Nostradamus, Cardan, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Thomas Campanella, +flattered themselves that they could enter, by means of art and +science, into communion with good or evil spirits, on whose aid they +depended for obtaining knowledge, fame, wealth, and worldly honors and +enjoyments. Faustus was one of those whom a passion for inquiry, in +league with a powerful, sensual nature, led astray. What had been +originally an honest thirst for knowledge, a deep interest in the +supernatural, became gradually a morbid craving after the miraculous, +the pretension of having attained the unattainable, and the attempt to +represent it by means of vulgar jugglery. + +Dr. Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, +and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his _famulus_; for we +never find this _Philister_ among scholars as a companion of the +travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently +lasting. According to the popular legend, the Doctor made him his heir, +and expressly obtained for him Auerhahn, (Heathcock,) a familiar spirit +in the shape of a monkey. This was a sort of caricature of +Mephistopheles, who became, through his ludicrous clumsiness, a +pet-devil of the populace in the puppet-shows, particularly in Holland. +Widmann calls Wagner _Waiger_; while in all other publications +referring to him he bears his right name, Christoph Wagner. + +What city it was where Faustus lived before the reputation of +witchcraft made him the subject of so much talk remains unsettled. +Wittenberg and Ingolstadt are alternately named. Some of his +biographers relate, that he led a loose and profligate life, and soon +wasted his cousin's inheritance. Others represent him as a deep, +secluded student, laying hold of one science after another, and +unsatisfied by them all, until he found, by means of his physical and +chemical experiments, the secret path to the supernatural, and, in +order to reap their full fruits, allied himself with the hellish +powers. Faustus himself tells us, in his "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," (or rather, the author of this book makes him tell us,) +how his intercourse with the Devil commenced almost accidentally and +against his intentions:-- + +"I, Doctor Johann Faust, who apply myself to the Free Arts, having read +many kinds of books from my youth, happened once to light upon a book +that contained various conjurations of the spirits. Feeling some desire +to enlarge my ideas on these things, having, indeed, at the beginning, +small belief that the prescriptions of that book would so soon be +verified, I tried them only for an experiment. Nevertheless, I became +aware that a mighty spirit, named Astaroth, presented himself before +me, and asked me wherefore I had cited him. Then, hurried as I was, I +did not know how to make up my mind otherwise than to demand that he +should be serviceable to me in various wishes and desires, which he +promised _conditionale_, asking to make a compact with me. To do this I +was at first not inclined; but as I was only provided with a bad +_circle_, being merely experimenting, I did not dare to bid him +defiance, but was obliged to yield to the circumstances. I therefore +made up my mind, inasmuch as he would serve me, and would be bound to +me a certain number of years. This being settled, this spirit presented +to me another, named Mochiel, who was commanded to serve me. I asked +him how quick he was. Answer: 'Like the wind.' 'Thou shalt not serve +me! get thee back to whence thou camest!' Now came Aniguel; he +answered, that he was as quick as the bird in the air. 'Thou art still +too slow,' I replied; 'begone!' At the same moment a third stood before +me, named Aziel; this one, too, I asked how quick he was. 'Quick as the +thought of man.' 'Right for me! thee will I keep!' And I accepted him. +This spirit has served me long, as has been made known by many +writings." + +Whether it was this quick Aziel, or Astaroth himself, who became +Faustus's travelling-companion under the name of Mephistopheles, or +whether the prince of the lower regions in person condescended to play +that part, we do not know; but in all popular stories of the Doctor, +his servant bears the latter name,--while in the various books in +which, under the name of _Hoellenzwang_, the system of his magic is +laid down, he is called Aziel. + +In possession of such a power, Faustus soon became tired of his lonely +study. He craved the world for his theatre. His travels seem in reality +to have been very extensive, while in the popular stories a magic +mantle carried him over the whole globe. Conrad Gesner, the great +physiologist, who speaks of him with some respect as a physician, +comparing him with Theophrastus Paracelsus, reckons him among the +_scholastici vagantes_, or _fahrende Schueler_, an order of men already +considerably in the decline, and grown disreputable at that period. As +early as the thirteenth century, we find the custom in Germany, of +young clergymen who did not belong to any monkish order travelling +through the land to get a living,--here by instructing in schools for a +certain period,--there by temporarily serving in churches as +choristers, sacristans, or vicars,--often, too, as clerks and copyists +to lawyers or other private men. When they could no longer find a +livelihood at one place, they went to another. Their offices became, in +course of time, of the most varied and unsuitable order. They were +generally received and treated with hospitality, and this may have been +one reason why all kinds of adventurers were ready to join them. Their +unstable mode of life easily explains their frequenting the society of +other vagabonds, who traversed the country as jugglers, +treasure-diggers, quacks, or sorcerers, and that their clerical dignity +did not prevent their occasionally adopting these professions +themselves. The Chronicle of Limburg, in speaking of the Diet of +Frankfurt in 1397, says: "The number of princes, counts, noblemen, +knights, and esquires, that met there, amounted to five thousand one +hundred and eighty-two"; adding: "Besides these, there were here four +hundred and fifty persons more, such as _fahrende Schueler_, wrestlers, +musicians, jumpers, and trumpeters." The character of the clergy having +sunk so low, the Church declared itself against the custom, and at +several German councils theological students were expressly forbidden +to lead this roving life. It required, however, considerable time for +the ancient custom to become extinct, and we learn, among others, from +Conrad Gesner, that it still existed at the time of the Reformation. + +The part played by Faustus was at first in some degree respectable, and +that of a scholar. An old Erfurt Chronicle tells us that he had come to +that city and obtained permission from the university to deliver a +course of lectures on Homer. A dark rumor of his magic powers had +preceded him; the students, therefore, thronged to hear him, and, +deeply interested, requested him to let them see the heroes of Homer by +calling them from their graves. Faustus appointed another day for this, +received the excited youths in a dark chamber, commanded them to be +perfectly silent, and made the great men of the Greek bard rise up, one +by one, before their eyes. At length Polyphemus appeared; and the +one-eyed Cyclops, with his red hair, an iron spear in his hand, and, to +designate him at once as a cannibal, two bloody human thighs in his +mouth, looked so hideous, that the spectators were seized with horror +and disgust, the more so that the wily magician professed to have some +difficulty in dismissing the monster. Suddenly a violent shake of the +whole house was felt; the young men were thrown one over another, and +were seized with terror and dismay. Two of the students insisted upon +having already felt the teeth of the Cyclops.--This ridiculous story +was soon known throughout the city, and confirmed the suspicions of the +Franciscan monks and magistrates, that the learned guest was in league +with the Evil One. It is said that Faustus had previously offered to +procure for them the manuscripts of the lost comedies of Terence and +Plautus, and to leave them for a short time in their hands, to be +copied,--but that the fathers of the city and of the university +declined, because they believed this could be done only by sorcery, or +with the help of Satan. Now they sent to him the Guardian of the +Convent, Dr. Klinger, in order to convert him and to have masses read +for him, for the purpose of delivering him from his hellish connection. +But Faustus opposed, was by the clergy solemnly delivered to the Devil, +and, in consequence, banished from the city by the magistrates. + +We do not know whether it was for similar juggleries, that, when at +Wittenberg, the Elector John the Steadfast ordered him to be arrested, +as Manlius relates. He saved himself by flight. Melancthon, in one of +his letters, mentions having made his acquaintance; the whole tone of +the allusion, however, expresses contempt. + +The character of the miracles he performed soon ceased to have the +literary tincture of the one related above, and they became mere vulgar +juggleries and exhibitions of legerdemain, suited to the taste of the +multitude. Scholars turned their backs on him, and we find him only +among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their +carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of +his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any +request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of +ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus +enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep +themselves in readiness for cutting the fruit, but not to stir before +he gave them leave. And, behold, before the eyes of the gaping youths, +while they themselves were enveloped in a magic mist, there arose a +great vine, with as many bunches of grapes as there were persons in the +room. Suddenly the obscuring mist dissolved, and each one saw the +others with their hands at their own noses, ready to cut them off, as +the promised grapes. But the vine and the magician had disappeared, and +the disenchanted drunkards were left to their own rage. + +The reader will be aware that this is the tale of which Goethe availed +himself in representing Faustus's visit to Auerbach's cellar at +Leipzig. Whether it really occurred there is not stated; but that +Faustus was said to have been at Leipzig, and even in Auerbach's +cellar, is an historical fact, attested by two pictures still extant at +this famous old tavern, where many of our curious American travellers +may have seen them. These pictures, which have been retouched and +renovated more than once,--last in 1759,--are marked at the top with +the date 1525. Whether this means the year in which they were painted, +or that in which Faustus performed the great feat which the scene +represents, remains uncertain. As it occurred in the beginning of his +career, upon which we may assume him to have entered somewhere between +1520 and 1525, the date is quite likely to refer to the time of the +feat; but, to judge from the costumes and several other signs, the +pictures cannot have been painted much later. They were evidently made +expressly for the locality, sloping off on both sides at the top, to +suit the shape of the vault. The German inscription at the foot of one +of the pictures indicates that it was written after the Doctor's death, +which must have occurred between 1540 and 1550; but it is probable that +these verses were added at a later time, the more so as the traces of +an older inscription, now no longer legible, may still be discovered. +One of these curious paintings represents Faustus in company with +students and musicians sitting around a table covered with dishes and +bottles. Faustus is lifting his goblet with one hand, and with the +other beating time on the table to the music. At the bottom we read the +following verse in barbarous Latin:-- + + "Vive. Bibe. Obgregare. Memor Fausti hujus, et hujus + Poenae. Aderat claudo haec. Ast erat ampla + Gradu. 1525."[4] + +The other picture shows us the same jolly party risen from table, and +all expressing their wonder and astonishment, as Dr. Faustus is just +riding out of the door on a wine-tub. Beneath it is the following +inscription in German:-- + + "Dr. Faustus zu dieser Frist + Aus Auerbach's Keller geritten ist, + Auf einem Fass mit Wein geschwind, + Welches gesehn manch Mutterkind. + Solches durch seine subtilne Kunst hat gethan, + Und des Teufels Lohn empfangen davon. + 1525."[5] + +On neither of the two pictures does Mephistopheles appear, unless he is +meant to be represented in the shape of the black dog. It is not, +however, Goethe's poodle that meets us here, but a sleek little +creature with a collar around his neck, looking very much like a wooden +toy-dog. + +Most of the tricks and pranks reported of Dr. Faustus are of the same +absurd kind, though not all of so harmless a character. According to +the popular legend, he travelled like a great lord, had the spirits +pave the highways for him when he rode in the post-coach,--it seems, +then, that he did not always use his mantle,--and lived in the taverns +at which he stopped with an unheard-of luxury. On his departure, he +paid the hosts in a princely manner; but scarcely was he out of sight, +when the gold in the receiver's hand was changed to straw, or to round +slices of gilded horn,--a shabby trick indeed, as he could have as much +money as he liked. + +How much we have to believe of all these popular stories we may learn +from Dr. Phil. Begardi's "Zeyger der Gesundtheyt," (Guide to Health,) a +book published in 1539, at Worms, at a time when Faustus seems to have +already disappeared from Germany, after having lost caste there +completely, and when he was trying his fortune in other countries. + +"There is still another famous man," says Begardi, "whose name I would +rather not mention at all, only that he himself would not wish to +remain hidden or unknown. For he was roving, _some years ago_, through +all the different countries, principalities, and kingdoms, and has made +known his name and his great skill, boasting not only of his medical +science, but likewise of Chiromancy, Necromancy, Physiognomy, Visions +in Crystals, and more arts of the kind. And he called himself Faustus, +a celebrated experienced master, _philosophum philosophorum_, etc. But +the number of those who have complained to me of having been cheated by +him is very great. Well, his promises were likewise very great, just +like those of Thessalus, (in Galen's time,) and his reputation like +that of Theophrastus; but in deeds he was, I hear, found small and +deceitful. But in taking and receiving money he was never slow, and was +off before any one knew it." + +Thus we see the historical Faustus, the esteemed scholar, the skilful +physician, gradually merged in the juggler, the quack, the adventurer, +and the impostor. The popular legend follows him to foreign countries. +His magic mantle carries him, in eight days, over the whole world, and +even into the Infernal regions. He is honorably received at the +Emperor's court at Innspruck, introduces himself invisibly at Rome, +into the Vatican, where the Pope and his cardinals are assembled at a +banquet, snatches away his Holiness's plate and cup from before his +mouth, and, enraged at his crossing himself, boxes his ears. In the +puppet-shows he figures mostly at the court of the Duke of Parma. In +Venice his daring spirit presumed too far. He announced an exhibition +of a flight to heaven. But Mephistopheles, who had hitherto satisfied +his most extravagant demands, though often with grumbling, would not +permit _that_ feat. In the midst of a staring, wondering multitude, +Faustus rose to a certain height by means of his own Satanic skill, +acquired in his long intercourse with the Devil. But now the latter +showed that he was still his master. He suddenly hurled him from on +high, and he fell half dead upon the ground. The twenty-four years of +the compact, however, were not yet ended, and he was therefore restored +to life by the same hellish power. + +In a very trite, popular ballad, which we find in "Des Knaben +Wunderhorn," we see, that, when the travellers came to Jerusalem, the +Devil declined still another request. Faustus wishes him to make a +picture of Christ crucified, and to write under it his holy name. But +the Devil declared that he would rather give him back his signature +than be obliged to do _such_ a thing, and succeeded in turning the +Doctor's mind from the subject by showing him, instead, a picture of +Venus. + +Popular imagination seems to have been inexhaustible in stories of this +kind. But, after the twenty-four years of vile enjoyments, the hour of +retribution came at last. According to our scanty historical notices, +Faustus died an unnatural death: he was found dead in his bed, at his +birthplace, Kundlingen, with his neck twisted. How such a death must +have confirmed all the superstitious rumors about him the reader will +easily conceive. But, according to the popular legend, his end was +still more terrible. He seems to have returned to his own country, and +scholars, worthy young men, surround him once more, and become much +attached to him. From this one would suppose him to have been at +Wittenberg, or Ingoldstadt, or any university city, but, instead of +this, we find him in a little Saxon village, called Rimlich. The +twenty-fourth year draws to its close. At last, at the eleventh hour, +Faustus bethinks himself to repent; but it is too late. His end, +related in the simple language of the Volksbuch, is truly awful. He +dismisses his sympathizing friends, bidding them not to be disturbed by +any noises in the night. At midnight a terrible storm arises; it +reaches its height amid thunder and lightning. The friends hear a +fearful shriek. They rise and pray. But when, in the morning, they +enter his room, they are horror-struck at seeing his limbs scattered +round, and the walls, against which the fiend had dashed him to pieces, +covered with his blood. His body was found in the court-yard on a +dung-hill. + +The horror of this end made a peculiarly awful impression on the +popular mind. During the Thirty Years' War, it once happened that a +troop of Catholic soldiers broke into a village in Saxony, on the Elbe, +named Breda. They were just about to plunder one of the principal +houses, when the judge of the place, who, it seems, was a shrewd man, +stepped out and told them that this village was the one where Dr. +Faustus was carried off by the Devil, and that in this very house the +blood of the Doctor was still to be seen on the walls. The soldiers +were seized with terror, and left the village. + +The story of Faustus's adventurous life and shocking death, with its +impressive lessons, appears at first to have been kept extant only by +oral tradition. Nearly forty years passed before it was written down +and printed. But then, indeed, the book was received with so much +favor, that not only several new and enlarged editions appeared in a +short time, but many similar works were published soon after, which, +though founded on the oldest Volksbuch (of 1588) and Widmann's +"Histories," were yet abundant in new facts and inventions. And that +not to the illiterate classes alone was the subject interesting is +proved by the circumstance that a Latin version of the first Volksbuch +was advertised, and (probably) appeared. On the title-pages of all +these books it is expressly stated that they were written as a warning +to, and for the edification of, Christian readers. In 1712, a book was +published at Berlin, under the title, "ZauberkĆ¼nste und Leben Dr. +Fausti," (The Magic Arts and Life of Dr. Faust,) as the author of which +Christoph Wagner was named. Wagner himself became the subject of a +biographical work. + +Of still greater effect was Faustus's history on the stage. Through the +whole of the seventeenth, as well as the first half of the eighteenth +century, it remained one of the favorite subjects of puppet-shows, +popular melodramas, exhibitions of _ombres chinoises_, and pantomimes. +The more the awful event, with its moral lessons, receded into the +background of time, the more it lost its serious and impressive +character, until it became a mere burlesque, and _Hanswurst_ and +_Casperle_ its principal figures. + +The "Historie" had scarcely appeared, when it was translated into +Dutch, and the later publication of other similar works did not prevent +the demand for several new editions. These Dutch books were +illustrated, as were also the _newer_ German ones. Only a little later, +two French versions were published, one of which was even reprinted at +Paris as late as 1712. + +In Holland, our hero excited no small interest even among the artists. +There are extant several portraits of Faustus painted by Rembrandt,-- +whether ideal, or copied from older pictures, is not known. Another +Dutch painter, Christoph von Sichem, represented two scenes from the +life of the celebrated magician; and of these productions engravings +still exist. On the one, we see Faustus and Mephistopheles,--the +latter dressed like a monk, as, according to the popular tales, +he mostly appeared. On the other, Wagner and Auerhahn, (or Auerhain,) +--the latter in the shape of a monkey. There is a striking contrast +between Faustus and Wagner. The first is a well-dressed man, in +deep meditation; globes and instruments of science surround him;-- +the other the impersonation of vulgarity. Various scenes from +Faustus's life adorn the walls. Christoph von Sichem was born in +1580, and flourished at Amsterdam during the first quarter of the +seventeenth century. These pictures were consequently made when the +whole interest of the public for Faustus and his companions was still +fresh. + +Some books seem to have been published by Faustus during his +lifetime,--at least, his biographers allude to them; but it was only +after his death that the work which gave his name its chief reputation +became known. This was his peculiar System of Magic, called "Faust's +Hoellenzwang" (Compulsion of Hell). Wagner, who was said to be his +heir, published it first under the title of "Dr. Johannis Faust's +_Magia Celeberrima_, und _Tabula Nigra_, oder _Hoellenzwang_." It +contained all the different forms of conjuration, as well for the +citation as for the dismissal of spirits. There are, besides this, +several other similar works extant, such as his "Schwarzer +Mohrenstern," "Der schwarze Rabe," the "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," already mentioned, and several more, containing about the +same matter, and most of them written in his name. Of all these +productions only manuscripts are known to remain, although they are all +professedly copies of printed works. The most singular thing is, that, +while they are represented as having been published after the +magician's death, some of them are, nevertheless, marked with dates as +early as 1509, 1510, and 1511,--and with the names of Lion, (Lyons,) +London, etc., as the places where they were printed. These +circumstances make their authenticity very doubtful, even if we allow +for mistakes made by the copyists. + +Although so large a part of Faustus's life was, according to the +popular legend, spent in Italy, we are not aware that this legend was +ever current among the Italian people. Some unfortunate attempts have +been made to engraft the story of Don Giovanni upon this German stock, +but, as it seems to us, by very arbitrary arguments and conclusions. +The career of a mere rake, who shuns no means of gratifying his low +appetites, has little analogy with that of an originally honest +inquirer, led astray by the want of faith and his sensual nature. The +only resemblance is in the end. There was at first more apparent +success in the endeavor to transplant the tale to Spain, where +Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso" was taken by some critics for a +representation of it. The foundation of Calderon's drama, as mentioned +before, is rather the legend of St. Cyprianus. More may be said in +favor of the radical identity of the stories of Faustus with some +popular legends of the Poles, referring to a necromancer called +Twardowski. But Polish scholars will not admit this; at least, they +object to giving up their great magician, and some attempts have even +been made from that side to prove that theirs is the original whom the +Germans appropriated under the name of _Faust_. + +The most interesting result of the publication of the Volksbuch +appeared in England, where it fell, for the first, and in a hundred and +fifty years the only time, into the hands of a poet. Mr. Collier, in +his "History of English Dramatic Poetry," says,--"In 1588, a ballad of +the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus was licensed to be printed"; and +adds,--"This would, according to the language of the time, have meant +any composition in verse, even the play," (of Marlowe,) and +subsequently mentions the same circumstance with reference to "the old +romance of Dr. Faustus." On this, Mr. A. Dyce (Works of Christopher +Marlowe, 1850, I. p. xvi., note) remarks,--"When Mr. Collier states +that the old romance of Faustus was entered into the Stationers' books +in 1588, (according to a note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 42,) he meant, I +apprehend, the old _ballad_." If we bear in mind that the first German +History of Dr. Faustus did not appear before the same year, we should +also conclude that he must have meant the ballad, as a translation +could hardly have been made in so short a time. But considering, on the +other hand, that the tragedy, which cannot have been composed later +than 1589 or 1590, (as the poet, who was murdered in 1593, wrote +several pieces after the one in question,) is evidently and without the +least doubt founded on the Volksbuch, often adopting the very language +of its English version, we must conclude that a translation of the +German work was made immediately after its appearance, or possibly even +from the manuscript,--which Spiess, the German editor, professes to +have obtained from Spires. Although the word "ballad" was not properly +employed for prose romances, it may have been thus used in Henslowe's +Diary by mistake. We are not aware that any _old_ English version of +this "History of Dr. Faustus" is now extant; that from which Mr. Dyce +quotes is of 1648. Marlowe's tragedy was first entered in the +Stationers' books in 1600-1, but brought upon the stage many years +before. In 1597, it had already been played so often that additions +were required. Philips, who wrote about fifty years later, remarks, +that, "of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his 'Dr. Faustus' +has made the greatest noise with its devils and such-like tragical +sport." In course of time it was "made into a farce, with the Humors of +Harlequin and Scaramouch," and represented through the whole kingdom, +like similar compositions, with immense applause. + +Marlowe's "Faustus" has been judged rather favorably by modern English +critics. Mr. Hazlitt calls it, "though an imperfect and unequal +performance, Marlowe's greatest work." Mr. Hallam remarks,--"There is an +awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistopheles, perhaps more +impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work +of Goethe." Charles Lamb even preferred Marlowe's "Faustus," as a +whole, to the latter! Mr. Collier calls it "a drama of power, novelty, +interest, and variety." So, indeed, it is; but all that power, +interest, novelty, and variety do not belong to Marlowe, but to the +prose romance, after which he wrote. Indeed, he followed it so +closely,--as every reader can see for himself, by reading the play in +Dyce's edition, and comparing it with the notes under the text,--that +sometimes whole scenes are copied, and even whole speeches, as, for +instance, that of the Emperor Charles V. The coarse buffoonery, in +particular, of which the work is full, is retained word for word. Of +the countless absurdities and prolixities of the Volksbuch, Marlowe +has, of course, omitted a great deal, and condensed the story to the +tenth part of its original length; but the fundamental idea, the plot, +and the characters, belong exclusively to the original. Marlowe's +poetical merit lies partly in the circumstance that he was the first to +feel the depth and power of that idea, partly in the thoughts and +pictures with which some speeches, principally the monologues of +Faustus himself, are interwoven. The Faustus of Marlowe is the Faust of +the legend, tired of learning because it is so unproductive, and +selling his soul, not for knowledge, but for wealth and power. His +investigating conversations with Mephistopheles, his inquiries, and the +answers of the latter, are almost as shallow and childish as those in +the People's Book; and Faustus himself remarks, on the information +which his companion gives him,-- + + "Those slender trifles Wagner could decide; + Has Mephistopheles no greater skill?" + +This latter, indeed, seems to us, in spite of the admiration of English +critics, a decided failure. There is in him no trace of either the +cruel, icy-cold malignity of the fiend of Goethe, or the awful grandeur +of Milton's Tempter. It cannot be said that Marlowe's Devil seduces +Faustus. He is almost on the verge of repentance himself; of the two, +he is decidedly the better Christian. The proposition of the compact +comes from Faustus himself, and Mephistopheles only accepts it. +Marlowe's Faustus knows nothing of the feeling of aversion and disgust +with which Goethe's Faust sees himself bound to his hellish companion; +he calls him, repeatedly, "sweet Mephistopheles," and declares,-- + + "Had I as many souls as there be stars, + I'd give them all for Mephistopheles." + +Mr. Hallam, in comparing Marlowe's production with Goethe's, +remarks,--"The fair form of Margaret is wanting." As if this were all +that was wanting! Margaret belonged, indeed, exclusively to Goethe. But +Helena, the favorite ideal of beauty of all old writers, is introduced +in the popular tale, and so, too, in Marlowe. Faustus conjures up her +spirit at the request of the students. Her beauty is described with +glowing colors; "it would," says the old romance, "nearly have enflamed +the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, +which made them lightly passe away such fancies." Not so Faustus; +although he is already in the twenty-third year of his compact, he +himself falls in love with the spirit, and keeps her with him until his +end. In all this, Marlowe follows closely; though he has good taste +enough to suppress the figure of the little Justus Faustus, who was the +fruit of this union. + +It now only remains to us to consider the way in which modern poets +have apprehended the idea of the Faust-fable. None of the German dramas +and operas which the seventeenth century produced, though they never +failed to draw large audiences, could be compared, in poetical value, +to Marlowe's tragedy. The German stage of that period was of very low +standing, and the few poets who wrote for it, as, for instance, +Lohenstein, preferred foreign subjects,--the more remote in space and +time, the better. The writers of neither the first nor the second +Silesian school were exactly the men to appreciate the depth of a +legend like that of Faustus,--still less the watery poets of the +beginning of the eighteenth century. Lessing, who, with his sharp, +sound criticism, and his clear perception of the beautiful, led the way +to a higher state of things in literature, appears also to have been +the first to discover the deep meaning buried in the popular farces of +Faustus. He pronounced it worthy the genius of a Shakspeare, and +himself attempted to make it the subject of a tragedy. How much it +occupied his mind we may conclude from the circumstance that he seems +to have made for it two plans, essentially different from each other. +We can only regret that they were never executed. Although Lessing was +not a poetical genius like Goethe, the power and acuteness of his mind +were so eminent, the force of his critical faculties was so +penetrating, that his treatment of a subject of so much depth and +intrinsic poetry would have been of the highest interest. This +expectation is also justified by the few sketches of single scenes +which are all that remain of his plans. One of the latter is, indeed, +also in so far remarkable, as we see from it that Lessing's mind +inclined to the modern view, according to which Faustus ought to be and +would be finally saved. One of the devils describes him, before +temptation, as "a solitary, thinking youth, entirely devoted to +wisdom,--living, breathing, only for wisdom and knowledge,--renouncing +every passion but the one for truth,--highly dangerous to thee [Satan] +and to us all, if he were ever to be a teacher of the people." Satan +resolves at once to seduce and destroy him. But Faustus's good angel +has mercy on him. He buries him in a deep sleep, and creates in his +place a phantom, with which the cheated devils try successfully the +whole process of temptation and seduction. All this appears to Faustus +in a dream. He awakes; the Devil discovers his error, and flies with +shame and fury, and Faustus, thanking Providence for its warning, +clings to truth and virtue more firmly than ever. + +The other plan, to judge from the fragment we possess, is less +fanciful, and seems to follow more closely the popular tradition, +according to which the temptations of Faustus were by no means +external, but lay deep in his individual mind. In one of its +lightly-sketched scenes, the poet has evidently availed himself of the +one from the Miracle-Book heretofore mentioned, and, indeed, with a +great deal of force. Faustus, impatient and annoyed at the slow process +of human action, desires the quickest servant from hell, and +successively cites seven spirits. One after another he rejects. The +arrows of the plague, the wings of the winds, the beams of light, are +all not quick enough for him. The fifth spirit rises:-- + +"_Faustus_. How quick art thou? + +"_Fifth Spirit_. As quick as the thoughts of men. + +"_Faustus_. That is something!--But the thoughts of men are not always +quick. They are slothful when truth and virtue demand them. Thou canst +be quick, if thou wilt. But who will warrant me thy being always +quick?--No, I trust thee as little as I ought to have trusted +myself.--Ah!--(to the sixth spirit.) Now tell me how quick thou art! + +"_Sixth Spirit_. As quick as the vengeance of the Avenger. + +"_Faustus_. Of the Avenger? Of what Avenger? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. Of the All-powerful, the Terrible, who has kept +vengeance for himself alone, because vengeance is his delight. + +"_Faustus_. Devil, thou blasphemest, for I see thou art +trembling!--Quick, thou sayest, as the vengeance of----no! he may not +be named among us! Quick, thou sayest, is his vengeance? Quick? And I +still live? And I still sin? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. That he suffereth thee still to sin is the beginning +of his vengeance. + +"_Faustus_. Oh that a Devil should teach me this!--But no, his +vengeance is not quick; if thou art no quicker, begone!--(To the +seventh spirit.) How quick art thou? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. Unsatisfiable (_unzuvergnuegender_) mortal! If I, +too, am not quick enough for thee------ + +"_Faustus_. Tell me, then, how quick? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. No more nor less than the transition from Good to +Evil. + +"_Faustus_. Ha! thou art my devil! Quick as the transition from Good to +Evil!--Yes, that is quick! Nothing is quicker!--Away from here, ye +horrors of Orcus! Away!--Quick as the transition from Good to Evil!--I +have learned how quick that is! I know it!" + +Lessing had this fragment printed in the "Literaturbriefe," professedly +as a specimen of one of the old popular dramas, despised at that time +by the higher classes, though Lessing remarks,--"How fond was Germany +once of its Dr. Faustus,--and is so, partly, still!" But even this bold +reformer of German taste seems not to have had the temerity to come +forward at once as the author of a conception so entirely contrary to +the reigning rules and the Frenchified taste by which, at the period of +the "Literaturbriefe," (1759-1763,) Germany was still subjugated. + +We do not know whether some of the young poets who took hold of the +subject a short time after were instigated by this fragment of +Lessing's, or whether they were moved by the awakening German Genius, +who, just at that period, was beginning to return to his national +sources for the quenching of his thirst. Between 1770 and 1780, Lenz +and Maler MĆ¼ller composed, the former his "Hoellenrichter," the latter +his dramatized Life of Dr. Faustus. No more appropriate hero could have +been found for the young "Kraft-Genies" of the "Sturm und Drang +Periode" (Storm and Stress period) of German literature. Schreiber, +Soden, Klinger, Schink, followed them, the last-named with several +productions referring to the subject. In 1786, Goethe communicated to +the world, for the first time, a fragment of that astonishing dramatic +poem which has since been acknowledged, by the whole literary public, +as his masterpiece, and the most remarkable monument of his great +genius.[6] The whole first part of the tragedy, still under the name of +a fragment, was not published before 1808. Since then Germany may be +said to have been inundated by "Fausts" in every possible shape. Dramas +by Nic. Voigt, K. Schoene, Benkowitz,--operas by Adolph BƤurle, J. von +Voss, Bernard, (with music by Spohr,)--tales in verse and prose by +Kamarack, Seybold, Gerle, and L. Bechstein,--and besides these, the +productions of various anonymous writers, followed close upon each +other in the course of the next twenty years. Chamisso's tragedy of +"Faustus," "in one actus," in truth only a fragment, had already +appeared in the "Musenalmanach" of 1804. + +To Goethe the legendary literature of his nation had been familiar from +his boyhood. Very early in life, and several years before the +publication of Maler MĆ¼ller's spirited drama, his mind was powerfully +impressed by the Faust-fable, and the greater part of the present +fragmentary poem was already written and ready for print when MĆ¼ller's +first sketch, under the title, "Situations in the Life of Dr. Faustus," +appeared (1776). As the entire poetry of Goethe was more or less +_autobiographical_,--that is, as all his poetical productions reflect, +to a certain extent, his own personal sensations, trials, and +experiences,--he fused himself and his inner life into the mould of +Faustus, with all his craving for knowledge, his passionate love of +Nature, his unsatisfied longings and powerful temptations, adhering +closely in all external action to the popular story, though of course +in a symbolic spirit Goethe had, as he tells us himself, a happy +faculty of delivering himself by poetical production, as well of all +the partly imaginary, partly morbid cares and doubts which troubled his +mind, as of the real and acute sufferings which tormented him, for a +certain period, even to agony. Love, doubt, sorrow, passion, +remorse--all found an egress from his soul into a poem, a novel, a +parable, a dramatic character, or some other form of poetical +expression. He felt as if eased of a burden, after having thus given +his feelings body and shape. Thus his works became his history. +"Faust," in its two parts, is the production of his lifetime. Conceived +in early youth, worked out in manhood, completed in old age, it became +a vehicle for all the various commotions of his existence. There is no +other poem which contains such a diversity of thought and feeling, such +a variety of sentences, pictures, scenes, and situations. For enlarging +on the poetical value of this incomparable work this is not the place. +Closely as Goethe has followed up the popular legend, it is +emphatically and entirely his own production, because it contains his +complete self. + +Nearly a quarter of a century passed before this extraordinary poem was +followed by its second part. It is not difficult to trace in this +continuation, published only after the death of the aged poet, the few +scenes which may have been composed contemporarily with or soon after +the first part; but that the whole is conceived and executed in a +totally different spirit not even the most unconditional admirers of +Goethe's genius will deny. There is no doubt that he regarded his +"Faust" only as a beginning, and always contemplated a continuation. +The _rĆ“le_ of Dr. Faustus, the popular magician, was only half-played. +Its most brilliant part, his intercourse with the great of the earth +and the heroes of the past, had not yet commenced. But as, in the +course of advancing life, the poet's views and ideas changed, the +mirror of his soul reflected an altered world to him; and as the second +part of "Faust" is hardly less an image of himself than the first, it +is not unnatural that it is as different from the latter as the Goethe +the septuagenarian was from Goethe the youth. + +Meanwhile the _literati_ of Germany became exceedingly impatient for +the promised second part; and when the master lingered, and did not +himself come forth with the solution of the mystery, the disciples +attempted to supply him as well as they could. C.C.L. Schoene and J.D. +Hoffmann had both the requisite courage for such an undertaking; and +the first even sent his production, with perfect _naĆÆvetĆ©_, to the +great master, as the second part of his own work. C. Rosenkranz and +Gustav Pfitzer--two very honorable names--also wrote after-plays. + +We must confess that we have never felt any desire to see "Faust" +continued. It ought to have remained a fragment. Its last scene, +perhaps, surpasses, in sublimity and heart-rending power, anything ever +written. No light of this world can ever entirely clear up the sacred +mystery of the Beyond, but that scene gives us a surety for the +salvation of Margaret, and _hope_ for Faust, to every one who has not +forgotten the words of the Lord in the second Prologue:-- + + "Draw down this spirit from its source, + And, _canst thou catch him_, to perdition + Carry him with thee in thy course; + But stand abashed, if thou must needs confess + That a good man, though passion blur his vision, + Has of the right way still a consciousness."[7] + +By the appearance of the second part of "Faust" the magic spell was +completely broken. No work of Art of a more chilling, disenchanting +character was ever produced. For the striking individuality of the +first part, we have here nothing but abstractions; for its deep poetry, +symbolism; for its glow and thrilling pathos, a plastic finish, hard +and cold as marble; for its psychological truth, a bewildering +mysticism. All the fine thoughts and reflections, and all the abundance +of poetical passages, scattered like jewels through the thick mist of +the whole work, cannot compensate for its total want of interest; and +we doubt whether many readers have ever worked their way through its +innumerable obscure sayings and mystical allegories without feeling +something of the truth of Voltaire's remark: "_Tout genre est permis +hors le genre ennuyeux_." + +The impression which the first part of "Faust," the poetical +masterpiece of German literature, made among foreigners, was, though in +some instances ultimately powerful, yet on the whole surprisingly slow. +While the popular legend, in its coarsest shape, had, in its time, +spread with the rapidity of a running fire through all countries, the +great German poet's conception of it, two hundred years later, found no +responding echo in either French or English bosoms. Here and there some +eccentric genius may have taken it up, as, for instance, Monk Lewis, +who, in 1816, communicated the fundamental idea to Lord Byron, reading +and translating it to him _vivĆ¢ vocĆ©_, and suggesting to him, in this +indirect way, the idea of his "Manfred." But even the more profound +among the few German scholars then extant in England did not understand +"Faust," and were inclined to condemn it,--as, for instance, Coleridge, +who, as we see from his "Table-Talk," misconceived the whole idea of +the poem, and found fault with the execution, because it was different +from what he fancied he himself would have made of this legend, had he +taken it in hand. The first English translation was published in the +same year as the first French version, that is, in 1825; both were +exceedingly imperfect. Since then several other translations in prose +and verse have appeared in both languages, especially in +English,--though the "twenty or thirty metrical ones" of which Mr. C.T. +Brooks speaks in his preface are probably to be taken as a mere mode of +speech,--and lately one by this gentleman himself, in our very midst. +This latter comes, perhaps, as near to perfection as it is possible for +the reproduction of all idiomatic poetical composition in another +language to do. All this indicates that the time for the just +appreciation of German literature in general and of Goethe in +particular is drawing near at last; that its influence has for some +time been felt is proved, among other things, by that paraphrastic +imitation of "Faust," Bailey's "Festus." + +That a poem like "Faust" could not at first be generally understood is +not unnatural. Various interpretations of its seeming riddles have been +attempted; and if the volumes of German "Goethe-Literature" are +numerous enough to form a small library, those of the "Faust- +Literature" may be computed to form the fourth part of it. To +the English reader we cannot recommend highly enough, for the full +comprehension of "Faust," the commentary on this poem which Mr. Lewes +gives in his "Life of Goethe," as perhaps the most excellent portion of +that excellent work. Goethe himself has given many a hint on his own +conception, and as to how far it was the reflex of his own soul. "The +puppet-show-fable of 'Faust,'" he says, "murmured with many voices in +my soul. I, too, had wandered into every department of knowledge, and +had returned disgusted, and convinced of the vanity of science. And +life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and had always come back +sorrowing and unsatisfied." "Faust's character," he says in another +place, "at the height to which the modern elaboration (_Ausbildung_) of +the old, crude, popular tale has raised it, represents a man, who, +feeling impatient and uncomfortable within the general limits of earth, +esteems the possession of the highest knowledge, the enjoyment of the +fairest worldly goods, inadequate to satisfy his longings even in the +least degree, a mind which, turning to every side in search of this +satisfaction, ever recedes into itself with increased unhappiness."--He +remarks, too, that "the approbation which this poem has met with, far +and near, may be owing to the rare peculiarity, that it fixes +permanently the developing process of a human mind, which by everything +that torments humanity is also pained, by all that troubles it is also +agitated, by what it condemns is likewise enthralled, and by what it +desires is also made happy."[8] + +If this article were devoted to Goethe's "Faust," instead of the +popular legend of Faustus, of which the former is only the most eminent +apprehension, it would be easy to add to these reasons for the +universal "approbation" which it has won still others, founded on the +great genius of the poet. This, however, would by far exceed our +limits. + +[Footnote 1: Some regard Sabellicus and Faustus Socinus as one and the +same person.] + +[Footnote 2: _Historie von D. Johann Fausten, aan weltbeschreyten +Zauberer und SchwarzkĆ¼nstler_, etc. Frankfurt a. M. 1588.] + +[Footnote 3: _Wahrhaftige Historien von den greulichen und +abscheulichen SĆ¼nden und Lastern, etc., so D. Johannes Faustus, etc., +bis an sein schreckliches End hat getrieben, etc._, erklƤrt durch Georg +Rudolf Widmann. Hamburg, 1599.] + +[Footnote 4: Live, drink, and be merry, remembering this Faust and his +punishment. It came slowly, but was in ample measure. 1525.] + +[Footnote 5: Dr. Faustus on this day From Auerbach's cellar rode away, +Of a barrel of wine astride, Which many mothers'-children eyed; This +through his subtle art achieved, And for it the Devil's reward +received. 1525.] + +[Footnote 6: It first appeared in the fourth volume of his Works. +Leipzig. Goeschen. 1786.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Brooks's translation.] + +[Footnote 8: _Kunst und Alterthum_. B. VI. Heft I., II.] + + + +MISS WIMPLE'S HOOP. + + +"Believe in God and yourself, and do the best you can." + +In Hendrik on the Hudson, fifty miles from New York, there was, winter +before last, a certain "patent seamless."-- + +But a hooped skirt with a history, touching and teaching, is no theme +for flippancy; so, by your leave, I will unwind my story tenderly, and +with reverential regard for its smooth turns of sequence. + +The Wimples, of whom Sally is the last, were among the oldest and most +respectable of Hendrik families. Sally's father, Mr. Paul Wimple, had +been a publisher in good standing, and formerly did a flourishing +business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite +penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all +gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he +returned to Hendrik, his native place. + +There, the friends of his youth, steadfast and generous, pitying his +sad plight, and having perfect faith in his unimpeached integrity, +purchased--principally at the sale in bankruptcy of his own effects--a +modest stock of new and second-hand books and magazines, together with +some stationery and a few fancy articles in that line, and +reestablished him in the humble but peaceful calling of a country +bookseller. They called his shop "The Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating +Library," and all the county subscribed; for, at first, the Wimples +were the fashionable charity, "the Wimples were always so very +respectable, you know," and Sally was such a sweet girl that really it +was quite an interesting case. Mrs. Splurge forthwith began improving +the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions +for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of +fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times +competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful +charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar +investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note," +motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory +tablets, pencil-sharpeners, and ink-erasers. + +But all their munificence came to nought. Mr. Paul Wimple's heart was +broken,--as they say of any weary Sysiphus who lies down by his stone +and sleeps forever;--so he died. + +Poor little Sally! The first thing she did was to disappoint her +friends, and shock the decencies of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on +all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else +fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold, +corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'" But +when they came, with all their tedious commonplaces of a stupid +condolence not wholly innocent of curiosity, Sally thanked them with +dry eyes and prudent lips and quiet nerves, and only said she thought +she should do very well after she had set the house to rights and slept +awhile. The sewing-circle of that week was a coroner's inquest on +Sally's character, and "ungrateful," "cold-blooded," "indecent," "worse +than a hypocrite," were not the hardest epithets in the verdict of the +jury. + +But Sally set the place to rights, and bade her father's old friends to +the funeral, and buried him with all the money that was in the house, +neither asking nor accepting aid from any; and with the poor pittance +that her severe conscience could afford her sorrow she procured some +cheap material of the doleful sort and went into the most unbecoming of +"full mourning." When she made her appearance in church,--which she +did, as usual, the very first Sunday after the funeral,--that plainest +of bonnets and straitest of black delaines, unadorned save by the +old-fashioned and dingy lace-cape, descended through many shifts of +saving from her long-ago-dead-and-gone mother, were so manifestly a +condescending concession to the conventionalities or superstitions of +Hendrik, and said so plainly, "This is for your 'decencies,'--it is all +that I can honestly spare, and more than you should demand,--my life is +mourning enough,"--that all the congregation bristled at the affront. +Henceforth Miss Wimple--no longer dear Sally, or even Miss Sally, but +sharp "Miss Wimple"--had that pew to herself. + +Now I believe it was not generally known in Hendrik that Miss Wimple +had narrowly escaped being a very pretty girl. She was but just in her +nineteenth year when her father died. Her features were regular, her +expression lovely, her complexion, before trouble nipped the roses of +her cheeks, full of the country's freshness. She had tender eyes, +profoundly overshadowed by long, pensive lashes; in the sweet lines of +her very delicate mouth a trace of quiet pride was prettily blended +with thoughtfulness, and a just-forming smile that was always +melancholy. Her feet were little, and her hands were soft and white; +nor had toil and sorrow, and the weariness, and indifference to self, +that come of them, as yet impaired the symmetry of her well-turned +shape, or the elasticity of her free and graceful carriage. Her +deportment was frank and self-reliant, and her manners, though +reserved, far from awkward; her complete presence, indeed, compelled +consideration and invited confidence. + +In her father's lifetime, she had sought, on occasions of unwonted +cheerfulness, to please him with certain charming tricks of attire; and +sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided +shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a +carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the +prettiness of Sally Wimple. + +But now there was no longer a grateful life for her white rose-star to +brighten; so she sat down, in her loneliness and sombre unbecomingness, +between her forlorn counters with their pitiful shows of stock, and let +her good looks go by, entertaining only brave thoughts of duty,--till +she grew pale "and fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces," +so that "how anybody could see the least beauty in that distressing +Miss Wimple" began to be with many a sincere and almost reasonable +expression of surprise, instead of a malicious sin against knowledge. +She waited for customers, but they seldom came,--often, from opening to +window-barring, not one; for the unwilting little martyr of the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Circulating Library had made herself a highly +disapproved-of Miss Wimple by her ungrateful and contumacious behavior +at her father's death, even if the hard and sharp black lines of that +scrimped delaine had not sufficed to turn the current of admiration, +interest, and custom. Besides, the attractions of her slender stock +were all exhausted. She had not the means of refreshing it with pretty +novelties and sentimental toys in that line,--with albums and +valentines, fancy portfolios and pocket-secretaries, pearl paper-knives +and tortoise-shell cardcases, Chinese puzzles and _papier-machĆ©_ +checker-boards. Nor was the Library replenished "to keep up with the +current literature of the day"; its last new novel was a superannuated +dilapidation; not one of its yearly subscribers but had worked through +the catalogue once and a half. + +Since the funeral, and especially since the inauguration of the +delaine, Mrs. Marmaduke Splurge had been less alive to the necessity of +improving the minds of her girls; and that virginal ten-dollar +investment had provided Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline with supplies +of small arms and ammunition enough for a protracted campaign of +epistolary belligerence, interrupted by hair-strokes of coquettish +diplomacy. + +In the flaunting yellow house on the hill the widow and daughters of +the late Marmaduke Splurge, Esq., railroad-director and real-estate +broker, fondled and hated each other. Mrs. Marmaduke was a +well-preserved woman, stylish, worldly-minded, and weak. Miss +Josephine, her eldest, was handsome, patronizing, _passĆ©e_, and a +sentimental fool; Miss Adelaide, who came next, was handsome, +eccentric, malicious, and sly; and Miss Madeline, the youngest, was +handsome, distinguished-looking, intellectual, passionate, and proud. + +Mrs. Marmaduke's heart was set on marrying her daughters +"advantageously," and she gave all of her narrow mind to that thankless +department. Josephine insisted on a romantic attachment, and pursued a +visionary spouse with all the ardor and obstinacy of first-rate +stupidity. Adelaide had the weakness to hate Josephine, the shrewdness +to fear Madeline, and the viciousness to despise her mother; she +skilfully and diligently devoted herself to the thwarting of the +family. Madeline waited, only waited,--with a fierceness so dangerously +still that it looked like patience,--hated her insulting bondage, but +waited, like Samson between the pillars upon which the house of Dagon +stood, resolved to free herself, though she dragged down the edifice +and were crushed among the wreck. + +Mrs. Marmaduke talked tediously of the trials and responsibilities of +conscientious mothers who have grown-up daughters to provide for, was +given to frequent freshets of tears, consumed many "nervous pills" of +the retired-clergyman-whose-sands-of-life-have-nearly-run-out sort, and +netted bead purses for the Select Home for Poor Gentlemen's Daughters. +Josephine let down her back hair dowdily, partook recklessly of poetry +and pickles, read inordinately in bed,--leaning all night on her +elbow,--and was threatened with spinal curvature and spiritualism. +Adelaide set invisible little traps in every nook and cranny, every +cupboard and drawer, from basement to attic, and with a cheerful, +innocent smile sat watching them night and day. Madeline, fiercely +calm, warned off the others, with pale lips and flashing eyes and +bitter tongue, resenting _en famille_ the devilish endearments she so +sweetly suffered in company; but ever as she groped about in her soul's +blindness she felt for the central props of that house of Dagon. + +All the good society of Hendrik said the Splurges were a charming +family, a most attached and happy family, lovely in their lives and in +death not to be divided, and that they looked sweetly in hoops. And yet +the Splurges had but few visitors; the young women of the neighborhood, +when they called there, left always an essential part of their true +selves behind them as they entered, and an ornamental part of their +reputations when they took their departure; nor were the young men +partial to the name,--for Josephine bored them, and Adelaide taunted +them, and Madeline snubbed them, and Mrs. Marmaduke pumped them, and +the combined family confounded them. Only Mr. Philip Withers was the +intimate and encouraged _habituĆ©_ of the house. + +Mr. Philip Withers was the very man for the looser principles of +Hendrik,--a fine gentleman's fine son, and his only one, who, by the +death of his father, had come, whilst he was yet very young, into a +pretty property in the neighborhood,--a sort of idyllic man of the +world, with considerable cleverness, a neat miscellaneous education, +handsome person, effective clothes, plausible address, mischievous +brilliancy of versatile talk, a deep voice, two or three +accomplishments best adapted to the atmosphere of sentimental women, +graceful self-possession, small feet, nice hands, striking attitudes, a +subduing smile, magnetic whisper, Machiavellian tact, and French +morals. He could sing you into tears, and dance you into love, and talk +you into wonder; when he drew, you begged for his portrait by himself, +and when he wrote, you solicited his autograph. + +Mr. Philip Withers had taken his moustache to foreign parts, and done +the Continent sophisticatedly. He was well-read in cities, and had +brought home a budget of light, popular, and profusely illustrated +articles of talk on an equivocal variety of urban life, which he +prettily distributed among clovery pastorals, Wordsworthian ballads, De +Coverly entertainments, Crayon sketches, and Sparrowgrass Papers, for +the benefit of his country subscribers. From all of which you have no +doubt gathered by this time that Mr. Philip Withers was a graceful +scamp, and a friend of the Splurges,--who had money, which Mr. Philip +Withers had not; for he had been a munificent patron of elegant +pleasures abroad, and since his return had erected an addition to his +father's house in the shape of a pair of handsome mortgages, as a +proprietor of romantic tastes in architecture might flank his front +door with mediaeval donjons. + +Mrs. Marmaduke made much of that good-looking and delightful Withers. +Though not a pious man, in the formal sense of the term, she felt sure +he was religious according to that stained-glass and fragrant religion +of the tastes which is an essential attribute of every gentleman,--that +is, of every well-born man of cultivated preferences and sensitive +antipathies,--and she had no doubt that gentlemen's souls could be +saved by that arrangement just as satisfactorily, and so much more +gracefully. She only wished, my dear, you could hear Mr. Withers +express himself on those subjects,--his ideas were so delightfully +"your deal, my love"--clear, his illustrations so sweetly pretty, and +his manner so earnest; really, he stirred her like--"hearts, did you +say?--a trump." + +Josephine Splurge contented herself with letting down her back hair for +Mr. Withers and making eyes at him. + +"Good-morrow to the guileless Genevieve!"--Withers delighted in +dispensing equivocal nothings to the dowdy Muse of the sofa and back +hair.--"Charming weather!" + +"There, you bewildering Joseph Surface, you need not go on,--I know +what you are going to say, and I will neither be flattered nor +fascinated. Come, confess now, like a dear candid creature, throw off +your irresistibly bewitching mask, and own that your sentiments are all +rhetoric." + +"Josy, dear," Adelaide would insinuate, "what a wonderful memory you +have!--so well managed, too! Now whom _did_ you hear say that?" + +Josephine was wont to declare that the Admirable Crichton lived again +in that kaleidoscopic creature; but he was so dazzling, so bewildering, +so dangerous, that to converse with him was like having fireworks in +one's boudoir. + +With Madeline Withers was on strange terms, if any terms at all. She +threatened to him in the middle of his best stories, smiled quietly +when he preached, yawned to his poetical recitations, left the room +when he sang, mistook the subjects of his sketches with a +verisimilitude of innocence that often deceived even himself, was +silent and sneered much whenever he was present. And all these +rudenesses she performed with a successful air of genuine abstraction; +they never failed of their intention by being overdone, or by being too +_directly_ directed at him. + +Remarks seldom passed between these two; when they did, Withers spoke +always first, and Madeline replied briefly and with politeness. And yet +there were occasions when a sharp-sighted and suspicious observer might +have detected a strange discomposure in Madeline's conduct in the +presence of Withers,--when, indeed, she seemed to be laboring under +irritability, and proneness to singular excitement, which began with +his entrance and disappeared with his departure. At such times she +would break her haughty quiet with fierce sallies upon her sisters; but +Withers stung her back into silence with sharp and telling retorts,--as +you may have seen a practised beast-tamer in a cage flog an angry +tigress, when her eyes flashed, and her ears were set back, and she +unsheathed her horrid claws, and lashed her sides, and growled with all +the appalling fee-faw-fum of the jungle,--flog her back into her +corner, with nought more formidable than a lady's riding-whip, dainty, +slender, and sharp. But Withers administered the chastisement with such +devilish grace that it was unperceived, save by the quick, shrewd +Adelaide perhaps, who perceived everything,--but never _saw_, nor ever +spoke. If you could have beheld the lips and the eyes of Madeline, on +such occasions, you would have cursed this Philip Withers, or beaten +him to her feet. + +Between Withers and Adelaide the relations were plainer; indeed, before +the small Splurge set they appeared as avowed lovers. Toward "Addy" +Withers was all elegant devotion and gracious gallantry, knight-like in +his chivalric and debonair devoir. + +For Withers Addy was, openly, all deference and tenderly wistful +solicitude, but in secret not all security and exultation. Even while +it seemed high triumph in her heart's camp, her well-drilled eyes and +ears were still on guard, and her hidden thoughts lay upon their arms. + +Still it wore the aspect of a lyric match, and the hearts of humbler +Hendrik lovers set it to music. + +"For other guests," Withers seemed to say, + + "I wile the hours with tale or song, + Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme; + But how to find a fitting lay for thee, + Who hast the harmonies of every time?" + +And Addy _looked_, + + "Thou art to me most like a royal guest, + Whose travels bring him to some humble roof, + Where simple rustics spread their festal fare, + And, blushing, own it is not good enough. + + "Bethink thee, then, whene'er thou com'st to me, + From high emprise and noble toil to rest, + My thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine, + But the poor mansion offers thee its best." + +So Mrs. Marmaduke exalted her horn and exceedingly magnified her +manoeuvring office. On the strength of it, she treated herself to +profuse felicitations and fished among her neighbors for more. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +And now I will let you into a secret, which, according to the received +rules for story-construction, should be barred against you yet a little +longer. I will fling it wide open at once, instead of holding it ajar +and admitting you edgewise, as it were, one conjecture at a time. + +Miss Wimple had a lover;--she had had him since six months before her +father died, and the decayed publisher had never guessed of him nor +Sally confessed him; for the good, thoughtful daughter knew it would +but complicate the old man's perplexities and cares to no purpose. To +be sure, his joyful consent was certain; but so long as he lived, "the +thing was not to be thought of," she said, and it was not wise to plant +in his mind a wish with which her duty could not accord. So Sally's +lover was hushed up,--hidden in discretion as in a closet. + +Simon Blount was his name, and he was a young farmer of five hundred +acres in first-rate cultivation, with barns, stables, and offices in +complete repair,--a well-stocked, well-watered place, with "all the +modern improvements," and convenient to the Hendrik branch of the New +York and Bunker Hill railroad. + +The young man had inherited this very neat property from his father,--a +thriving, intelligent farmer of the best class, Mr. Wimple's oldest +friend, his playmate in boyhood, and his crony when he died. Simon's +mother and Sally's had likewise been schoolmates, and intimates to the +last, fondly attached to each other, and mutually confiding in each +other's love and truth in times of pain and trouble. + +But Mr. Blount and Mrs. Wimple had been dead these ten years;--they +died in the same month. Simon and Sally were children when that +happened, and since then they had grown up together in the closest +family intimacy, interrupted only by Sally's winter schooling in New +York, and renewed every summer by her regular seasons at Hendrik. + +To the young man and the ripening maiden, then, their love came as +naturally as violets and clover-blooms, and was as little likely to +take their parents or the familiar country-folk by surprise. + +When Simon took trips to New York, he "stopped" at Mr. Wimple's, and +Sally's summer home in Hendrik was always "Aunt Phoebe's," as she had +been taught to call Simon's mother. + +You will wonder, then, that Mr. Paul Wimple should have blushed and +struggled and died in the forlorn little "Athenaeum," and that Sally +should sit down in her loneliness and "that fright of a delaine" to +wait for customers that came not, when in their old friends' house were +comfortable mansions, and in their old friends' hearts tearful kisses +and welcome free as air. But you must remember that with sudden poverty +comes, often, shrinking pride, and a degree of suspicion, and high +scorn of those belittled pensioners who hang upon old ties; that old +age, when it is sorely beset, is not always patient, clear-sighted, and +just; that, when the heart of a young girl, in Sally's extremity, +carries the helpless love that had been clad in purple, and couched in +eider, and pampered with bonny cats, and served in gold, to Pride, and +asks, "Stern master, what shall I do with this now?" the answer will +be, "Strip it of its silken fooleries,--let it lie on the ground, the +broad bosom of its honest, hearty mother,--teach it the wholesomeness +of brown bread and cresses, fairly earned, and water from the +spring,--and let it wait on itself, and wait for the rest!" Once, when +the talk at the Splurge house descended for a moment from its lofty +flights to describe a few eccentric mocking circles around the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Miss Wimple, Madeline said, "If you have sense or +decency, be silent;--the girl is true and brave, every way better +taught than we, and prouder than she knows. If we were truly as +scornful of her as she is indifferent to us, we would let her glorious +insignificance alone." + +So Miss Wimple waited in her shabby little shop and plied her needle +for hire. Her lover was a handsome fellow, with a bright, frank face, +and a vigorous, agile, and graceful form; there was more than common +intellect in his clear, broad brow, overhung with close clusters of +brown country curls; taste was on his lips and tenderness in his eyes; +his soul was full of generosity, candor, and fidelity; his every +movement and attitude denoted native refinement, and in his talk he +displayed an excellent understanding and remarkable cultivation; for +his father had bestowed on him superior advantages of education;--"as +fine a young fellow, Sir," that estimable old Doctor Vandyke would say, +"as ever you saw." + +It was true, Simon's travels had never reached beyond New York; but, +unlike Mr. Philip Withers, he had brought home solid comforts, useful +facts, wholesome sentiments, natural manners, and sensible, but modest +conversation,--instead of an astonishing variety of intellectual +curiosities and intricate moral toys, whereat plain people +marvelled--as in the case of a certain ingenious Chinese puzzle, ball +within ball, all save the last elaborately carved--how the very +diminutive _plain_ one at the centre ever got in there, or ever could +be got out. + +In another respect the young farmer enjoyed a noticeable advantage over +the man-of-the-world;--he was quite able to tear down those fancy +donjon additions, and erect a plain, honest, substantial, very +comfortable, and very cheerful Yankee porch on their site. + +But Miss Wimple said to Simon,--"For a season you will keep aloof from +this place and from me. I must see you no oftener than it would be +allowable for an occasional customer of the better sort to drop in; and +when you do come, state your business--let it always be _business_, or +pass by--and take your leave, like any indifferent neighbor who came to +change a book, or purchase a trifle, or engage work. On these terms our +love must wait, until by my own unaided exertions--without help, mark +you, Simon, from any man or woman on earth--I have discharged the debt +of charity that is due to the good people of this place who helped my +father in his utmost need, and gave him this shop and these things in +trust. From you, of all men, Simon, I will accept no aid. Play no +tricks of kindness upon me; nor let your love tempt you to experiment, +with disguised charity, upon my purpose. You would only find that you +had failed, and ruined all. The proceeds of this poor shop must belong +to those whose money procured it, until I shall have paid its price; on +no pretext shall that fund be touched for other purposes. I will +sustain myself independently; you know that I ply a nimble needle, and +that my handiwork will be in esteem among the richer folks of Hendrik. +And now, dear Simon, let me have my way. You need no more earnest +assurance of my love than the pains I would take, in this matter, to +make you respect me more. When my task is done, I will deck myself as +of old, and again light up the rose-star in my hair, and stand in the +door and clap my hands to call you hither, and hold you fast; but not +till then. Let me have my way till then." + +And Simon said,--"You are wiser than I, Sally, and braver, and every +way better. I will obey you in this, and wait,--the more cheerfully +because I shall be always at hand, and, if your heart should fail you, +I know you will not refuse my aid, nor prefer another's to mine." + +And so they passed for mere acquaintances; and there were some who +said--Philip Withers among them--that "that plausible Golden Farmer, +young Blount, had treated the forlorn thing shabbily." + +About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the +first that appeared in Hendrik. + +One day, as Miss Wimple sat in a low Yankee rocking-chair, sewing among +her books, she was favored with the extraordinary apparition of Miss +Madeline Splurge,--her first visitor that day, whether on business or +curiosity. + +"I wish to procure a small morocco pocket-book, Miss Wimple, if you +keep such things." + +Miss Wimple, with a slight bow of assent, took from a glass +counter-case a paper box in which was a miscellaneous assortment of +such articles; there were five or six of the pocket-books. Madeline +selected one,--a small, flexible affair, of some dark-colored morocco +lined with pink silk. She paid the trifle the shy, demure little +librarian demanded, and was taking her leave in silence, without even a +"Good-day," when, as she was passing the door, Miss Wimple espied on +the counter, near where her customer had stood, a visiting-card; her +eye fell on the engraved name,--"Mr. Philip Withers"; of course Miss +Splurge had dropped it unawares. She hastened with it to the +door,--Madeline had just stept into the street,-- + +"This card is yours, I presume, Miss Splurge?" + +Madeline turned upon her with a surprised air, inquiringly,--looked in +her own hands, and shook her handkerchief with the quick, nervous, +alarmed movement of one who suddenly discovers a very particular +loss,--became, in an instant, pale as death, stared for a moment at +Miss Wimple with fixed eyes, and slightly shivered. Then, quickly and +fiercely, she snatched the card from Miss Wimple's hand,-- + +"Where--where did you find this? Did--did I leave--drop--?" + +"You left it on my counter," Miss Wimple quietly replied, with a +considerate self-possession that admirably counterfeited +unconsciousness of Madeline's consternation. + +"Come hither, into the shop,--a word with you,"--and Madeline entered +quickly, and closed the door behind her. For a moment she leaned with +her elbow on the counter, and pressed her eyes with her fingers. + +"Are you ill, Miss Splurge?" Miss Wimple gently inquired. + +"No. Did you read what is on this card?" + +"Yes." + +"You--you--you read"----Madeline's hands were clenched, her face red +and distorted; she gnashed her teeth, and seemed choking. + +"Why, Miss Splurge, what is the matter with you? Yes, I read the +name,--Mr. Philip Withers. The card lay on the counter,--I could not +know it was yours,--I read the name, and immediately brought it to you. +What excites you so? Sit down, and calm yourself; surely you are ill." + +Madeline did not accept the stool Miss Wimple offered her, but, +availing herself of the pause to assume a forced calmness which left +her paler than at first, she fixed her flashing eyes steadily on the +deep, still eyes of her companion, and asked,-- + +"You did not turn this card, then?--you did not look on the other +side?" + +"On my honor, I did not." + +"On your honor! You are not lying, girl?"--Miss Splurge thrust the card +into the newly-purchased pocket-book, and hid that in her bosom. + +"Miss Splurge," said Miss Wimple, very simply, and with no excitement +of tone or expression, "when you feel sufficiently recovered to appear +on the street, without exposing yourself there as you have done in +here, go out!" + +And Miss Wimple turned from Madeline and would have resumed her sewing; +but Madeline cried,-- + +"Stay, stay, Miss Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; +forgive me, ah, forgive me!--for you are merciful, as you are pure and +true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult +you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,--false, +too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, +and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the +next. If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any +human being, I would come to you--dear, honest, brave girl!--before all +others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech +you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your +gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. Good-by! +Good-by! I need not ask your pardon again,--you have no anger for such +as I. But if your blessed loneliness is ever disturbed by vulgar, +chattering visitors, you will not name me to them, or confess that you +have seen me." And ere Miss Wimple could utter the gentle words that +were already on her lips, Madeline was gone. + +For a while Miss Wimple remained standing on the spot, gazing +anxiously, but vacantly, toward the door by which the half-mad lady had +departed,--her soft, deep eyes full of painful apprehension. Then she +resumed her little rocking-chair, and, as she gathered up her work from +the floor where she had dropped it, tears trickled down her cheeks; she +sighed and shook her head, in utter sorrow. + +"They were always strange women," she thought, "those Splurges,--not a +sound heart nor a healthy mind among them. Could their false, barren +life have maddened this proud Madeline? Else what did she mean by her +'hot head' and her 'fierce heart'? And what had that Philip Withers to +do with her trouble and her distraction? She recollected now that Simon +had once said, in his odd, significant way, that Mr. Withers was a +charming person to contemplate from a safe distance,--Simon, who never +lent himself to idle detraction. She remembered, too, that she had +often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the +man,--that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the +face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly +dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music. Was he +on both sides of that card?--Ah, well! it might be just nothing, after +all; the poor lady might be ill, or vexed past endurance at home; or +some unhappy love affair might have come to fret her proud, impatient, +defiant temper. But not Withers,--oh, of course not Withers!--for was +it not well known that Adelaide was his choice, that his assiduous and +graceful attentions to her silenced even his loudest enemies, who could +no longer accuse him of duplicity and disloyalty to women? But she +would feel less disturbed, and sleep better, perhaps, if she knew that +Madeline was safe at home, and tranquil again." + +Thinking of sleep reminded Miss Wimple that she had a pious task to +perform before she could betake her to her sweet little cot. A +superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her +last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must +cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a +basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night. + +About nine o'clock Miss Wimple had done her charitable errand, and was +on her way home again, with a light step and a happy heart, an empty +basket and old Hetty's abundant blessings. She was alone, but feared +nothing,--the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she +to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently +understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in +town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward +walk; and the rudest respected her. + +As she approached the covered bridge, the moon was shining brightly at +the entrance, making the gloom within profounder. It was a long, wooden +structure, of a kind common enough on the turnpikes of the Atlantic +States, where they cross the broader streams. Stout posts and +cross-beams, and an arch that stretched from end to end, divided the +bridge into two longitudinal compartments, for travellers going and +coming respectively; there were small windows on each side, and at +either end, on a conspicuous signboard, were the Company's +"Rules,"--"Walk your Horses over this Bridge, or be subject to a Fine +of not less than Five nor exceeding Twenty Dollars"--"Keep to the +Right, as the Law directs." + +As Miss Wimple entered the shadow of the bridge on the right hand, she +was startled by hearing excited voices, which seemed to come from the +other side of the central arch, and about the middle of the bridge, +where the darkness was deepest:-- + +"Speak low, I say, or be silent! Some one will be coming presently;--I +heard steps approaching even now"--Miss Wimple instinctively stopped, +and stood motionless, almost holding her breath, at the end of the arch +where the moonlight did not reach. She was no eavesdropper, mark +you,--the meannesses she scorned included that character in a special +clause. But she had recognised the voice, and with her own true +delicacy would spare the speaker the shame of discovery and the dread +of exposure.--"Speak low, or I will leave you. If you are indifferent +for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik." + +"You are right";--it was a woman's voice; but, whatever her tone had +been before, she spoke so low now, and with a voice so hoarse with +suppressed emotion, so altered by a sort of choking whisper, that Miss +Wimple, if she had ever heard it before, could not recognize it;--"You +are right; the time for that has not come;--I could not stay to enjoy +it;--I am going now, but we will meet again." + +"What would you have? I have said I would marry you,--and leave +you,--so soon as I can shake myself clear of that other stupid +infatuation." + +"Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, +having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find +me such a fool, after all,--that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest +shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a +cowardly ass to besot myself with.--There, the subject sickens me, and +I am going. Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you. +I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold +you, my exquisite Joseph Surface--oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the +wisdom of fools!--by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall +find you. I can take care of me and _mine_; but beware how you dare to +claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your +brand be on it,--Joseph!" + +She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful +laugh, departed. As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick +breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where +the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw +a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear. Then Philip +Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or +two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from +the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to +the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once +looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town. + +All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple +remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had +quite disappeared. Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she +resumed her homeward way. As she emerged from the shadows into the same +bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just +passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground. She stooped and +picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk. + +Good Heaven! She remembered,--the one she had sold to Miss Madeline +Splurge that afternoon,--the very same! So, then, that was her voice, +her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, +while that woman was speaking so bitterly,--but had not recognized her +tones, nor once fancied it might be she. Now she easily recalled her +words, and understood some of her allusions. And her wild, distracted, +incoherent speech in the shop, too,--ah! it was all too plain; that was +surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss +Wimple dared not try to guess. This Philip Withers,--was he a villain, +after all? "Had he--this poor lady--Oh, God forbid! No, no, no!" + +She opened the pocket-book;--a visiting-card was all it contained. She +drew it forth,--"Mr. Philip Withers,"--yes, she knew it by that broken +corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose. She held it up +before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and--turned the other +side. + +"Ah, me!" exclaimed that Chevalier Bayard in shabby, skimped delaine, +"what was I going to do?" + +Blushing, she returned the card to its place, and hiding the +pocket-book in her honorable bosom, hurried homeward. But her soul was +troubled as she went; sometimes she sobbed aloud, and more than once +she stood still and wrung her hands. + +"Ah! if Simon Blount would but come now to advise me what is safest and +best to do!" + +Should she go to Mrs. Splurge and tell her all? No,--what right had +she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be +necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a +step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a +different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt +she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer +judgment and information. Till then she would hope for the best. + +When Miss Wimple reached her humble little nest, she knelt beside her +bed and prayed, tearfully, to the God who averts danger and forgives +sin; but she did not sleep all night. + +In the morning a gossiping neighbor came with the news;--"that little +cooped-up Wimple never hears anything," she thought. + +Miss Madeline Splurge had disappeared. Mr. Philip Withers was searching +for her high and low. She had not been seen since yesterday +afternoon,--had not returned home last night. It was feared she had +drowned herself in the river for spite. She, the knowing neighbor, "had +always said so,--had always said that Madeline Splurge was a quare +girl,--sich high and mighty airs, and _sich_ a temper. Now here it was, +and what would people say,--specially them as had always turned up +their nose at her opinion?" + +Miss Wimple said nothing; but she treated Pity to two poor little +lies;--one she told, and the other she looked:--She was not well, she +said, which was the reason why she was so pale; and then she looked +surprised at the news of Madeline's flitting. + +Later in the day another report:--A letter left by Madeline had been +found at home. She had taken offence at some sharp thing that sarcastic +Mr. Withers, who always did hate her, had said; and had gone off in a +miff, without even good-by or a carpet-bag, and taken the night train +to New York, where she had an uncle on the mother's side.--And a good +riddance! Now Miss Addy and Mr. Withers would have some peace of their +time. Such a sweet couple, too! + +Madeline _had_ left a note:--"I was sick of you all, and I have escaped +from you. You will be foolish to take any trouble about it." + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE CUP. + + + The cup I sing is a cup of gold, + Many and many a century old, + Sculptured fair, and over-filled + With wine of a generous vintage, spilled + In crystal currents and foaming tides + All round its luminous, pictured sides. + + Old Time enamelled and embossed + This ancient cup at an infinite cost. + Its frame he wrought of metal that run + Red from the furnace of the sun. + Ages on ages slowly rolled + Before the glowing mass was cold, + And still he toiled at the antique mould, + Turning it fast in his fashioning hand, + Tracing circle, layer, and band, + Carving figures quaint and strange, + Pursuing, through many a wondrous change, + The symmetry of a plan divine. + At last he poured the lustrous wine, + Crowned high the radiant wave with light, + And held aloft the goblet bright, + Half in shadow, and wreathed in mist + Of purple, amber, and amethyst. + + This is the goblet from whose brink + All creatures that have life must drink: + Foemen and lovers, haughty lord + And sallow beggar with lips abhorred. + The new-born infant, ere it gain + The mother's breast, this wine must drain. + The oak with its subtile juice is fed, + The rose drinks till her cheeks are red, + And the dimpled, dainty violet sips + The limpid stream with loving lips. + It holds the blood of sun and star, + And all pure essences that are: + No fruit so high on the heavenly vine, + Whose golden hanging clusters shine + On the far-off shadowy midnight hills, + But some sweet influence it distils + That slideth down the silvery rills. + Here Wisdom drowned her dangerous thought, + The early gods their secrets brought; + Beauty, in quivering lines of light, + Ripples before the ravished sight; + And the unseen mystic spheres combine + To charm the cup and drug the wine. + + All day I drink of the wine and deep + In its stainless waves my senses steep; + All night my peaceful soul lies drowned + In hollows of the cup profound; + Again each morn I clamber up + The emerald crater of the cup, + On massive knobs of jasper stand + And view the azure ring expand: + I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swim + In the wine that o'erruns the jewelled rim, + Edges of chrysolite emerge, + Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge; + My thrilled, uncovered front I lave, + My eager senses kiss the wave, + And drain, with its viewless draught, the lore + That warmeth the bosom's secret core, + And the fire that maddens the poet's brain + With wild sweet ardor and heavenly pain. + + + +THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA. + + +Every calling has something of a special dialect. Even where there is, +one would think, no necessity for it, as in the conversation of +Sophomores, sporting men, and reporters for the press, a dialect is +forthwith partly invented, partly suffered to grow, and the sturdy stem +of original English exhibits a new crop of parasitic weeds which often +partake of the nature of fungi and betoken the decay of the trunk +whence they spring. + +Is this the case with the language of the sea? Has the sea any +language? or has each national tongue grafted into it the technology of +the maritime calling? + +The sea has its own laws,--the common and unwritten law of the +forecastle, of which Admiralty Courts take infrequent cognizance, and +the law of the quarter-deck, which is to be read in acts of Parliament +and statutes of Congress. The sea has its own customs, superstitions, +traditions, architecture, and government; wherefore not its own +language? We maintain that it has, and that this tongue, which is not +enumerated by Adelung, which possesses no grammar and barely a lexicon +of its own, and which is not numbered among the polyglot achievements +of Mezzofanti or Burritt, has yet a right to its place among the +world's languages. + +Like everything else which is used at sea,--except salt-water,--its +materials came from shore. As the ship is originally wrought from the +live-oak forests of Florida and the pine mountains of Norway, the iron +mines of England, the hemp and flax fields of Russia, so the language +current upon her deck is the composite gift of all sea-loving peoples. +But as all these physical elements of construction suffer a sea-change +on passing into the service of Poseidon, so again the landward phrases +are metamorphosed by their contact with the main. But no one set of +them is allowed exclusive predominance. For the ocean is the only true, +grand, federative commonwealth which has never owned a single master. +The cloud-compelling Zeus might do as he pleased on land; but far +beyond the range of outlook from the white watch-tower of Olympus +rolled the immeasurable waves of the wine-purple deep, acknowledging +only the Enosigaios Poseidon. Consequently, while Zeus allotted to this +and that hero and demigod Argos and Mycene and the woody Zacynthus, +each to each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after +nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at +the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has +been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,--now a black raven, then a +broom,--to-day St. Andrew's Cross, to-morrow St George's, perhaps the +next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main +by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined +castles are lying "fifty fathom deep,"--Carthaginian galley and Roman +trireme, the argosy of Spain, the "White Ship" of Fitz Stephen, the +"Ville de Paris," down to the latest "non-arrival" whispered at +Lloyd's,--all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the +green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and +Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one +gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the +fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are +the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, +gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the +language that we are able to trace the successive nations in their +march along the mountain waves; for to that each has from time to time +given its contribution, and of each it has worn the seeming stamp, till +some Actium or Lepanto or Cape Trafalgar has compelled its reluctant +transfer to another's hands. + +Or rather, we may say, the language of the sea comes and makes a part, +as it were, of the speech of many different nations, as the sailor +abides for a season in Naples, Smyrna, Valparaiso, Canton, and New +York,--and from each it borrows, as the sailor does, from this a silk +handkerchief, from that a cap, here a brooch, and there a scrap of +tattooing, but still remains inhabitant of all and citizen of +none,--the language of the seas. + +What do we mean by this? It is that curious nomenclature which from +truck to keelson clothes the ship with strange but fitting +phrases,--which has its proverbs, idioms, and forms of expression that +are of the sea, salt, and never of the land, earthy. Wherever tidewater +flows, goes also some portion of this speech. It is "understanded of +the people" among all truly nautical races. It dominates over their own +languages, so that the Fin and Mowree, (Maori,) the Lascar and the +Armorican, meeting on the same deck, find a common tongue whereby to +carry on the ship's work,--the language in which to "hand, reef, and +steer." + +Whence did it come? From all nautical peoples. Not from the Hebrew +race. To them the possession of the soil was a fixed idea. The sea +itself had nothing wherewith to tempt them; they were not adventurers +or colonizers; they had none of that accommodating temper as to creed, +customs, and diet, which is the necessary characteristic of the sailor. +But the nations they expelled from Canaan, the worshippers of the +fish-tailed Dagon, who fled westward to build Tartessus (Tarshish) on +the Gaditanian peninsula, or who clung with precarious footing to the +sea-shore of Philistia and the rocky steeps of Tyre and Sidon,--these +were seafarers. From them their Greek off-shoots, the Ionian islanders, +inherited something of the maritime faculty. There are traces in the +"Odyssey" of a nautical language, of a technology exclusively belonging +to the world "off soundings," and an exceeding delight in the rush and +spray-flinging of a vessel's motion,-- + + "The purple wave hissed from the bow of the + bark in its going." + +Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a +Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with +classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their +sterns. + +But the Greek and Carthaginian elements of the ocean language must now +lie buried very deep in it, and it is hard to recognize their original +image and superscription in those smooth-worn current coins which form +the basis of the sea-speech. It is not within the limits of a cursory +paper like this to enter into too deep an investigation, or to trace +perhaps a fanciful lineage for such principal words as "mast," and +"sail," and "rope." In one word, "anchor," the Greek plainly +survives,--and doubtless many others might be made out by a skilful +philologist. + +The Roman, to whom the empire of the sea, or, more properly speaking, +the petty principality of the Mediterranean, was transferred, had +little liking for that sceptre. He was driven to the water by sheer +necessity, but he never took to it kindly. He was at best a +sea-soldier, a marine, not brought up from the start in the +merchant-service and then polished into the complete blue-jacket and +able seaman of the navy. Nobody can think of those ponderous old +Romans, whose comedies were all borrowed from Attica, whose poems were +feeble echoes of the Greek, and whose architecture, art, and domestic +culture were at best the work of foreign artists,--nobody can think of +them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of +the first "reef-topsail breeze." Fancy those solemn, stately +Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a +streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor'wester +brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral +Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand +fighters,--none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, +having won them, they dropped sea-going, and made the conquered nations +transport their corn and troops, while they went back to their +congenial camps and solemn Senate-debates. + +But Italy was not settled by the Roman alone. A black-haired, +fire-eyed, daring, flexible race had colonized the Sicilian Islands, +and settled thickly around the Tarentine Gulf, and built their cities +up the fringes of the Apennines as far as the lovely Bay of Parthenope. +Greek they were,--by tradition the descendants of those who took +Troy-town,--Greek they are to this day, as any one may see who will +linger on the Mole or by the Santa Lucia Stairs at Naples. At Salerno, +at Amalfi, were cradled those fishing-hamlets which were to nurse +seamen, and not soldiers. Far up the Adriatic, the storm of Northern +invasion had forced a fair-haired and violet-eyed folk into the +fastnesses of the lagoons, to drive their piles and lay their keels +upon the reedy islets of San Giorgio and San Marco; while on the +western side an ancient Celtic colony was rising into prominence, and +rearing at the foot of the Ligurian Alps the palaces of Genoa the +Proud. + +Thus upon the Italian stock was begun the language of the seas. Upon +the Italian main the words "tack" and "sheet," "prow" and "poop," were +first heard; and those most important terms by which the law of the +marine highway is given,--"starboard" and "larboard." For if, after the +Italian popular method, we contract the words _questo bordo_ (this +side) and _quello bordo_ (that side) into _sto bordo_ and _lo bordo_, +we have the roots of our modern phrases. And so the term "port," which +in naval usage supersedes "larboard," is the abbreviated _porta lo +timone_, (carry the helm,) which, like the same term in military usage, +"port arms," seems traditionally to suggest the left hand. + +But while the Italian races were beginning their brief but brilliant +career, there was in training a nobler and hardier race of seamen, from +whose hands the helm would not so soon be wrested. The pirates of the +Baltic were wrestling with the storms of the wild Cattegat and braving +the sleety squalls of the Skager Rack, stretching far out from the land +to colonize Iceland and the Faroes, to plant a mysteriously lost nation +in Eastern Greenland, and to leave strange traces of themselves by the +vine-clad shores of Narraganset Bay. For, first of all nations and +races to steer boldly into the deep, to abandon the timid fashion of +the Past, which groped from headland to headland, as boys paddle skiffs +from wharf to wharf, the Viking met the blast and the wave, and was no +more the slave, but the lord of the sea. He it was, who, abandoning the +traditionary rule which loosened canvas only to a wind dead aft or well +on the quarter, learned to brace up sharp on a wind and to baffle the +adverse airs. Yet he, too, was overmuch a fighter to make a true +seaman, and his children no sooner set foot on the shore than they drew +their swords and went to carving the conquered land into Norman +lordships. But where they piloted the way others followed, and city +after city along the German Ocean and upon the British coasts became +also maritime. For King Alfred had come, and the English oaks were +felled, and their gnarled boughs found exceedingly convenient for the +curved knees of ships. Upon the Italian stock became engrafted the +Norman, and French, and Danish, the North German and Saxon elements. +And so, after a century of crusading had thoroughly broken up the +stay-at-home notions of Europe, the maritime spirit blazed up. Spain +and Portugal now took the lead and were running races against each +other, the one in the Western, the other in the Eastern seas, and +flaunting their crowned flags in monopoly of the Indian archipelagos +and the American tropics. Just across the North Sea, over the low +sand-dykes of Holland, scarce higher than a ship's bulwarks, looked a +race whom the spleeny wits of other nations declared to be born +web-footed. Yet their sails were found in every sea, and, like resolute +merchants, as they were, they left to others the glory while they did +the world's carrying. Their impress upon the sea-language was neither +faint nor slight. They were true marines, and from Manhattan Island to +utmost Japan, the brown, bright sides, full bows, and bulwarks tumbling +home of the Dutchman were familiar as the sea-gulls. Underneath their +clumsy-looking upper-works, the lines were true and sharp; and but the +other day, when the world's clippers were stooping their lithe +racehorse-like forms to the seas in the great ocean sweepstakes, the +fleetest of all was--a Dutchman. + +But to combine and fuse all these elements was the work of England. To +that nation, with its noble inheritance of a composite language, +incomparably rich in all the nomenclature of natural objects and +sounds, was given especially the coast department, so to speak, of +language. Every variety of shore, from shingly beaches to craggy +headlands, was theirs. While the grand outlines and larger features are +Italian, such as Cape, Island, Gulf, the minuter belong to the Northern +races, who are closer observers of Nature's nice differences, and who +take more delight in a frank, fearless acquaintance and fellowship with +out-door objects. Beach, sand, headland, foreland, shelf, reef, +breaker, bar, bank, ledge, shoal, spit, sound, race, reach, are words +of Northern origin. So, too, the host of local names by which every +peculiar feature of shore-scenery is individualized,--as, for instance, +the Needles, the Eddystone, the Three Chimneys, the Hen and Chickens, +the Bishop and Clerks. The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of +the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the +Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host +of words of which the derivation is doubtful,--such as sea, mist, foam, +scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that +clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman's +tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over +it. They are docked without mercy, or, now and then, when not properly +mouth-filling, they are "spliced" with a couple of vowels. It is +impossible to tell the whys and wherefores of sea-prejudices. + +We have now indicated the main sources of the ocean-language. As new +nations are received into the nautical brotherhood, and as new +improvements are made, new terms come in. The whole whaling diction is +the contribution of America, or rather of Nantucket, New Bedford, and +New London, aided by the islands of the Pacific and the mongrel Spanish +ports of the South Seas. Here and there an adventurous genius coins a +phrase for the benefit of posterity,--as we once heard a mate order a +couple of men to "go forrard and trim the ship's whiskers," to the +utter bewilderment of his captain, who, in thirty years' following of +the sea, had never heard the martingale chains and stays so designated. +But the source of the great body of the sea-language might be marked +out on the map by a current flowing out of the Straits of Gibraltar and +meeting a similar tide from the Baltic, the two encountering and +blending in the North Sea and circling Great Britain, while not +forgetting to wash the dykes of Holland as they go. How to distinguish +the work of each, in founding the common tongue, is not here our +province. + +It would be difficult to classify the words in nautical +use,--impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A +specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the +blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so +far into the tar-bucket as to bother (_nauticĆØ_, "galley") the +landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship +are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is +English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (_mezzano_). To go +from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish _duk_, and +"canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,--from the root _canna_, a +cane or reed,--thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,--hence +any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon _stearn_, +steering-place; "stem," from the German _stamm_. The whole family of +ropes--of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that there are but +three to a ship, namely, _bolt_-rope, _bucket_-rope, and _man_-rope, +all the rest of the cordage being called by its special name, as +_tack_, _sheet_, _clew-line_, _bow-line_, _brace_, _shroud_, or +_stay_--the whole family of ropes are akin only by marriage. "Cable" is +from the Semitic root _kebel_, to cord, and is the same in all nautical +uses. "Hawser"--once written _halser_--is from the Baltic stock,--the +rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope +by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish,--from _painter_, a +snare. "Sheet" is Italian,--from _scotta_; "brace" French, and "stay" +English. "Clew" is Saxon; "garnet" (from _granato_, a fruit) is +Italian,--that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to +the clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through +the block. Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the +same diversity. "Pitch" one easily gets from _pix_ (Latin); "tar" as +easily from the Saxon _tare_, _tyr_. "Junk," old rope, is from the +Latin _juncus_, a bulrush,--the material used along the Mediterranean +shore for calking; "oakum," from the Saxon _oecumbe_, or hemp. The verb +"calk" may come from the Danish _kalk_, chalk,--to rub over,--or from +the Italian _calafatare_. The now disused verb "to pay" is from the +Italian _pagare_;--it survives only in the nautical aphorism, "Here's +the Devil to _pay_,"--that is, to pitch the ship,--"and no pitch hot." +In handing the sails, "to loose" is good English,--"to furl" is +Armorican, and belongs to the Mediterranean class of words. "To rake," +which is applied to spars, is from the Saxon _racian_, to incline;--"to +steeve," which is applied to the bowsprit, and often pronounced +"stave," is from the Italian _stivare_. When we get below-decks, we +find "cargo" to be Spanish,--while "ballast" (from _bat_, a boat, and +_last_, a load) is Saxon. A ship in ballast comes from the Baltic,--a +vessel and cargo from the Bay of Biscay. Sailors must eat; but there is +a significant distinction between merchant-seamen and man-o'-war's-men. +The former is provided for at the "caboose," or "camboose," (Dutch, +_kombuis_); the latter goes to the "galley," (Italian, _galera_, in +helmet, primitively). This distinction is fast dying out,--the naval +term superseding the mercantile,--just as in America the title +"captain" has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, +"master," which is now used only in law-papers. The "bowsprit" is a +compound of English and Dutch. The word "yard" is English; the word +"boom," Dutch. The word "reef" is Welsh, from _rhevu_, to thicken or +fold; "tack" and "sheet" are both Italian; "deck" is German. Other +words are the result of contractions. Few would trace in "dipsey," a +sounding-lead, the words "deep sea"; or in "futtocks" the combination +"foot-hooks,"--the name of the connecting-pieces of the floor-timbers +of a ship. "Breast-hook" has escaped contraction. Sailors have, indeed, +a passion for metamorphosing words,--especially proper names. Those lie +a little out of our track; but two instances are too good to be +omitted:--The "Bellerophon," of the British navy, was always known as +the "Bully-ruffian," and the "Ville de Milan," a French prize, as the +"Wheel-'em-along." Here you have a random bestowal of names which seems +to defy all analysis of the rule of their bestowal. + +If the reader inclines to follow up the scent here indicated, we can +add a hint or two which may be of service. We have shown the sources, +which should, for purposes of classification, be designated, not as +English, Italian, Danish, etc., but nautically, as Mediterranean, +Baltic, or Atlantic. These three heads will serve for general +classification, to which must be added a fourth or "off-soundings" +department, into which should go all words suggested by whim or +accidental resemblances,--such terms as "monkey-rail," "Turk's head," +"dead-eye," etc.,--or which get the name of an inventor, as a +"Matthew-Walker knot." More than that cannot well be given without +going into the whole detail of naval history, tactics, and science,--a +thing, of course, impossible here. + +This brings us to another view of the subject, which may serve for +conclusion. A great many people take upon themselves to act for and +about the sailor, to preach to him, make laws for him, act as his +counsel, write tracts for him, and generally to look after his moral +and physical well-being. Now eleven out of every dozen of these are +continually making themselves ridiculous by an utter ignorance of all +nautical matters. They pick up a few worn-out phrases of sea-life, +which have long since left the forecastle, and which have been bandied +about from one set of landsmen to another, have been dropped by +sham-sailors begging on fictitious wooden-legs, then by small +sea-novelists, handed to smaller dramatists for the Wapping class of +theatres, to be by them abandoned to the smallest writers of pirate and +privateer tales for the Sunday press. And stringing these together, +with a hazy apprehension of their meaning, they think they are "talking +sailor" in great perfection. Now the sailor will talk with pleasure to +any straightforward and perfectly "green" landsman, and the two will +converse in an entirely intelligible manner. But confusion worse +confounded is the result of this ambitious ignorance,--confusion of +brain to the sailor, and confusion of face to the landsman. + +For the sea has a language, beyond a peradventure,--an exceedingly +arbitrary, technical, and perplexing one, unless it be studied with the +illustrated grammar of the full-rigged ship before one, with the added +commentaries of the sea and the sky and the coast chart. To learn to +speak it requires about as long as to learn to converse passably in +French, Italian, or Spanish; and unless it be spoken well, it is +exceedingly absurd to any appreciative listener. + +If you desire to study it philologically, after the living manner of +Dean Trench, it will well repay you. If you desire to use it as a +familiar vehicle of discourse, wherewith to impress the understanding +and heart of the sailor, you undertake a very difficult thing. For +though men are moved best by apt illustrations from the things familiar +to them, _un_apt illustrations most surely disgust them. + +But if you earnestly desire it, we know of but one certain course, +which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who +was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone +to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of +a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in +eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony +of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John's breast. At last the latter +conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, +which was securely lashed to the forward deck of the steamer, he +exclaimed,--"I say, d'ye know, I'd give a guinea to know your secret +for keeping well in this infernal Channel." The traveller solemnly +extended one hand for the money, and, as it dropped into his palm, with +the other shaded his mouth, that no portion of the oracle might fall on +unpaid-for ears, and whispered,--"Hark ye, brother, GO TO SEA TWENTY +YEARS, AS I HAVE." + + + +THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME. + + +"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."--TWELFTH +NIGHT. + +My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in +relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence +in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal +trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in +court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so +indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down +its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had +heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded +it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will +remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the +right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as +well as in novels. + +The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who +tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged +mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, +but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. +Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his +casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old +Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel +as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration +enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters +had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and +holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor +direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that +sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of +beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his +hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart +to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old +mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such +glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty +heiress seemed to be quite enough, even with a field clear of rivals. +But two other suitors now made advances, more or less openly, and poor +Carl thought himself entirely overshadowed. One was Schƶnfeld, the most +considerable farmer in the neighborhood, a widower, with hair beginning +to show threads of silver, and a fierce man withal, who was supposed to +have once slain a rival, wearing thereafter a seam in his cheek as a +souvenir of the encounter. The other was Hans Stolzen, a carpenter, +past thirty, a shrewd, well-to-do fellow, with nearly a thousand +thalers saved from his earnings. Carl had never fought a duel,--and he +had not saved so much as a thousand groschen, to say nothing of +thalers; he had only a manly figure, a cheery, open face, the freshness +of one-and-twenty, and a heart incapable of guile. Katrine was not long +in discovering these excellences, and, if his boldness had equalled his +passion, she would have shown him how little she esteemed the +pretensions of the proud landholder or the miserly carpenter. But he +took it for granted that he was a fool to contend against such odds, +and, buttoning his jacket tightly over his throbbing heart, toiled away +in his little fields, thinking that the whole world had never contained +so miserable a man. + +Hans Stolzen was the first to propose. He began by paying court to the +jealous Rauchen himself, set forth his property and prospects, and +asked to become his son-in-law. The miller heard him, puffed long +whiffs, and answered civilly, but without committing himself. He was in +no hurry to part with the only joy he had, and, as Katrine was barely +eighteen, he naturally thought there would be time enough to consider +of her marriage hereafter. Hans hardly expected anything more decisive, +and, as he had not been flatly refused, came frequently to the house +and chatted with her father, while his eyes followed the vivacious +Katrine as she tripped about her household duties. But Hans was +perpetually kept at a distance; the humming-bird would never alight +upon the outstretched hand. He had not the wit to see that their +natures had nothing in common, although he did know that Katrine was +utterly indifferent towards him, and after some months of hopeless +pursuit he began to grow sullenly angry. He was not long without an +object on which to vent his rage. + +One evening, as Katrine was returning homeward, she chanced to pass +Carl's cottage. Carl was loitering under a tree hard by, listening to +the quick footsteps to which his heart kept time. It was the coming of +Fate to him, for he had made up his mind to tell her of the love that +was consuming him. Two days before, with tears on his bashful face, he +had confided all to his mother; and, at her suggestion, he had now +provided a little present by way of introduction. Katrine smiled +sweetly as she approached, for, with a woman's quick eye, she had read +his glances long before. His lips at first rebelled, but he struggled +out a salutation, and, the ice once broken, he found himself strangely +unembarrassed. He breathed freely. It seemed to him that their +relations must have been fixed in some previous state of existence, so +natural was it to be in familiar and almost affectionate communication +with the woman whom before he had loved afar off, as a page might sigh +for a queen. + +"Stay, Katrine," he said,--"I had nearly forgotten." He ran hastily +into the cottage, and soon returned with a covered basket. "See, +Katrine, these white rabbits!--are they not pretty?" + +"Oh, the little pets!" exclaimed Katrine. "Are they yours?" + +"No, Katrinchen,--that is, they were mine; now they are yours." + +"Thank you, Carl. I shall love them dearly." + +"For my sake?" + +"For their own, Carl, certainly; for yours also,--a little." + +"Good-bye, Bunny," said he, patting the head of one of the rabbits. +"Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don't keep those long +ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me." + +"Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself,--don't you think +so, Bunny?" said Katrine, taking the basket. + +The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl's pulses bounded; he +seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses. "So! this is +the bashful young man!" thought Katrine. "I shall not need to encourage +him any more, surely." + +The night was coming on; Katrine remembered her father, and started +towards the mill, whose broad arms could scarcely be seen through the +twilight. Carl accompanied her to the gate, and, after a furtive glance +upward to the house-windows, bade her farewell, with a kiss, and turned +homeward, feeling himself a man for the first time in his life. + +Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the +window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son's return. An hour +passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow +anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and +asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl. An hour of terrible +suspense ensued. It was worse than she had even feared. Carl lay by the +roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood, +moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless. +Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid +with bruises. The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently +lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of +Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son. "May he die in a foreign +land," said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, "without wife to +nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul! May his body lie +unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures! May his inheritance pass into +the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!" They +muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless +eyes, and left her with her son. + +For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever +set in, and he raved continually. He fancied himself pursued by Hans +Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff. When this was +reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal; +but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled. His +disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt. In truth, it was the +rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival +in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead. + +Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had +pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a +warmer affection for the victim of his brutality. She threw off all +disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch's cottage, to aid in +nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery. She had, one +day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning +sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle +fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples. An indissoluble tie +now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering +and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death. + +When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped +speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable +opportunity to obtain her father's consent to their marriage. The scars +were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured. No bones had +been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault. +But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy +the happiness for which he hoped,--the love that had called him back to +life. As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk has +seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he +may secure for himself the prize,--so Schƶnfeld, not uninformed of what +was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain +Katrine's favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way. An officer in +the king's service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for +the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the +entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized +for the shambles. The officer had apparently been a friend and +companion of Schƶnfeld's in former days, and passed some time at his +house. It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors +as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the +army. He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no +alternative; he must serve his three years. This last blow was too much +for his poor mother. Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing +him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her +grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other +recruits, was marched off. + +What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three +years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such +visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted +from her lover as though it were forever. The miller found that the +light and the melody of his house were gone. Katrine was silent and +sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble. To all his offers +of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears +she had besought his interference in Carl's behalf. She would not be +comforted. The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had +thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish +fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing +look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he +sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his +tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon +the slightest whiff. + +For six months Schƶnfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought, +would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier. +Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his +hand to Katrine. The miller was inclined to favor his suit. In wealth +and position Schƶnfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful +ally, and a very disagreeable enemy. In fact, Rauchen really feared to +refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he +could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer. Katrine, +however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl +was a victim of Schƶnfeld's craft; and her rejection of his proposal +was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal. The +old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the +mill, vowing vengeance for the affront. + +Rauchen and his daughter were now more solitary than ever. The father +had forgotten the roaring stories he used to tell to the neighboring +peasants, over foaming flagons of ale, at the little inn; he sat at his +mill-door and smoked incessantly. Katrine shunned the festivities in +which she was once queen, and her manner, though kindly, was silent and +reserved; she went to church, it is true, but she wore a look of +settled sorrow that awed curiosity and even repelled sympathy. But +scandal is a plant that needs no root in the earth; like the houseleek, +it can thrive upon air; and those who separate themselves the most +entirely from the world are apt, for that very reason, to receive the +larger share of its attention. The village girls looked first with +pity, then with wonder, and at length with aversion, upon the gentle +and unfortunate Katrine. Careless as she was with regard to public +opinion, she saw not without pain the altered looks of her old +associates, and before long she came to know the cause. A cruel +suspicion had been whispered about, touching her in a most tender +point. It was not without reason, so the gossip ran, that she had +refused so eligible an offer of marriage Schƶnfeld's. The story reached +the ears of Rauchen, at last. With a fierce energy, such as he had +never exhibited before, he tracked it from cottage to cottage, until he +came to Schƶnfeld's housekeeper, who refused to give her authority. The +next market-day Rauchen encountered the former suitor and publicly +charged him with the slander, in such terms as his baseness deserved. +Schƶnfeld, thrown off his guard by the sudden attack, struck his +adversary a heavy blow; but the miller rushed upon him, and left him to +be carried home, a bundle of aches and bruises. After this the tongues +of the gossips were quiet; no one was willing to answer for guesses or +rumors at the end of Rauchen's staff; and the father and daughter +resumed their monotonous mode of life. + +The three years at length passed, and Carl Proch returned home,--a +trifle more sedate, perhaps, but the same noble, manly fellow. How +warmly he was received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to +relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter +any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily +married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back; +cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent +rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a +grandson, and often resumed his old place at the inn, telling the old +stories with the old _gusto_ over the ever-welcome ale. But one +morning, not long after, he was found dead in his bed; a smile was on +his face, and his limbs were stretched out as in peaceful repose. + +There was no longer any tie to bind Carl to his native village. All his +kin, as well as Katrine's, were in the grave. He was not bred a miller, +and did not feel competent to manage the mill. Besides, his mind had +received new ideas while he was in the army. He had heard of countries +where men were equal before the laws, where the peasant owed no +allegiance but to society. The germ of liberty had been planted in his +breast, and he could no longer live contented with the rank in which he +had been born. At least he wished that his children might grow up free +from the chilling influences that had fallen upon him. At his earnest +persuasion, Katrine consented that the mill should be sold, and soon +after, with his wife and child, he went to Bremen and embarked for +America. + + * * * * * + +We must now follow the absconding Stolzen, who, with his bag of +thalers, had made good his escape into England. He lived in London, +where he found society among his countrymen. His habitual shrewdness +never deserted him, and from small beginnings he gradually amassed a +moderate fortune. His first experiment in proposing for a wife +satisfied him, but in a great city his sensual nature was fully +developed. His brutal passions were unchecked; conscience seemed to +have left him utterly. At length he began to think about quitting +London. He was afraid to return to Germany, for, as he had left Carl to +all appearance dead, he thought the officers of the law would seize +him. He determined to go to Australia, and secured a berth in a clipper +ship bound for Melbourne, but some accident prevented his reaching the +pier in season; the vessel sailed without him, and was never heard of +afterwards. Then he proposed to buy an estate in Canada; but the owner +failed to make his appearance at the time appointed for the +negotiation, and the bargain was not completed. At last he took passage +for New York, whither a Hebrew acquaintance of his had gone, a year or +two before, and was established as a broker. Upon arriving in that +city, Stolzen purchased of an agent a tract of land in a Western State, +situated on the shore of Lake Michigan; and after reserving a sum of +money for immediate purposes, he deposited his funds with his friend, +the broker, and started westward. He travelled the usual route by rail, +then a short distance in a mail-coach, which carried him within six +miles of his farm. Leaving his luggage to be sent for, he started to +walk the remaining distance. It was a sultry day, and the prairie road +was anything but pleasant to a pedestrian unaccustomed to heat and +dust. After walking less than an hour, he determined to stop at a small +house near the road, for rest, and some water to quench his thirst; but +as he approached, the baying hounds, no less than the squalid children +about the door, repelled him, and he went on to the next house. He now +turned down a green lane, between rows of thrifty trees, to a neat +log-cabin, whose nicely-plastered walls and the regular fence inclosing +it testified to the thrift and good taste of the owner. He knocked; all +was still. Again, and thirsty as he was, he was on the point of +leaving, when he heard a step within. He waited; the door opened, and +before him stood----Katrine! + +She did not know him; but he had not forgotten that voluptuous figure +nor those melting blue eyes. He preferred his requests, looking through +the doorway at the same time to make sure that she had no protector. +Katrine brought the stranger a gourd of water, and offered him a chair. +She did not see the baleful eyes he threw after her as she went about +her household duties. Stolzen had dropped from her firmament like a +fallen and forgotten star. Secure in her unsuspecting innocence, she +chirruped to her baby and resumed her sewing. + +That evening, when Carl Proch returned from his field, after his usual +hard day's labor, he found his wife on the floor, sobbing, speechless, +and the child, unnoticed, crying in his cradle. His dog sat by the +hearth with a look of almost intelligent sympathy, and whined as his +master entered the room. He raised Katrine and held her in his arms +like a child, covered her face with kisses, and implored her to speak. +She seemed to be in a fearful dream, and shrunk from some imagined +danger in the extremest terror. Gradually her sobs became less +frequent, her tremors ceased, and she smiled upon the manly face that +met hers, as though she had only suffered from an imaginary fright. But +when she felt her hair floating upon her shoulders, saw the almost +speaking face of the dog, Bruno, and became conscious of the cries of +the neglected child, the wave of agony swept over her again, and she +could utter only broken ejaculations. As word after word came from her +lips, the unhappy husband's flesh tingled; his hair stiffened with +horror; every nerve seemed to be strung with a new and maddening +tension. There was for him no such thing as fatigue, no distance, no +danger,--no law, no hereafter, no God. All thought and feeling were +drowned in one wild desire for vengeance,--vengeance swift, terrible, +and final. + +He first caressed the dog as though he had been a brother; he put his +arms about the shaggy neck, and shook each faithful paw; he made his +wife caress him also. "God be praised, dear Katrine, for your +protector, the dog!" said he. "Come, now, Bruno!" + +Katrine saw him depart with his dog and gun; but if she guessed his +errand, she did not dare remonstrate. He walked off rapidly,--the dog +in advance, now and then baying as though he were on a trail. + +In the night he returned, and he smiled grimly as he set down the rifle +in its accustomed corner. His wife was waiting for him with intense +anxiety. It was marvellous to her that he was so cheerful. He trotted +her upon his knee, pressed her a hundred times to his bosom, kissed her +forehead, lips, and cheeks, called her his pretty Kate, his dear wife, +and every endearing name he knew. So they sat, like lovers in their +teens, till the purpling east told of a new day. + +The luggage of one Stolzen, a stagecoach passenger, remained at the +tavern uncalled-for, for nearly a year. No one knew the man, and his +disappearance, though a profound mystery, was not an uncommon thing in +a new country. The Hebrew broker in New York received no answers to his +letters, though he had carefully preserved the post-office address +which Stolzen had given him. He began to fear lest he should be obliged +to fulfil the duty of heirship to the property deposited with him. To +quiet his natural apprehensions in view of this event, he determined to +follow Stolzen's track, as much of it as lay in _this_ world, at least, +and find out what had become of him. Upon arriving in the neighborhood, +the Jew had a thorough search made. The country was scoured, and on the +third day there was a discovery. A man walking on the sandy margin of a +river, about two or three miles from Carl's house, saw a skull before +him. As the steep bluff nearly overhung the spot where he stood, he +conjectured that the body to which the skull belonged was to be found +above on its verge. He climbed up, and there saw a headless skeleton. +It was the body of Stolzen, as his memorandum-book and other articles +showed. His pistol was in his pocket, and still loaded; that fact +precluded the idea of suicide. Moreover, upon examining more closely, a +bullet-hole was found in his breast-bone, around which the parts were +broken _outwardly_, showing that the ball must have entered from +behind. It was clear that Stolzen had been murdered. + +The curse of Frau Proch had been most terribly fulfilled. + +Circumstances soon pointed to Carl Proch as the perpetrator. A +stranger, corresponding to the deceased in size and dress, had been +seen, about the time of his disappearance, by the neighboring family, +walking towards Proch's house; and on the evening of the same day an +Irishman met Carl going at a rapid rate, with a gun on his shoulder, as +though in furious pursuit of some one. A warrant for his arrest was +issued, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial. If now the Hebrew +had followed the _lex talionis_, after the manner of his race in +ancient times, it might have fared badly with poor Carl. But as soon as +the broker was satisfied beyond a peradventure that the depositor was +actually dead, he hastened back to New York, joyful as a crow over a +newly-found carcass, to administer upon the estate, leaving the law to +take its own course with regard to the murderer. + +Beyond the two facts just mentioned as implicating Carl, nothing was +proved at the trial. Jameson, the lawyer, whom I mentioned at the +beginning of this story, was engaged for the defence. He found Carl +singularly uncommunicative; and though the government failed to make +out a shadow of a case against his client, he was yet puzzled in his +own mind by Carl's silence, and his real or assumed indifference. +Katrine was in court with her child in her arms, watching the +proceedings with the closest attention; though she, as well as Carl, +was unable to understand any but the most familiar and colloquial +English. The case was speedily decided; the few facts presented to the +jury appeared to have no necessary connection, and there was no known +motive for the deed. The jury unanimously acquitted Carl, and with his +wife and boy he left the court-room. The verdict was approved by the +spectators, for no man in the neighborhood was more universally loved +and respected than Carl Proch. + +Having paid Jameson his fee for his services, Carl was about to depart, +when the lawyer's curiosity could be restrained no longer, and he +called his client back to the private room of his office. + +"Carl," said he, "you look like a good fellow, above anything mean or +wicked; but yet I don't know what to make of you. Now you are entirely +through with this scrape; you are acquitted; and I want to know what is +the meaning of it all. I will keep it secret from all your neighbors. +Did you kill Stolzen, or not?" + +"Well, if I did," he answered, "can they do anything with me?" + +"No," said Jameson. + +"Not if I acknowledge?" + +"No, you have been acquitted by a jury; and by our law a man can never +be tried twice for the same offence. You are safe, even if you should +go into court and confess the deed." + +"Well, then, I did kill him,--and I would again!" + +For the moment, a fierce light gleamed upon the calm and kindly face. +Then, feeling that his answer would give a false view of the case, +without the previous history of the parties, Carl sat down and in his +broken English told to his lawyer the story I have here attempted to +record. It was impossible to doubt a word of it; for the simplicity and +pathos of the narrative were above all art. Here was a simple case, +which the boldest inventor of schemes to punish villany would have been +afraid to use. Its truth is the thing that most startles the mind +accustomed to deal with fictions. + +We leave Carl to return to his farm with his wife, for whom he had +suffered so much, and with the hope that no further temptation may come +to him in such a guise as almost to make murder a virtue. + + + +THE TELEGRAPH. + + Thou lonely Bay of Trinity, + Ye bosky shores untrod, + Lean, breathless, to the white-lipped sea + And hear the voice of God! + + From world to world His couriers fly, + Thought-winged and shod with fire; + The angel of His stormy sky + Rides down the sunken wire. + + What saith the herald of the Lord?-- + "The world's long strife is done! + Close wedded by that mystic cord, + Her continents are one. + + "And one in heart, as one in blood, + Shall all her peoples be; + The hands of human brotherhood + Shall clasp beneath the sea. + + "Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain, + And Asian mountains borne, + The vigor of the Northern brain + Shall nerve the world outworn. + + "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, + Shall thrill the magic thread; + The new Prometheus steals once more + The fire that wakes the dead! + + "Earth gray with age shall hear the strain + Which o'er her childhood rolled; + For her the morning stars again + Shall sing their song of old. + + "For, lo! the fall of Ocean's wall, + Space mocked, and Time outrun!-- + And round the world, the thought of all + Is as the thought of one!" + + Oh, reverently and thankfully + The mighty wonder own! + The deaf can hear, the blind may see, + The work is God's alone. + + Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat + From answering beach to beach! + Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, + And melt the chains of each! + + Wild terror of the sky above, + Glide tamed and dumb below! + Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, + Thy errands to and fro! + + Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, + Beneath the deep so far, + The bridal robe of Earth's accord, + The funeral shroud of war! + + The poles unite, the zones agree, + The tongues of striving cease; + As on the Sea of Galilee, + The Christ is whispering, "Peace!" + + + +THE BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. + + +The singing-birds whose notes are familiar to us, in towns and villages +and the suburbs of the city, are found in the breeding-season only in +these places, and are strangers to the deep woods and solitary +pastures. Most of our singing-birds follow in the wake of the pioneer +of the wilderness, and increase in numbers with the clearing and +settlement of the country,--not, probably, from any dependence on the +protection of mankind, but on account of the increased abundance of the +insect food upon which they subsist, consequent upon the tilling of the +ground. It is well known that the labors of the husbandman cause an +excessive multiplication of all those species of insects whose larvae +are cherished in the soil, and of all that infest the orchard and +garden. The farm is capable of supporting insects just in proportion to +its capacity for producing corn and fruit. Insects will multiply with +their means of subsistence in and upon the earth; and birds, if not +destroyed by artificial methods, will increase in proportion to the +multiplication of those insects which constitute their principal food. + +These considerations will sufficiently account for the fact, which +often excites a little astonishment, that more singing-birds are found +in the suburbs of the city, and among the parks and gardens of the +city, than in the deep forest, where, even in the singing-season, the +silence is sometimes melancholy. It is still to be remarked, that the +species which are thus familiar in their habits do not include all the +singing-birds, but they include all that are well known to the majority +of our people. These are the birds of the garden and orchard. There are +many other species, wild and solitary in their habits, which are +delightful songsters in uncultivated regions remote from the town. But +even these are rare in the depths of the forest. They live on the edge +of the wood and in the half-wooded pasture. + +The birds of the garden and orchard have been frequently described, and +their habits are very generally known; but in the usual descriptions +little has been said of their powers and peculiarities of song. In the +present sketches, I have given particular attention to the vocal powers +of the different birds, and have endeavored to designate the parts +which each one performs in the grand hymn of Nature. I shall first +introduce the Song-Sparrow, (_Fringilla melodia_,) a little bird that +is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest +visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He +is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any +superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his +departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which he +is always recognized. + +In March, before the violet has ventured to peep out from the southern +knoll of the pasture or the sunny brow of the hill, while the northern +skies are liable to pour down at any hour a storm of sleet and snow, +the Song-Sparrow, beguiled by southern winds, has already made his +appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry +notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, +therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest +songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest +tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises +of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come +with a double charm to our ears, because they are harmonized by silence +and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose--in like manner does +the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the +sweet prelude to the universal hymn of Nature. + +His haunts are the pastures which have been half reduced to tillage, +and are still partially filled with wild shrubbery; for he is not so +familiar in his habits as the Hair-bird, that comes close up to our +door-step, to find the crumbs that are swept from our tables. Though +his voice is constantly heard in the garden and orchard, he selects a +more retired spot for his nest, preferring not to trust his progeny to +the doubtful mercy of the lords of creation. In some secure retreat, +under a tussock of herbage or a tuft of shrubbery, the female sits upon +her nest of soft dry grass, containing four or five eggs, of a greenish +white ground, almost entirely covered with brownish specks. Commencing +in April, she rears three broods of young during the season, and her +mate prolongs his notes until the last brood has flown from the nest. + +The notes of the Song-Sparrow would not entitle him to be ranked among +our principal singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations +of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other +bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be +distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate +tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in +the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and +repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one +occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each of the tunes, +and the order of singing them. Of the tunes, as he had numbered them, +the bird "sang No. 1, 27 times; No. 2, 36 times; No. 3, 23 times; No. +4, 19 times; No. 5, 21 times; No. 6, 32 times; No. 7, 18 times. Perhaps +next he would sing No. 2, then perhaps No. 4, or 5, and so on." Mr. +Paine adds, "Some males will sing each tune about fifty times, though +seldom; some will only sing them from five to ten times. But as far as +I have observed, each male has his seven songs. I have applied the rule +to as many as a dozen different birds, and the result has been the +same." + +An individual will sometimes, for half a day, confine himself almost +entirely to a few of these variations; but he will commonly sing each +one more or less in the course of the day. I have observed also, that, +when one principal singer takes up a particular tune, other birds in +the vicinity will unite in the same. The several variations are mostly +in triple time, a few in common time, and there is an occasional +blending of both in the same tune, which consists usually of four bars +or strains, sometimes five, though the song is frequently broken off at +the end of the third strain. This habit of varying his notes through so +many permutations, and the singularly fine intonations of many of them, +entitle the Song-Sparrow to a very high rank as a singing-bird. + +There is a manifest difference in the expression of these several +tunes. The one which I have marked as No. 3 is particularly plaintive, +and is usually in common time. No. 2 is the one which I think is most +frequently sung. No. 5 is querulous and entirely unmusical. There is a +remarkable precision in the song of this bird, and the finest singers +are those which, in the language of musicians, have the least +execution. There are some individuals that blend their notes together +so promiscuously, and use so many flourishes, that it is difficult to +identify their song, or to perceive its expression. Whether these tunes +of the Song-Sparrow express to his mate, or to others of his species, +different sentiments, and convey different messages, or whether the +bird adopts them for his own amusement, I have not been able to +determine. Neither have I learned whether a certain hour of the day or +a certain state of the weather predisposes him to sing a particular +tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; +and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their +matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, +of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and +solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent +and a definite object in every instinct which she has established among +her creatures, it is not probable that this habit of the Song-Sparrow +is the mere result of accident. All the variations of his song are +given, with the specimens, at the end of this article, and, though +individuals differ in their singing, the notes will afford the reader a +good general idea of the several tunes. + +Soon after the arrival of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers +have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more +fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (_Fringilla +graminea_,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This +species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, +when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp +of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a lower key, than +that of the present species. By careless observers, these two Finches, +on account of the similarity in their general appearance and habits, +are considered identical. The Vesper-bird, however, is the least +familiar of the two, and, when both are singing at the same time, will +be found to occupy a position more remote from the house than the +other. In several localities, these two species are distinguished by +the names of Bush-Sparrow and Ground-Sparrow, from their supposed +different habits of placing their nests, one in a bush and the other on +the ground. But they do not in fact differ in this respect, as each +species occasionally builds in both ways. + +The Vesper-bird attracts more general attention to his notes than the +Sparrow, because he sings a longer, though a more monotonous song, and +warbles with more fervency. His notes bear considerable resemblance to +those of the Canary-bird, but they are more subdued and plaintive, and +have a peculiar reedy sound, which is never perceived in the notes of +the Canary. This bird is periodical in his habits of song, confining +his lays to particular hours of the day and conditions of the weather. +The Song-Sparrow, on the contrary, sings about equally from morning to +night, and but little more at one hour than another; and the different +performers of this species do not seem to join in concert. This habit +renders the latter more companionable, at the same time it causes his +notes to be less regarded than those of the Vesper-bird, who pours them +forth more sparingly, and at regular periods. + +The Vesper-bird begins with all his kindred in a general concert at +early dawn, after which they are comparatively silent until sunset, +when they repeat their concert, with still greater zeal than they +chanted in the morning. It is from this circumstance that it has +obtained the name it bears--from its evening hymn, or vespers. I have +heard this name applied to it only in one locality; but it is so +precisely applicable to its habits, that I have thought it worthy of +being retained as its distinguishing cognomen. There are particular +states of the weather that frequently call out the birds of this +species into a general concert at other periods of the day--as when +rain is suddenly followed by sunshine, or when a clear sky is suddenly +darkened by clouds, presenting to them a sort of occasional morn and +occasional even. It may be remarked, that you seldom hear one of these +birds singing alone; but when one begins, all others in the vicinity +immediately join him. + +The usual resorts of the Vesper-bird are the pastures and the +hay-fields; hence the name of Grass-Finch, by which he is usually +distinguished. His voice is heard frequently by the rustic roadsides, +where he picks up a considerable portion of his subsistence. This is +the little bird that so generally serenades us during our evening +walks, at a little distance from the town, and not so far into the +woods as the haunts of the Thrushes. When we go out into the country, +on pleasant days in June or July, at nightfall, we hear multitudes of +them singing sweetly from a hundred different points in the fields and +farms. + +Among the birds which are endowed by Nature with the gift of song in +connection with gaudy plumage is the American Goldfinch, or Hemp-bird, +(_Fringilla tristis_,) one of the most interesting and delicate of the +feathered tribe. Of all our birds this bears the closest resemblance to +the Canary, both in his plumage and in the notes of his song. He cannot +be ranked with the finest of our songsters, being deficient in compass +and variety. But he has great sweetness of tone, and is equalled by few +birds in the rapidity of his execution. His note of complaint is +exactly like that of the Canary, and is heard at almost all times of +the year. He utters also, when flying, a very animated series of notes, +during the repeated undulations of his night, and they seem to be +uttered with each effort he makes to rise. + +It is remarkable that this bird, though he often rears two broods in a +season, does not begin to build his nest until July, after the first +broods of the Robin and the Song-Sparrow have flown from their nests. +Mr. Augustus Fowler[2] is of opinion, from his observation of their +habits of feeding their young, that the cause of this procrastination +is, "that they would be unable to find, in the spring and early summer, +those new and milky seeds which are the necessary food of their young," +and takes occasion to allude to that beneficent law of Nature which +provides that these birds "should not bring forth their young until the +very time when those seeds used by them for food have passed into the +milk, in which state they are easily dissolved by the stomach, and when +an abundant supply may always be found." + +The Hemp-birds are remarkable for associating at a certain season, and +singing, as it were, in choirs. "During spring and summer," says Mr. +Fowler, "they rove about in small flocks, and in July will assemble +together in considerable numbers on a particular tree, seemingly for no +other purpose than to sing. These concerts are held by them on the +forenoon of each day, for a week or ten days, after which they soon +commence building their nests. I am inclined to believe that this is +their time of courtship, and that they have a purpose in these meetings +beside that of singing. If perchance one is heard in the air, the males +utter their call-note with great emphasis, particularly if the +new-comer be a female; and while in her undulating flight she describes +a circle, preparatory to alighting, they will stand almost erect, move +their heads to the right and left, and burst simultaneously into song." + +While engaged in these concerts, it would seem as if they were governed +by some rule, that enabled them to time their voices, and to swell or +diminish the volume of sound. Some of this effect is undoubtedly +produced by the gradual manner in which the different voices join in +harmony, beginning with one or two, and increasing in numbers in a sort +of geometrical progression, until all are singing at once, and then in +the same gradual manner becoming silent. This produces the effect of a +perfect _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_. Beginning, as it seems, at a +distance, one voice leads on another, and the numbers multiply until +they make a loud shout, which dies away gradually until one single +voice winds up the chorus. These concerts are repeated at intervals, +sometimes for an hour in duration. + +Another peculiar habit of the Hemp-bird is that of building a nest, and +then tearing it to pieces before any eggs have been deposited in it, +and using the materials to make a new nest in another locality. In +former years I have repeatedly watched this singular operation, in the +Lombardy poplars that stood before my study-windows. I have thought +that the male bird only was addicted to this practice, and that this +might be his method of amusement while unprovided with a partner. The +nest of the Hemp-bird is made of cotton, the down of the fern, and +other soft materials, woven together with threads and the fibres of +bark, and lined with thistle-down, if it be late enough to obtain it, +and sometimes with cow's hair. It is commonly placed in the fork of the +slender branches of a maple, linden, or poplar, and is fastened to them +with singular ingenuity. + +Among the earliest songsters of spring, occasionally tuning his voice +before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or +American Linnet (_Fringilla purpurea_). I have frequently heard his +notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard +one warbling cheerily on the 18th of February. But the Linnet does not +persevere like the Song-Sparrow, after he has once commenced. His voice +is only occasionally heard, until the middle of April, after which he +is a very constant singer. + +The notes of this bird are very simple and melodious, and some +individuals greatly excel others in their powers of song. It is +generally believed that the young males are the best singers, and that +age diminishes their vocal capacity. The greater number utter only a +few strains, resembling the notes of the Warbling Fly-catcher, (_Vireo +gilvus_,) and these are constantly repeated during the greater part of +the day. His song consists of four or five bars or strains; but there +are individuals that extend them _ad libitum_, varying their notes +after the manner of the Canary. The latter, however, sings with more +precision, and is louder and shriller in his tones. I have not observed +that this bird is more prone to sing in the morning and evening than at +noonday and at all hours. + +I have alluded to the fact that the finest singing-birds build their +nests and seek their food either on the ground or among the shrubbery +and the lower branches of trees, and that, when singing, they are +commonly perched rather low. The Linnet is an exception to this general +habit of the singing-birds, and, in company with the Warbling +Fly-catchers, he is commonly high up in an elm or some other tall tree, +and almost entirely out of sight, when exercising himself in song. It +is this preference for the higher branches of trees that enables these +birds, as well as the Golden Robin, to be denizens of the city. Hence +they may be heard singing as freely and melodiously from the trees on +Boston Common as in the wild-wood or orchard in the country. + +I have seen the Linnet frequently in confinement; but he does not sing +so well in a cage as in a state of freedom. His finest and most +prolonged strains are delivered while on the wing. On such occasions +only does he sing with fervor. While perched on a tree, his song is +short and not greatly varied. If you closely watch his movements when +he is singing, he may be seen on a sudden to take flight, and, while +poising himself in the air, though still advancing, he pours out a +continued strain of melody, not surpassed by the notes of any other +bird. On account of the infrequency of these occasions, it is seldom we +have an opportunity to witness a full exhibition of the musical powers +of the Linnet. + +The male American Linnet is crimson on the head, neck, and throat, +dusky on the upper part of its body, and beneath somewhat +straw-colored. It is remarkable that a great many individuals are +destitute of this color, being plainly clad, like the female. These are +supposed to be old birds, and the loss of color is attributed to age. +The same change takes place when the bird is confined. + +The little bird whose notes serve more than those of any other species +to enliven the summer noondays in our villages is the House-Wren +(_Troglodytes fulvus_). It is said to reside and rear its young chiefly +in the Middle States; but it is far from being uncommon in +Massachusetts, and, as it extends its summer migrations to Labrador, it +is probable that it breeds there also. It is evident, however, that its +breeding-places are not confined to northern latitudes. It is a +migratory bird, is never seen here in winter, but commonly arrives in +May and returns south early in October. It builds in a hollow tree, +like the Blue-bird, or in a box or other vessel provided for it, and by +furnishing such accommodations we may easily entice one to make its +home in our inclosures. + +The Wren is a very active bird, and one of the most restless of the +feathered tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when singing he +is always flitting about and changing his position. We see him in +almost all places, as it were, at the same moment of time,--now +warbling in ecstasy from the roof of a shed, then, with his wings +spread and feathers ruffled, scolding furiously at a Blue-bird or a +Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a +cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we +observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and +out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the +stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of +the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden +under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a +cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling +vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have occupied +hardly a minute, so rapid and incessant is he in his motions. + +The notes of the Wren are very lively and garrulous, and, if not +uttered more frequently during the heat of the day, are certainly more +noticeable at this hour. There is a concert at noonday, as well as in +the morning and evening, among the birds, and in the former the Wren is +one of the principal musicians. After the full rays of the sun have +silenced the early performers, the Song-Sparrow and the Red Thrush +continue to sing, at intervals, the greater part of the day. The Wren +is likewise heard at all hours; but when the languishing heat of noon +has arrived, and most of the birds are silent, the few that continue to +sing become more than usually vocal, and seem to form a select company. +They appear, indeed, to prefer the noonday, because the general silence +that prevails at this hour renders their voices more distinguishable +than at other times. The birds which are thus, as it were, associated +with the Wren, in this noonday concert, are the Bobolink, the Cat-bird, +and the two Warbling Fly-catchers, occasionally joined by the few and +simple notes of the Summer Yellow-bird. If we are in the vicinity of +the deep woods, we may also hear, at this hour, the loud and shrill +voice of the Golden-Crowned Thrush, a bird that is partial to the heat +of noon. + +Of all these, however, the Wren is the most remarkable, having a note +that is singularly varied and animated. He exhibits great compass and +power of execution, but wants variety in his tones. He begins very +sharp and shrill, like a grasshopper, then suddenly falls to a series +of low guttural notes, and ascends, like the rolling of a drum, to +another series of high notes, rapidly trilled. Almost without a pause, +he recommences with his querulous insect-chirp, and proceeds through +the same trilling and demi-semiquavering as before. He is not +particular about the part of the song which he makes his closing note, +but will leave off right in the middle of a strain, when he appears to +be in the height of ecstasy, to pick up a spider or a fly. + +As the Wren raises two broods of young in a season, his notes are +prolonged to a late period of the summer, being frequently heard in the +second or third week in August. He leaves for a southern clime about +the first of October. In his migratory habits he differs from the +European Wren, which is a constant resident in his native regions. + +Our American birds, like the American flowers, have not been celebrated +in classic song. They are scarcely known, except to our own people, and +they have not in general been exalted by praise above their real +merits. We read, both in prose and verse, the praises of the European +Lark, Linnet, and Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been +immortalized in song. But the American Robin, (_Turdus migratorius_,) +though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different +habits. Little has been written about him, and he enjoys but little +celebrity; he has never been puffed and overpraised, and, though +universally admired, the many who admire him are diffident all the +while, lest they are mistaken in their judgment and are wasting their +admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, and whose true merits +fall short of their own estimate. + +I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about +genius--and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he +cannot cry like a chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his +charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and +incongruous sounds--for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a +singing-bird. Let them say of him, in the cant of modern criticism, +that his performances cannot be great, because they are faultless; it +is enough for me, that his mellow notes, heard at the earliest flush of +morning, in the more busy hour of noon, or the quiet lull of evening, +come upon the ear in a stream of unqualified melody, as if he had +learned to sing under the direct instruction of that beautiful Dryad +who taught the Lark and the Nightingale. The Robin is surpassed by +certain birds in some particular qualities. The Mocking-bird has more +power, the Red Thrush more variety, the Vesper-bird more execution, and +the Bobolink more animation; but each of these birds has more faults +than the Robin, and would be less esteemed as a constant companion, a +vocalist for all hours, whose strains never tire and never offend. + +There are thousands who admire the Mocking-bird, because, after pouring +forth a continued stream of ridiculous and disagreeable sounds, or a +series of two or three notes repeated more than a hundred times in +uninterrupted and monotonous succession, he condescends to utter a +single delightfully modulated strain. He often brings his tiresome +_extravaganzas_ to a magnificent climax of melody, and just as often +concludes an inimitable chant with a most contemptible bathos. But the +notes of the Robin are all melodious, all delightful,--loud without +vociferation, mellow without monotony, fervent without ecstasy, and +combining more of mellowness of tone, plaintiveness, cheerfulness, and +propriety of execution, than those of any other bird. + +The Robin is the Philomel of our spring and summer mornings in New +England, and in all the country north and west of these States. Without +his sweet notes, the mornings would be like a vernal landscape without +flowers, or a summer-evening sky without tints. He is the chief +performer in the delightful anthem that welcomes the rising day. Of the +others, the best are but accompaniments of more or less importance. +Remove the Robin from this woodland orchestra, and it would be left +without a _soprano_. Over all the northern parts of this continent, +wherever there are any human settlements, these birds are numerous and +familiar. There is probably not an orchard in all New England that is +not supplied with several of these musicians. When we consider the +millions thus distributed over this broad country, we can imagine the +sublimity of that chorus which, from the middle of April until the last +of July, must daily ascend to heaven from the voices of these birds, +not one male of which is silent, on any pleasant morning, from the +earliest flush of dawn until sunrise. + +In my boyhood, an early morning-walk was one of my favorite +recreations, and never can I forget those delightful matins that +awaited me at every turn. Even then I wondered that so little +admiration was expressed for the song of the Robin, who seemed to me to +be worthy of the highest regard. The Robin, when reared in confinement, +is one of the most affectionate and interesting of birds. His powers of +song are likewise susceptible of great improvement. Though not prone to +imitation, he may be taught to sing tunes, and to imitate the notes of +other birds. I have heard one whistle "Over the water to Charlie" as +well as it could be played with a fife. Indeed, this bird is so +tractable, that I believe any well-directed efforts would never fail of +teaching him to sing any simple melody. + +But what do we care about his power of learning artificial music? Even +if he could be taught to perform like a _maestro_, this would not +enhance his value as a minstrel of the woods. We are concerned with the +birds only as they are in a state of nature. It is the simplicity of +the songs of birds, as I have before remarked, that constitutes their +principal charm; and were the Robins so changed in their nature as to +relinquish their native notes, and sing only tunes hereafter, we should +listen to them with as much indifference as to the whistling of boys in +the streets. + +In the elms on Boston Common, and in all the lofty trees in the suburbs +as well as in the country villages, are two little birds whose songs +are heard daily and hourly, from the middle of May until the latter +part of summer. These are the Warbling Fly-catchers (_Vireo gilvus and +V. olivaceus_). The first is commonly designated as the Warbling Vireo, +the second as the Red-eyed Vireo. The former arrives about a week or +ten days earlier than the other, and becomes silent likewise at a +somewhat earlier period. Both species are very similar in their habits, +frequenting the villages in preference to the woods, singing at all +hours of the day, particularly at noon, taking all their insect prey +from the leaves and branches of trees, or seizing it as it flits by +their perch, and amusing themselves, while thus employed, with +oft-repeated fragments of song. Each builds a pensile nest, or places +it in the fork of the slender branches of a tree. I have seen a nest of +the Warbling Vireo placed less than fifteen feet from the ground, on a +pear-tree, directly opposite the window of a chamber that was +constantly occupied; but the nests of both species are usually +suspended at a considerable height from the ground. + +The notes of the Warbling Vireo have been described by the words, +"Brigadier, Brigadier, Bridget." They are few, simple, and melodious, +and being often repeated, they form a very important part of the sylvan +music of cultivated and thickly-settled places. It is difficult to +obtain sight of this little warbler while he is singing, on account of +his small size, the olive color of his plumage, and his habit of +perching among the dense foliage of the trees. + +The Red-eyed Vireo is more generally known by his note, because he is +particularly vocal during the heat of the long summer-days, when other +birds are comparatively silent. The modulation of his notes is similar +to that of the common Robin, but his tones are sharper, and he sings in +a very desultory manner, leaving off very frequently in the middle of a +strain to seize a moth or a beetle. Singing, while he is engaged in +song, never seems to be his sole employment. This is the little bird +that warbles for us late in the summer, after almost all other birds +have become silent, uttering his moderate notes, as if for his own +amusement, during all the heat of the day, from the trees by the +roadsides and in our inclosures. We might then suppose him to be +repeating very moderately the words, "Do you hear me? Do you see me?" +with the rising inflection of the voice, and with a pause after each +sentence, as if he waited for an answer. + +As soon as the cherry-tree is in blossom, and when the oak and the +maple are beginning to unfold their plaited leaves, the loud and mellow +notes of the Golden Robin (_Icterus Baltimore_) are heard for the first +time in the year. I have never known the birds of this species to +arrive before this date, and they seem to be governed by the supply of +their insect food, which probably becomes abundant simultaneously with +the flowering of the orchards. These birds may from that time be +observed diligently hunting among the branches and foliage of the +trees, and they appear to make a particular examination of the +blossoms, from which they obtain a great variety of flies and beetles +that are lodged in them. While thus employed, the bird frequently +utters his brief, but loud and melodious notes; but he sings, like the +Vireo, only while attending to the wants of life. Almost all remarkable +singing-birds, when warbling, give themselves up entirely to song, and +pay no regard to other demands upon their time until they have +concluded. But the Golden Robin never relaxes from his industry, nor +remains stationed upon the branch of a tree for the sole purpose of +singing. He sings, like an industrious maid-of-all-work, only while +employed in the ordinary concerns of life. + +The Golden Robin is said to inhabit North America from Canada to +Mexico; but there is reason to believe that the species is most +abundant in the north-eastern parts of the continent, and that a +greater number breed in the New England States than either south or +west of this section. They are also more numerous in the suburbs of +cities and towns than in the ruder and more primitive parts of the +country. Their peculiar manner of protecting their pensile nests, by +hanging them from the extremities of the lofty branches of an elm or +other tall tree, enables the bird to rear its young with great +security, even in the heart of the city. The only animals that are able +to reach their nests are the smaller squirrels, which sometimes descend +the long, slender branches upon which they are suspended, and devour +the eggs. + +This depredation I have never witnessed; but I have seen the Red +Squirrel descend in this manner to devour the crysalis of a certain +insect, which was rolled up in a leaf. + +The ways and manners of the Golden Robin are very interesting. He is +remarkable for his vivacity, and his bright plumage renders all his +movements conspicuous. His plumage needs no description, since every +one is familiar with its colors, as they are seen like flashes of fire +among the trees. The bird derives its specific name (Baltimore) from +the resemblance of its colors to the livery of Lord Baltimore of +Maryland. The name of a bird ought to have either a sylvan or a poetic +origin. This has neither. I prefer, therefore, the common and +expressive name of Golden Robin. + +This bird is supposed to possess considerable power of musical +imitation. Still it may be observed that in all cases he gives the +notes of those birds only whose voice resembles his own. Thus, he often +repeats the song of the Red-bird, but in doing this he varies his own +notes no more than he might do without meaning any imitation. Though he +repeats but few notes, he utters them with great variety of modulation. +Sometimes for several days he confines himself to a single strain, and +afterwards for about an equal space of time he will adopt another +strain. Sometimes he lengthens his brief notes into an extended melody, +and sings in a sort of ecstasy, like the birds of the Finch tribe. Such +musical paroxysms are exceedingly rare in his case, and seem to be +occasioned by some momentary exultation. + +The Golden Robin rears but one brood of young in this part of the +country, and his cheerful notes are discontinued soon after the young +have left their nest. The song of the old bird seems after this period +hardly necessary to the offspring, who keep up an incessant chirping +from the moment of leaving their nest until they are able to accompany +the old ones to the woods, whither they retire in the latter part of +the season. It is remarkable, that, after a perfect silence of two or +three weeks after this time, the Golden Robins suddenly make their +appearance again for a few days, uttering the same merry notes with +which they hailed the arrival of summer. They soon disappear again, and +before autumn arrives they make their annual journey to the South, +where they pass the winter. + +There is no singing-bird in New England that enjoys the notoriety of +the Bobolink (_Icterus agripennis_). He is like a rare wit in our +social or political circles. Everybody is talking about him and quoting +his remarks, and all are delighted with his company. He is not without +great merits as a songster; but he is well known and admired, because +he is showy, noisy, and flippant, and sings only in the open field, and +frequently while poised on the wing, so that everybody who hears him +can see him, and know who is the author of the strains that afford him +so much delight. He sings also at broad noonday, when everybody is out, +and is seldom heard before sunrise, while other birds are pouring forth +their souls in a united concert of praise. He waits until the sun is +up, and when most of the early performers have become silent, as if +determined to secure a good audience before exhibiting his powers. + +The Bobolink, or Conquedle, has unquestionably great talents as a +musician. In the grand concert of Nature it is he who performs the +_recitative_ parts, which he delivers with the utmost fluency and +rapidity; and one must be a careful listener, not to lose many of his +words. He is plainly the merriest of all the feathered creation, almost +continually in motion, and singing upon the wing, apparently in the +greatest ecstasy of joy. + +There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound +is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him +without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his +companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon +him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his +spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. The object of his +love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a +modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel. It +is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her +costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces. +She must be entirely without vanity, unless we suppose that it is +gratified by observing the pomp and display which are made by her +partner, and by listening to his delightful eloquence of song: for if +we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed that he is unsurpassed +in fluency and rapidity of utterance; and if we regard him only as a +musician, he is unrivalled in brilliancy of execution. + +Vain are all attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly +original style. The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and +refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage. I cannot look +upon him as ever in a very serious humor. He seems to be a lively, +jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when +half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same +orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons +dramatized in some comic opera. These birds never remain stationary +upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary +amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often +commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an +apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part +while balancing themselves on the wing. The merriest part of the day +with these birds is the later afternoon, during the hour preceding +dewfall, and before the Robins and Thrushes commence their evening +hymn. Then, assembled in company, it would seem as if they were +practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own +movements, as he sallies forth and returns,--and nothing can exceed +their apparent merriment. + +The Bobolink usually commences his warbling just after sunrise, when +the Robin, having sung from the earliest dawn, brings his performance +to a close. Nature seems to have provided that the serious parts of her +musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, and that the +lively and comic strains shall follow them. In the evening this order +is reversed; and after the comedy is concluded, Nature lulls us to +meditation and repose by the mellow notes of the little Vesper-bird, +and the pensive and still more melodious strains of the solitary +Thrushes. + +In pleasant, sunshiny weather, the Bobolink seldom flies without +singing, often hovering on the wing over the place where his mate is +sitting upon her ground-built nest, and pouring forth his notes with +great loudness and fluency. The Bobolink is one of our social birds, +one of those species that follow in the footsteps of man, and multiply +with the progress of agriculture. He is not a frequenter of the woods; +he seems to have no taste for solitude. He loves the orchard and the +mowing-field, and many are the nests which are exposed by the scythe of +the haymaker, if the mowing be done early in the season. Previously to +the settlement of America, these birds must have been comparatively +rare in the New England States, and were probably confined to the open +prairies and savannas in the northwestern territory. + + +THE O'LINCON FAMILY. + + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there,--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week, and, ere you + marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and + wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + Oh, what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead! + How they sing, and how they play! See, they fly away, away! + Now they gambol o'er the clearing,--off again, and then appearing; + Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar, and now they sing:-- + "We must all be merry and moving; we must all be happy and loving; + For when the midsummer has come, and the grain has ripened its ear, + The haymakers scatter our young, and we mourn for the rest of the + year. + Then Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste, away!" + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE SONG-SPARROW, AND ITS VARIATIONS. Three +lines of music. Line one is labelled THEME. Line 2 is labelled Var. 1 +and line 3 is Var. 2.] + +[Illustration: (musical notation) NOTE.--The notes marked _guttural_ +seem to me to be performed by a rapid trilling of these notes with +their octave. It should be added, that no bird sings constantly in so +regular time as is represented above, and the intervals between the +high and low notes are very irregular. Both the time and the tune are +in great measure _ad libitum_] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE LINNET. (_Fringilla purpurea_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE WREN. (_Trogledytes fulvus_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE ROBIN. (_Turdus migratorius_.) (musical +notation)] + +Another--Flexibly modulated, as if pronouncing the words below. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Tu lu lu, tu lu lu, tu lu lu, too loo. + +NOTE.--The Robin is continually varying his notes; so that the two +specimens, as given above, may be considered but the theme upon which +he constructs his melody. + +SONG OF THE WARBLING VIREO. (_V. Gilvus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Brigadier Brigadier Brigadier Briget. + +SONG OF THE RED-EYED VIREO. (_V. olivaceus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] pauses to Take a fly. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] takes another, The same repeated without +conclusion. + +SONG OF THE GOLDEN ROBIN. (_Icterus Baltimore._) [Illustration: Musical +staff] + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles S. Paine, of East Randolph, who, I believe, +was the first to observe this habit of the Song-Sparrow.] + +[Footnote 2: Mr. Augustus Fowler of Danversport, who has made one of +the finest collections of the eggs of native birds. His drawings of the +same are beautifully executed, accompanied by representations of the +nests and of the foliage that surrounded them. This gentleman and his +brother, Mr. S.P. Fowler, have found leisure, during the intervals of +their occupation in a mechanical art, to acquire a knowledge of certain +branches of natural history which would do honor to a professor.] + + + +THE OLD WELL. + + +On a bright April morning many years ago, a stout, red-faced old +gentleman, Geoffrey Purcill, followed by several workmen bearing +shovels and pick-axes, took his way to a little knoll on which stood a +wide-spreading chestnut-tree. When they reached the top of the knoll, +the old man paused a moment and then struck his gold-headed cane upon +the ground at some little distance from the trunk of the tree, saying, +"Dig here." + +The workmen looked at each other and then at their master. + +"It would be useless to dig a well here, Sir," said one of the workmen, +very respectfully,--"no water would ever come into it." + +"Who asked for your opinion?" inquired Geoffrey, in an angry tone. "Do +as I bid you;--the well shall be digged here, and water _shall_ come +into it." + +The man ventured no further remonstrance; he took off his jacket, and +struck his pickaxe into the hard, dry soil near the point where the +cane rested. + +Geoffrey Purcill was a choleric old gentleman, who, having had his own +way all his life, was by no means inclined to forego that privilege now +that he was advanced in years. As he sat beneath the chestnut-tree, one +warm spring day, he felt very thirsty, and he suddenly thought what a +good thing it would be to have a well there, so that he might refresh +himself with a draught of clear, cool water, without the trouble of +returning to the house. The more thirsty he grew, the pleasanter seemed +the project to him,--a large, deep well, neatly stoned, with a sweep +and buckets,--it would be a pretty object to look at, as well as +comfort to man and beast. The well should be digged forthwith, and what +Geoffrey Purcill once resolved upon he was not slow to execute; and, +despite the remonstrances of those who knew better than he, the work +was commenced at once. + +A more unpromising place for a well could not have been selected in all +his extensive grounds; but he was not a man to be patiently baffled +even by Nature herself, and he stood looking with grim satisfaction at +the hole which rapidly widened and deepened under the vigorous efforts +of his sturdy workmen. + +Day after day old Geoffrey watched his workmen on the knoll. The well +increased in size till it was large enough to have watered a whole +caravan,--but the desert of Sahara itself was not drier. Geoffrey +fumed, raved, and swore; and when two of the men were killed by the +falling of the earth, and the rest absolutely refused to work any +longer, he bade them go, a pack of ungrateful scoundrels as they were, +and, procuring more laborers, declared "he would dig there till the +Devil came to fetch him." + +Geoffrey was as good as his word;--he labored with a pertinacity worthy +of a better object, and dug deeper into the bowels of the earth, and +partly stoned his well,--but no water, save that which fell from +heaven, ever appeared in it. + +And when old Geoffrey was gathered to his fathers, he left his house +and grounds to his only daughter, Eleanor Purcill, on the express +condition that the well was not to be filled up, but to remain open +till water did come into it. + + * * * * * + +One July day, when Geoffrey Purcill had been some twenty years with his +fathers, or with Satan, (which two destinies might have been one and +the same, after all, for he came of a turbulent, wicked race,) two +children, a boy and girl, sat on the brink of the well and looked down +into it. It was half filled with the rubbish of the fallen stones, but +it was still deep, and dark enough to tempt their curious eyes into +trying to discover what lay hidden in its shadowy depths. The great +chestnut-tree, rich with drooping, feathery blossoms, shaded them from +the burning sun,--a few stray beams only finding their way through the +glossy leaves, and resting on the golden curls of the girl. + +The boy leaned over the well, and peered into it;--the little girl bent +forward, as if to do the same, but drew back again. + +"Take hold of my hand, Mark," said she, "and let me lean over as you +do." + +"What do you want to look in for?" asked the boy,--"there is nothing to +see. Oh, yes," continued he, mischievously, "there is a horrid dragon, +just such as St. George fought with, lying all curled up in the bottom +of the well, with fire and smoke coming out of his mouth." + +Rosamond Purcill was too true a descendant of old Geoffrey to be +frightened at the thought of a dragon. She caught hold of Mark's arm to +steady herself, and leaned over the well. + +"Let me see! let me see!" cried she, eagerly. + +Mark made one or two feints of pushing her in, but at last held her +firmly by the waist, while she looked in vain for the fabulous monster +below. + +"Where is he, Mark? I don't see anything, and I don't believe you saw +him." + +"Oh, yes, I did," said Mark;--"there, don't you see the end of his tail +sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little +girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for +luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up in a +minute." + +"What stories, Mark! Aunt Eleanor says there are no dragons, nor ever +were." + +"Pooh!" retorted Mark, contemptuously,--"Aunt Eleanor has not seen +everything that there is to be seen in the world. Look again, Rosy." + +Again the little curly head was bent over the well, somewhat puzzled +which to believe, Aunt Eleanor or Mark, but half-inclined to credit +Mark's eyes rather than Aunt Eleanor's words. + +"Do you think that can be one of his scales?" asked she, pointing to a +small piece of tin which glittered in a stray sunbeam among the stones. + +Mark's eyes followed the direction of her finger, and he was about to +declare that it must be a scale that the dragon had scraped off his +back, wriggling among the stones, when both children were startled by a +loud voice calling out, "What are you doing, children? You will fall +into the well and break your good-for-nothing little necks!" + +Mark and Rosamond drew back, and saw a young man, their brother +Bradford, with a basket and a fishing-rod in his hand, coming up the +knoll. + +"Why are you here, Mark?" asked he. "Aunt Eleanor thinks it a dangerous +place, and has forbidden you to play here." + +Mark looked up at his brother. "I come," said he, sturdily, "for that +very reason,--because I am told not to. I won't mind Aunt Eleanor, nor +any other woman." + +Bradford shook his head and burst out into a laugh. "Ah, Mark, my boy," +said he, with a serious, comical air, "it will do very well for you to +talk,--you will find out, sooner or later, that all men have to do just +what women wish." + +Mark opened his incredulous eyes, and inwardly resolved that this +should never be the case with him; and considering that Bradford was +only eighteen it is somewhat remarkable that he should have gained so +much wisdom, either by observation or experience, at so early an age. + +"Mark says," chimed in Rosamond, "that there is a dragon at the bottom +of the well; and I want to see him." + +"A dragon?" cried Bradford,--"Mark is a story-teller, and you are a +goose;--but if there is one, I will catch him for you";--and he stood +on the brink of the well, and sportively threw his line into it. + +"You are a pretty fellow to talk about catching a dragon, Brad!" +retorted Mark, a little nettled at the tone in which Bradford spoke of +him,--"you can't even catch a shiner!"--and he glanced at Bradford's +empty basket. + +Bradford laughed louder than before. "And for that very reason I expect +to catch the dragon. One kind of a line will not catch all kinds of +fish; and this line may be good for nothing but dragons, after +all.--There! I've got a bite. Stand back, Rosy," cried he, "the dragon +will be on the grass in a minute." + +Bradford tried to pull up his line, but it was either entangled among +the stones, or had some heavy object attached to it, for the rod bent +beneath the weight as he with a strong pull endeavored to draw up his +prize. Rosamond's eyes opened to their widest extent, and, fully +expecting to see the dragon swinging wide-mouthed in the air over her +head, drew a little closer to Mark, who, on his part, wondered what +Bradford was at, and whether he was not playing some trick upon him. + +When the end of the line rose to the top of the well, they saw +suspended by the two hooks, not a winged, scaly monster, but a small +rusty box, in the fastenings of which the hooks had caught. + +Rosamond drew a long breath,--"Is that all, Bradford? I am so sorry! I +thought, to be sure, you had the dragon." + +"Never mind the dragon, Rosy," cried he; "let us see what I have +caught. + +"Who knows but the purse of Fortunatus or the slipper of Cinderella may +be in here?--they have been lost for many a day, and nobody knows where +they are." + +Bradford knelt down on the grass, and, unhooking his line, strove to +undo the rusty hasp; but it resisted all the efforts of his fingers, +and it was only by the aid of a knife and a stone that he opened the +box. In it was a morocco case, much discolored, but still in tolerable +preservation, from which he drew a small manuscript book. + +Rosamond's disappointment was greater than before. "It is nothing but a +writing-book, after all," said she. "I wish you had not said anything +about the purse or slipper, and then I should never have thought of +them. You never heard anybody say where they thought the purse and +slipper were hid,--did you?" + +"Come, Rosy," cried Mark, "come down to the meadow; there is nothing +more to be got out of the old well. Let us leave Brad alone with his +book and his fish." + +The children turned away towards the meadow,--Rosamond meditating upon +the probability of her ever finding the purse and slipper, if she +should ever set out in quest of them, and Mark thinking what a fool +such a big fellow as Bradford must be, to mind any woman that ever was +born. + +Bradford took the box and the book to the chestnut-tree, and, +stretching himself at full length in the shade, began to turn over the +leaves. It was a journal, written in a delicate, graceful hand; and +though the paper was somewhat yellow, and the ink faded, the writing +was perfectly legible. Bradford looked at it, carelessly reading here +and there a sentence, till his eye catching some familiar names, he +opened it at the commencement, and read as follows:-- + +"_December_ 31.--It is the last night of the old year. A few more +steps, and the old year will have vanished into the great hall of the +Past, where all the ages that ever have been are gathered. I have been +sitting the last hour by myself, and have fancied that time moved not +with its usual swiftness,--that the old year lingered with a sad +regret, as if loath to pass away and let the new come in. Even now the +midnight clock is striking,--eleven,--twelve;--the last flutter of the +old year's robe is out of sight, and the new year glides in with +noiseless feet, like one who enters the chamber of the dead. These are +but melancholy fancies;--because I am sad myself must I put all the +world in mourning? The old year did not linger;--it is only I that am +loath to go. I have been so happy here, that the prospect of spending +the coming year with Cousin Eleanor fills my mind with sad +forebodings;--and yet my childish remembrances of her have in them +nothing unpleasant. I think of her as a grave, quiet woman, who never +strove to attract and win the love of a child. How I shall miss the +life and gayety, the jests and laughter of Madge and Bertha! Madge the +more, because she is so full of whims and oddities. To-night she came +into my room, and brought this little book for me to write a journal of +all that befell me while I was gone, making me promise to write often +in it. Not that she ever wished to see it again. Heaven forbid that she +should ever be so cruelly punished as to be made to read anybody's +journal!--least of all such a stupid one as mine must be, shut up with +Cousin Eleanor!--but she thought that I could never draw the book from +the case (she had chosen one that fitted very tightly, and would give +me much trouble for that very reason) without thinking of her;--and to +be thought of often by her friends she confesses she is weak enough to +wish.--Dear Madge, I could not forget her, if I would. The book just +fits in a little japanned box that belonged to my grandmother, in which +she used to keep rouge and pearl-powder. I will keep it in that, and +remember my promise to Madge. + +"_February_ 21.--The journey is over, and I am at Cousin Eleanor's. How +the evils that we dread shrink into nothing when we fairly meet them! +Cousin Eleanor received me kindly, and looked neither so grave nor so +cold as my memory, assisted by my imagination, had pictured her; and +Ashcroft is a pretty place, even in midwinter. I am never tired of +sitting at the library-window, and looking at the bare branches of the +black ash-trees, as they spread out their network against the winter +sky. I have a little desk near the bay-window, where I have my drawing +and writing materials, and where I pretend to write and draw, while +Eleanor occupies a larger one at the opposite window. Eleanor is a +woman of business,--keeps all her accounts, looks after her farm and +servants, and manages all her own affairs, and, though a strict and +exacting mistress, is neither harsh nor unkind;--she evidently intends +to perform all her own duties punctually and faithfully, and expects +others to do the same. I often look at her with wonder, her nature is +so different from mine,--never impulsive, always cool and steady,--full +of ceaseless activity, yet never hurried, and seemingly never +perplexed. I sometimes think she sees the whole of her life mapped out +before her, and takes up every event in order. With the exception of +the servants, we are the only occupants of the house, Eleanor does not +seek nor desire the society of her neighbors; and so while she works I +dream, read, or answer Madge or Bertha's letters. + +"_February_ 28.--It has been snowing ceaselessly for two days. I have +read, drawn, and sewed till I am as weary as Marianna in the moated +grange. I have yawned aloud a dozen times, but Eleanor does not mind +it. She has been extremely busy with accounts, papers, and letters. For +the last four hours I do not think she has spoken a word. I hear +nothing but the scratch of her pen as it moves over the paper, and the +wind in the ash-trees. I have taken Madge's journal in despair. Ah, +Madge! I wish the bonnie girl were here;--how we would talk nonsense by +the hour together, just to keep our tongues in practice, and Madge +would hunt down an idea through all its turnings and windings, as if it +were a hare, and she a dog in chase of it! A ring at the door;--I hope +it may be some human body that will make Cousin Eleanor open her lips +at last. + +"_March_ 1.--The blots on the opposite page show with what haste I shut +up my journal yesterday. The ring at the door brought more than I +anticipated, and opened my eyes effectually for the rest of the day. +'Mr. Lee,' said the servant, throwing the library-door wide open, and +ushering in a man wrapped in a cloak, with a travelling-cap in his +hand. Cousin Eleanor rose instantly, and advanced to meet him. I +expected to see her extend her hand towards him, and welcome him in her +usual courteous manner. Instead of that, she gave him a hearty kiss, +which could be heard as well as felt, and which was returned, as I +thought, with interest. If the marble Widow Wadman in the library had +kissed the sympathizing face of Uncle Toby, I should not have been so +much surprised, and should have thought it much more likely to happen. + +"'I am very glad to see you, Thornton,' said she. 'I did not think you +could come till to-morrow.' + +"'I have made the best use of my time,' returned he, 'and had no wish +to spend my precious hours at a country inn. It seemed good to see +winter and snow again, after so many months of summer.' + +"Bending forward to catch a better view of him as he spoke, the +rustling of my dress reminded Eleanor of my presence. + +"'My cousin Elizabeth Purcill, Thornton Lee,' said she. 'My two good +friends I hope will also be friends to each other.' + +"Mr. Lee made me a gentlemanly bow, and said something about the +pleasure of seeing me; but more than suspecting that my presence in the +library was no pleasure to either of them, I shut up my journal, +crowded it into the box, and stole out of the room at the first +convenient opportunity. On the stairs I met Mrs. Bickford, the +housekeeper. + +"'Is any one in the library with Miss Purcill?' asked she. + +"'Yes,--a Mr. Lee.' + +"'Mr. Lee?' exclaimed she, in surprise. 'I did not know as he was +expected home now.' + +"'Who is Mr. Lee?' + +"'He is the gentleman whom Miss Purcill is to marry; but I thought he +was not coming till autumn. I wonder if she knew it.' + +"What Eleanor knows she always keeps to herself; none of her household +are any the wiser for it. I was more surprised than Mrs. Bickford. +Eleanor affianced! I never thought or dreamed of such a thing. Eleanor +in love must be a curious spectacle. I did not feel sleepy any longer. +What could a woman, so independent, so self-relying, so sufficient for +herself, want of a lover? She always seemed to be a whole, and did not +need another half to complete herself. I speculated much on the +subject, and, when the bell rang for tea, went down-stairs with +something of the same feeling of eager curiosity with which I open the +pages of a good novel. There is nothing so interesting to idle, +observant people as a pair of lovers, provided they are not silly, in +which stage they are perfectly unbearable, and never should suffer +themselves to be seen even by their intimate friends. Was it my fancy, +or not? I thought Eleanor had grown young since I left the library. A +soft light beamed in her eyes, and a clear crimson--the first trace of +color I had ever seen in her face--burned on her cheek. It was a very +different countenance from that at which I had been casting sidelong +glances half the day, and yet it seemed to me that she was ashamed of +these signs of joy, and thought it but a weakness to feel so glad. I +sat silent nearly all the evening;--words always come more readily to +my pen than to my lips, and, were it not so, there would have been no +occasion for any speech of mine. Their conversation flowed on +uninterruptedly, like a full, free river, whose current is strong and +deep. How much richer both their lives seemed than mine! He had +travelled, thought, seen, and felt so much, and had brought such wealth +home with him, fitly coined into aptly chosen words; and she had +gathered treasures as priceless from the literature of her own and +foreign lands. I had nothing to offer either of them but my ears, and +for those I doubt whether they felt grateful,--and when that doubt +became a certainty, I crept into the great window in the drawing-room, +and looked out upon the lawn. The moon, breaking through the clouds, +shone brightly on the new-fallen snow. I sat down on a low chair,--the +curtains fell about me,--their voices came to me with a low, dreamy +sound,--I leaned my head on my hand, and fell asleep. When I awoke, the +fire had died away, and the chairs were empty. + +"_March_ 20.--Mr. Lee comes every day. His father lives only a few +miles from us,--a distance so short as to be no obstacle to a lover +with a good horse; though I suspect, if the horse could speak, he would +wish the distance either less or greater. These midnight rides must be +detrimental to the constitution of any steady horse, and he often wakes +me up at night, pawing impatiently under the window while his master is +making his lingering adieux on the door-step. + +"_April_ 1.--I dislike Eleanor more every day. I know not why, unless +because I watch her so closely. When Mr. Lee is not here she works as +industriously as ever. If I were in love, I would give myself up to a +dream or reverie now and then, and build myself an air-castle, if it +were only to see it tumble down, and call myself a fool for my pains; +but she is too matter-of-fact to do that. Well, if there is not much +romance about her love, perhaps there is more reality; yet Thornton Lee +is just the man one could make an ideal of, if one only would. But this +is not what I especially dislike her for; people must love according to +their own nature and temperament, and not after another's pattern. The +thing that frets me most just now is the way that Eleanor has of +divining my thoughts before they are spoken, and even before they are +quite clear to myself. Sometimes, when we are talking together, some +subject comes up on which I do not care to express my opinion. Eleanor +fixes her clear, penetrating eyes upon me, and drags my thought out +into the light, just as a kingfisher pounces upon and pulls a fish out +of the water. Had I anything to conceal, any secret, I should be afraid +of her; and as it is, I do not like this invasion of my personal +kingdom,--though my thoughts often acquire new strength and beauty from +Eleanor's strong and vigorous language. Last evening, Mr. Lee, Eleanor, +and myself were turning over the prints in a large portfolio. We paused +at one, the Departure of Hagar into the Wilderness. The artist had +represented Hagar turning away from the door of the tent with Ishmael +and the bottle of water; Abraham was near her; while Sarah in the +background with a triumphant face exulted at the driving out of the +bondmaid. The picture had not much merit as a work of Art; but in +Hagar's face was such a look of despairing, wistful tenderness, as she +turned towards Abraham for the last time, that it moved me almost to +tears. I drew a long breath as the picture was turned over. Looking up, +I saw Eleanor's eyes fixed upon me. + +"'You pity Hagar, then? You think it was a harsh and cruel thing to +drive her out into the wilderness with her child?' + +"'Yes,' said I, shortly,--a little provoked that she should have seen +it in my face. + +"She went on: 'Sarah was right. Had I been she, I would have driven her +out as remorselessly and as pitilessly. Did she not, presuming upon her +youth, her beauty, and her child, despise her mistress? and why should +her mistress feel compassion for her? The love of a long life might +well thrust aside the passion of a few months, and Sarah, contemned by +her bondmaid, is more worthy of pity than Hagar, in my eyes.' + +"I was about to say that Sarah was more to blame for Hagar's conduct +than she was herself, when Mr. Lee observed 'that Abraham was more to +be pitied than either of them, for he was unable or unwilling to +protect either of the women whom he loved,--his wife from the contempt +of her bondmaid, or the bondmaid from the fury of his wife.' + +"I fancied Eleanor did not exactly like this remark, for she turned to +the next print hastily and began commenting upon it. + +"_May_ 6.--The groves and fields are beautiful with the fresh beauty of +the early spring. We have given up our winter occupations for long +rambles on the hills and in the woods. I sometimes decline being a +third in the lovers' walks; but Eleanor seems so dissatisfied, if I +refuse to accompany them, that I consent, lagging behind often, and +have learned to be both blind and deaf as occasion requires. I think, +too, that Mr. Lee is not sorry to have me with them. He and Eleanor +have been separated for three years, and I sometimes wonder if they +have not grown away from each other in that time. A long absence is a +dangerous experiment even for friends, much more for lovers. Besides, +no life is long enough to allow such great gaps in it. + +"_June_ 1.--We were sitting yesterday under the ash-trees on the +lawn,--Eleanor netting, Mr. Lee reading Dante aloud, and I making +myself rings and bracelets out of the shining blades of grass, and +pretending to listen, when a servant brought Eleanor a letter. It was +very short, for she did not turn the leaf. When she had read it she +drew out her watch. + +"'I have an hour before the express-train starts. Tell Mrs. Bickford to +pack my trunk for a journey. Harness the black horse to drive to the +station.' + +"She put the letter into Mr. Lee's hands. 'My brother is very ill, and +I shall go to him at once. Elizabeth, I am sorry to leave you here +alone, but while I am gone I hope Thornton will consider you under his +charge and protection.' + +"She rose, as she spoke, and went towards the house, followed by +Thornton. + +"In a few minutes she appeared again, dressed in a gray +travelling-dress,--kissed me lightly on the check, and bade me +good-bye. All her preparations for this long journey had been made +without any hurry or confusion, and she did not apparently feel so +agitated or nervous at the thought of travelling this distance alone as +I should to have gone by myself to the nearest town. Why Thornton did +not accompany her, whether he could not or she did not wish it, I do +not know; but he parted from her at the station, and soon returned for +his horse. + +"_July_ 1.--Eleanor has been gone a month; in that time we have +received but one letter from her. Her brother still lies in a very +critical state, and she will not leave him at present. His motherless +children, too, she thinks require her care. It seemed very lonesome at +first without her. I did not think I could have missed an uncongenial +person, one with whom I had so little sympathy, so much. I think I must +belong to the tribe of creeping plants, which cling to whatever is +nearest to them. Ashcroft grows daily more beautiful, and Thornton +comes often to see me. We read together books that I like, (not Dante,) +walk and sketch. We are on excellent terms, and call each other Cousin +in view of our future relationship. I can talk more freely to him, now +that Eleanor is not here,--and feel no disposition to hide my thoughts, +now that I can keep them to myself, if I choose. + +"_July_ 24.--A week ago, one fair midsummer afternoon, we strolled to +the knoll, and sat down under the blossoming boughs of the +chestnut-tree. + +"'I think,' said I, 'this is the pleasantest place in all the grounds; +but Eleanor never seemed willing to come here.' + +"'Eleanor has many unpleasant remembrances connected with the place,' +replied Thornton. 'Her father's obstinate persistence in digging the +well was a great annoyance to the whole household, and, unimaginative +as Eleanor is, I fancy sometimes, from her avoidance of the spot, that +she has some superstitious idea connected with the well,--that she +fears through it some great misfortune may happen to some of the +family.' + +"'I hardly see how that can be,' said I, rising and going to the brink +of the well; 'it is very deep, but there was never any water in it.' + +"Just then I caught sight of a little flower growing out of the cleft +of one of the stones. I knelt down and bent over to reach it. I +slipped, I know not how, and should have fallen, had not Thornton +sprung to my side and caught me. + +"'Ah, my foolish cousin!' said he, 'there needs not to be water in the +well to make it a dangerous place. Promise me that you will not attempt +such a thing again.' + +"'Not I,' said I, laughing gayly to conceal my fright,--for I did think +I was about to break my neck on the stones below. 'There is no harm +done, and I have got what I was after,'--and I held up the flower. + +"It was an ugly little thing, and looked not half so pretty in my hand +as it did in the shadow of the well. I would not have gathered it, had +I seen it growing by the roadside. 'Is it not pretty?' + +"'Humph!' said he, 'very!--worth breaking one's neck for!' + +"'I was about to offer it to you, but, since you despise it, I will +keep it myself,'--and I stuck it into my hair. + +"Some time after, I missed the flower. I did not see it on the grass, +but a leaf strangely similar peeped out of Thornton's waistcoat-pocket. +When we passed by the well, on leaving the knoll, 'Promise me,' said he +again, 'that you will not reach over the well for flowers any more.' + +"I was a little irritated at his pertinacity. 'I shall do no such +thing,' returned I; 'you are growing as superstitious as Eleanor. On +the contrary, I think I shall make a garden there and tend it every +day; and whenever I go away from Ashcroft, I will leave something on +the stone for you, to show how idle your fears are.' + +"Thornton did not answer. He was provoked, but showed his anger only by +his silence. We sauntered back to the house in a different mood from +that in which we had left it. + +"_August_ 4.--Thornton came into the library to-day with a letter from +Eleanor. She cannot leave her brother, and wrote to Thornton about some +papers that she wished sent to her without delay. They were in the +drawer of the desk at which I was sitting. Thornton said he was in +haste, as he wished to prepare the packet for the next mail. I rose at +once. In his hurry he knocked the little japanned box on to the floor. +Begging pardon for his awkwardness, he picked it up, and looked at it a +moment to assure himself that it had suffered no damage. + +"'It is a curious little thing,' said he, 'and looks as if it were a +hundred years old.' + +"'It belonged once to my grandmother, and held pearl-powder and rouge,' +said I. + +"'And is used for the same purpose now?' inquired he. + +"'Yes,' returned I, my cheek reddening a little. 'I was just putting +some on as you entered.' + +"'It must be very uncommon rouge,' remarked he, quietly fixing his eyes +on me; 'it grows red after it is put on, and must require much care in +the use of it.' + +"'I thought you were in a great hurry, Thornton, when you came in.' + +"'And so I am';--and he began undoing and separating papers, but every +few moments he would steal a glance--a glance that made me feel +uneasy--towards me, as I sat at the other window busying myself with my +needle. + +"_August_ 25.--I wish Eleanor would come home. I sometimes think I will +go away; but to leave Ashcroft now would imply a doubt of Thornton's +honor, and impute thoughts to him which perhaps have no existence but +in my vanity. + +"_October_ 3.--Ah, why was I so foolish? Why did I not go when I saw the +danger so clearly, instead of cheating myself into the belief that +there was none? Would that I had never come to Ashcroft, or had had the +courage to leave it! These last six weeks, I do not know, I cannot +tell, how they have been spent. Thornton was ever by my side, and +I--did not wish him away. We sat this afternoon on the lawn under the +great ash-tree,--the one under which he sat reading Dante to Eleanor +the last day she was with us. The love which had burned in his eyes all +day found utterance at last, and flamed out in fiery, passionate words. +He drew me towards him. His vehemence frightened me, and I muttered +something about Eleanor. It checked him for a moment, but, quickly +recovering, he spoke freely of himself and of her,--of the love which +had existed between them,--a feeling so feeble and so poor, compared to +that which he felt for me, as to be unworthy of the name. He entreated, +he implored my love. I was silent. He bent over me, gazing into my +face. There was a traitor lurking in my heart, which looked out of my +eyes, and spoke without my consent. He understood that language but too +well. I bent my eyes upon the ground,--his arm was around my waist, his +hand clasped mine, his lips approached my cheek. A shadow seemed +suddenly to come between me and the sun. I looked up and saw Eleanor, +clad in mourning, standing before us. I started at once to my feet, +and, like the coward that I am, fled and left them together. I ran down +to the old hawthorn-tree, against which I leaned, panting and +trembling. Yet, in a few moments, ashamed of my weakness, I stole back +to where I could see them unobserved. Eleanor stood upon the same spot, +calm and motionless. Thornton was speaking, but I was too far off to +hear more than the sound of his voice. When he had ended, he approached +her, as if to bid her adieu; but she passed him with a stately bow, and +entered the hall-door. Thornton took his way to the stables, and I soon +heard the clattering of his horse's hoofs on the hard gravelled road. +When the sound died away in the distance, I stole into the house and +crept up to my chamber. How long I was there I could not tell; but when +I heard the bell ring for tea, I washed my face and smoothed my hair. +I would not be so cowardly as to fear to see Eleanor again, and perhaps +it would be better for us both to meet in the presence of a third +person. + +"Mrs. Bickford was alone at the table. 'Miss Purcill would not come +down tonight,--she was fatigued with her journey.' + +"The good lady strove to entertain me with her conversation, but, +finding that I neither heard, answered, nor ate, our meal was soon +brought to a close. It is long past midnight. I have thought till I am +sick and giddy with thinking. I cannot sleep, and have been writing +here to control the wildness of my imaginings. I have been twice to +Eleanor's chamber. The door is half ground-glass, and I can see her +black shadow as she walks to and fro across the room. She has been +walking so ever since she entered it. + +"_October_ 4.--What shall I do? Where shall I go? All night and all day +Eleanor has walked her chamber-floor. I have been to the door. I have +knocked. I have called her by name. I have turned the handle,--the door +is locked. No answer comes to me,--nothing but the black shadow +flitting across the panes. I sat down by the threshold and burst into +tears. + +"Mrs. Bickford found me there. 'Do not grieve so, Miss Elizabeth,' said +she, kindly. 'It is dreadful, I know; but Miss Purcill walked the floor +all night after her father died, and would admit no one to her room. +She will be better to-morrow.' + +"I shook my head. Could I believe that grief for the dead, and not +sorrow for the conduct of the living, moved her thus, I should be +happy. Then I could offer consolation and sympathy; but now, if I saw +her, what could I say? Pity, sorrow for her grief, would be but idle +words, which she would spurn with contempt,--and she would be right. +There is but one thing left for me,--I must go from Ashcroft; then, +perhaps, she and Thornton--But no, it cannot be; so wide asunder, they +cannot come together again. And do I wish it? Is not his love as much +mine now as it ever was hers? Ah, how some words once spoken cannot be +forgotten! Before me now is the little picture of Hagar, which Eleanor +had framed and hung in the library. Did she place it before my eyes as +a warning to me? In Hagar's fate I see my own; for even now I hear +Eleanor asking if the passion of a few hours is to thrust aside the +love of long years. The bondmaid will go ere she is driven out. But +Thornton--I cannot, will not, see him again. He has written to me +to-day, saying that he cannot come here, and asking me to meet him at +the well to-morrow. By that time I shall be far on my way to Madge. He +will wait for me, and I shall not come. How can I leave him thus? He +will believe me heartless and cruel. I grieve even now for his pain and +grief. He will think that I did not love, but only sported with him. +How dearly I love him words cannot tell; and I go that his way may be +smoother, and that in my absence he may find--peace at last. A little +dried flower lies on the page that I turned. It is one of those that +grew in the well, that I wore on my bosom one day, that he might see +and know it, and chide me for having been there again. His chiding was +sweeter to me than others' praise. I will not be so unjust to myself. I +will not go without one word. I jestingly told him once I would leave a +token for him on the stone in the well when I went away from Ashcroft. +I will put my journal there. He will see the box and remember it. He +will learn that I have gone, and will know that I love, but that I +leave and renounce him." + + * * * * * + +The remaining pages of the book were blank. Elizabeth Purcill's journal +was ended. Bradford was busy with conjectures. Why had not Thornton +found and kept the journal intended for him? Had it fallen at once to +the bottom of the well, and lain there for years, while he waited in +vain for her coming or her token? Her departure had not brought Eleanor +Purcill and Thornton Lee together; for his aunt still remained +unwedded, and he came every Sunday to the village church, with a sweet +matronly-faced woman on his arm, and two children by his side. + +Bradford thrust the journal into his pocket, took up his fishing-rod +and basket, and sauntered towards the village. He thought he remembered +the name of Elizabeth Purcill on a head-stone in the church-yard. He +opened the little wicket and went in. The setting sun threw the long +shadows of the head-stones across the thick, rank grass. The sounds of +the village children at play on the green came to his ear softened and +mellowed by the distance. + +He turned towards the spot where, year after year, the Purcills had +been gathered,--those who had died in their beds in their native town, +and those who had perished in far-off climes, and whose bones had been +brought to moulder by the old church-wall. He found the stone, and, +bending down, read, "Elizabeth Purcill, died Oct. 5th, 18--, aged 19." +Bradford opened the journal and looked at the last date. She had died, +then, the day after the journal was ended. But how, and where? + +He sat down on the flat stone which covered his grandfather, and turned +over the pages again, as if they could tell him more than he already +knew. So absorbed was he, that he did not see a woman who a few minutes +afterwards knelt down before the same stone, and with a sickle began to +cut away the weeds and grass. + +Bradford looked up at last, and, as the woman raised her head for an +instant, saw that it was Mrs. Bickford. He approached her and called +her by name. She gave a little start, as she heard his voice. + +"Why, Master Bradford, who would have thought of seeing you here at +this time?" + +Bradford smiled. "Whose grave is this that you are taking such pains to +clear?" + +She pointed to the name with her sickle. + +"Yes, I know all that that can tell me. But who was Elizabeth +Purcill?--what relation was she to me?--and how came she to die so +young, and to be buried here?" + +"Why do you think I should know?" she replied. "People often die young; +and no matter where the Purcills die, they all wish to come here at +last;--that one died in Cuba,--that in France,--that in Greece,--and +that at sea." And she turned her hand towards them, as she spoke. + +"But you do not care for their graves; look, how the grass and weeds +nod over that tombstone; and you would not clear this, unless you knew +something about the girl that lies underneath it." + +"It is an old story," said she, with a sigh, "and I can tell you but +little of it." She laid her sickle down on the cut grass and sat down +by it. + +"Elizabeth Purcill was the daughter of your grandfather's brother, and +therefore your father's cousin. Long as I have lived in the family, I +never saw him; for he went to India, while a young man, to seek a +fortune, which was found too late to benefit either himself or his +children. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, was sent home for her +education, and lived first with one of her kinsfolk, and then another, +as her father's whims or their convenience dictated. You remember, +though so young, when your Aunt Eleanor came to your father's house on +her way to your Uncle Erasmus in his last illness?" + +Bradford nodded. + +"A little before that time Elizabeth Purcill came to Ashcroft. She was +a pretty, lively girl, and it was pleasant to see in our sober +household one who had time to be idle and could laugh. Your Aunt +Eleanor was always a busy woman,--busier then than she is now,--and had +no time for mirth. Every servant in the house liked Miss Elizabeth for +her sunny smile and her pleasant ways. Shortly afterwards, Thornton Lee +came home. He had been three years in Africa, and he and your aunt were +to be married in the autumn. + +"When Miss Purcill went away, Mr. Lee remained, and came often to see +Miss Elizabeth. She had a winsome face, that few men could look upon +and not love; and I sometimes thought, when I saw them together, how +much better she was suited to Mr. Lee than your Aunt Eleanor, and +wondered if he had not found it out himself. Your aunt was away a long +time, and, by some mistake, the letter, saying that she was coming +home, did not reach us till the day after her arrival. + +"It was a beautiful October afternoon. I had been gathering the grapes +that grew on the garden wall, and was carrying a basket of them to Miss +Elizabeth, whom I had seen, half an hour before, with Mr. Lee, on the +lawn. As I was crossing the hall, Miss Purcill, dressed in deep +mourning, looking ghastly pale, entered the front door. I started as if +I had seen a ghost, and dropped my basket. Miss Eleanor passed me +quickly and went up-stairs. I spoke to her. She did not answer, but, +entering her chamber, fastened the door behind her. + +"I looked out of the window. No one was on the lawn; but presently I +saw Mr. Lee coming out of the stable, leading his horse. He mounted and +was out of sight in an instant. Miss Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. +What had happened I could not tell. I could only guess. + +"Miss Elizabeth was the only one who came to tea, and her eyes were +heavy and dull, and she seemed like one in a dream. That night was a +wretched one to both. When I went to the library to see if the windows +were fastened for the night, Miss Elizabeth sat by the smouldering fire +with her face buried in her hands. I shut the door softly and left her, +and till I slept I heard Miss Eleanor's steps across her chamber-floor. + +"The day was no better than the night. Miss Purcill did not leave her +room, and her cousin wandered about the house, as if her thoughts would +not let her rest. Once I found her in tears at your aunt's door, and +tried to console her; but she shook her head impatiently, as if I could +not understand the cause of her grief. + +"The next morning, while I was dressing, my niece Sally came to me in +great haste, saying that Roger, the gardener, wished to see me at once. +I hurried on my clothes and went down. I knew by the man's face that +something dreadful had happened; but when he told me that he had been +to the old well, and had found Miss Elizabeth lying dead at the bottom +of it, I felt as if I was stunned. + +"I roused myself at last. I ran to Miss Purcill's door. I shook it +violently and called her by name. She came and opened the door in her +night-dress. Somehow, I know not and cared not how, for it seemed to me +that she had something to do with all this, I told her that her Cousin +Elizabeth was lying dead at the bottom of the old well. She staggered +and leaned against the door like one who had received a heavy blow. For +a moment I repented my roughness. But she was soon herself again. She +thrust her feet into her slippers, and, wrapping her dressing-gown +about her, went down-stairs, and gave directions, as calmly and +collectedly as if she were (Heaven help her!) ordering a dinner for the +men--to bring the body home. Ah, me! I never shall forget how the poor +thing looked when the four men who bore the litter set it down on the +library-floor. A bruise on the temple showed where she had struck on +the cruel stones. The hoarfrost, which had turned into drops of dew, +glittered among her soft brown curls." + +The tears which had been gathering in Mrs. Bickford's eyes fell in +large drops into her lap as she went on. + +"On the day of the funeral, she lay in the library, still and cold in +her coffin. I had gathered a few flowers, with which I was vainly +trying to cheat death into looking more like life, by placing them on +her bosom and in her stiffened fingers. Miss Eleanor sat at the foot of +the coffin, almost as motionless as the form within it. I had finished +my task and turned away, when the door opened and Mr. Lee came in +silently. A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin +and bent over it. What a change had three days made in the man! Ten +years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him +look so old and wan. He looked upon her as a man who looks his last +upon what he loved best in the world;--his whole soul was in his eyes. + +"I think he did not see Miss Eleanor till he was about to leave the +room. She had not spoken, and he was unconscious of her presence. He +turned towards her and held out his hand; his lips moved, but no words +escaped them. I heard Miss Purcill's low, unfaltering answer to his +unspoken thoughts. She did not take his proffered hand, but said, +'Nothing can unite us again, Thornton,--not even death.' + +"His hand dropped by his side;--he quickly left the room, and never +came to Ashcroft again. When I went to take a last look of Miss +Elizabeth, I saw that the white rose which I had placed in her hand was +gone;--he had taken it." + +Mrs. Bickford paused. Her story was ended. In a few minutes she took up +her sickle again, and Bradford stood leaning against the head-stone +till the grass was all cut on the grave. He had no more questions to +ask,--for the journal had told him more of the dead below, than Mrs. +Bickford, with all her love and sympathy, could do. She had fallen into +the well, then, while endeavoring to place the box on the stone. When +Mrs. Bickford's task was done, she walked silently back to Ashcroft +with Bradford. + +Late in the evening he was alone in the library with his Aunt Eleanor. +The picture of Hagar, now so full of interest to him, still hung on the +wall, and the little desk was at the window which looked out upon the +lawn. Should he show the journal to his aunt, or keep it to himself? +Would Elizabeth Purcill wish her Cousin Eleanor to read her written +words as she once read her untold thoughts? + +Wrapped up in his own musings, he started suddenly when Miss Purcill +said to him, "Rosamond tells me that you found a book to-day in the old +well; what was it?"--and answered promptly, "It was Elizabeth Purcill's +journal." + +It was the first time Eleanor had heard the name for years. She showed +no signs of emotion. "I should like to see it," said she; "give it to +me." + +Bradford had been brought up in such habits of obedience, that he never +thought of disputing his aunt's command. He drew the journal from his +pocket and handed it to her without speaking. + +"You have read it?" said she, fixing her keen eyes upon him. + +"Yes." + +She drew the lamp towards her and opened the book. The shade on the +lamp kept the light from her face; but had Bradford seen it, it would +have told him no more of the thoughts beneath it than the stone in the +churchyard had told him of Elizabeth Purcill. + +He watched her turning over the leaves slowly, and thought that her +hand trembled a little at the close. Those pages must have stirred many +a memory and many a grief, as the wind shakes the bare boughs of the +trees, though blossom, fruit, and leaves have long since fallen. + +She closed the book, and spoke at last:--"I think, Bradford, this book +belongs rightfully but to one person,--Mr. Thornton Lee. Shall I send +it to him?" + +Eleanor's question was uttered in a tone that seemed to admit of but +one reply. Bradford assented. If he might not keep the journal himself, +he would rather Thornton Lee should have it than his aunt. + +The next day, Thornton Lee received a small packet, accompanied by a +note which ran thus:-- + +"To do justice to the memory of one who, years ago, came between us, I +send you this little book, found in the old well yesterday. From it you +will learn how she came by her death, and--how much she loved you. +ELEANOR PURCILL." + +As Thornton Lee read the journal, his children climbed his knee and +twined his gray curls around their fingers, and his wife came and +leaned sportively over his shoulder and looked at the yellow leaves. + +In some lives, as in some years, there is an after-summer; but in +others, the hoar-frosts are succeeded by the winter snow. + + +THE DEAD HOUSE. + + Here once my step was quickened, + Here beckoned the opening door, + And welcome thrilled from the threshold + To the foot it had felt before. + + A glow came forth to meet me + From the flame that laughed in the grate, + And shadows a-dance on the ceiling + Danced blither with mine for a mate. + + "I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm-chair,-- + "This corner, you know, is your seat." + "Rest your slippers on me," beamed the fender,-- + "I brighten at touch of your feet." + + "We know the practised finger," + Said the books, "that seems like brain"; + And the shy page rustled the secret + It had kept till I came again. + + Sang the pillow, "My down once quivered + On nightingales' throats that flew + Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz + To gather quaint dreams for you." + + Ah, me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease, + The Present plucks rue for us men! + I come back: that scar unhealing + Was not in the churchyard then. + + But, I think, the house is unaltered; + I will go and beg to look + At the rooms that were once familiar + To my life as its bed to a brook. + + Unaltered! Alas for the sameness + That makes the change but more! + 'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors, + 'Tis his tread that chills the floor! + + To learn such a simple lesson + Need I go to Paris and Rome,-- + That the many make a household, + But only one the home? + + 'Twas just a womanly presence, + An influence unexprest,-- + But a rose she had worn on my grave-sod + Were more than long life with the rest! + + 'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle, + 'Twas nothing that I can phrase,-- + But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, + And put on her looks and ways. + + Were it mine, I would close the shutters, + Like lids when the life is fled, + And the funeral fire should wind it, + This corpse of a home that is dead. + + For it died that autumn morning + When she, its soul, was borne + To lie all dark on the hillside + That looks over woodland and corn. + + + * * * * * + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + +[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks +with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could +into every conversation. That is the reason why you will find some odd, +miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I +should not have a chance to tell them habitually, at our +breakfast-table.--We're very free and easy, you know; we don't read +what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one can't pretend to preach +to all the pews at once. Besides, one can't be all the time trying to +do the best of one's best; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the +firemen needn't be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top +of the flagstaff. Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a +little. Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will +find out when you get through this paper.] + +----Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to +the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am thinking of +travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy. +Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the +brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking. +I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two. There are +certain principles to be assumed,--such as these:--He who is carried by +horses must deal with rogues.--To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual +angle than yesterday's revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me +than the biggest of Dr. Gould's private planets.--Every traveller is a +self-taught entomologist.--Old jokes are dynamometers of mental +tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at +home,--which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, +rather than increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to +your pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows--on the road from +Milan to Venice.--_Coelum, non animum_,--travellers change their +guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating dates +under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans in Beacon +Street.--Parties of travellers have a morbid instinct for "establishing +raws" upon each other.--A man shall sit down with his friend at the +foot of the Great Pyramid and they will take up the question they had +been talking about under "the great elm," and forget all about Egypt. +When I was crossing the Po, we were all fighting about the propriety of +one fellow's telling another that his argument was _absurd_; one +maintaining it to be a perfectly admissible logical term, as proved by +the phrase, "reductio ad absurdum"; the rest badgering him as a +conversational bully. Mighty little we troubled ourselves for _Padus_, +the Po, "a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times +when Hannibal led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants +thrust their trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum +ferry-boat was swinging back and forward every ten minutes! + +----Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or +annexed, or implied. + +Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but +obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in _undress_ often affects +more than one in full costume. + + "Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" + +says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my soul +in the Coliseum did not come. But walking one day in the fields about +the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken masonry, and lo! the +World's Mistress in her stone girdle--_alta maenia Romae_--rose before +me and whitened my cheek with her pale shadow as never before or since. + +I used very often, when coming home from my morning's work at one of +the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of +St. Etienne du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve, surrounded by burning +candles and votive tablets, was there; the mural tablet of Jacobus +Benignus Winslow was there; there was a noble organ with carved +figures; the pulpit was borne on the oaken shoulders of a stooping +Samson; and there was a marvellous staircase like a coil of lace. These +things I mention from memory, but not all of them together impressed me +so much as an inscription on a small slab of marble fixed in one of the +walls. It told how this church of St. Stephen was repaired and +beautified in the year 16**, and how, during the celebration of its +reopening, two girls of the parish (_filles de la paroisse_) fell from +the gallery, carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the +pavement, but by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two young girls, +nameless, but real presences to my imagination, as much as when they +came fluttering down on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the +sharpest treble in the Te Deum! (Look at Carlyle's article on Boswell, +and see how he speaks of the poor young woman Johnson talked with in +the streets one evening.) All the crowd gone but these two "filles de +la paroisse,"--gone as utterly as the dresses they wore, as the shoes +that were on their feet, as the bread and meat that were in the market +on that day. + +Not the great historical events, but the personal incidents that call +up single sharp pictures of some human being in its pang or struggle, +reach us most nearly. I remember the platform at Berne, over the +parapet of which Theobald WeinzƤpfli's restive horse sprung with him +and landed him more than a hundred feet beneath in the lower town, not +dead, but sorely broken, and no longer a wild youth, but God's servant +from that day forward. I have forgotten the famous bears, and all +else.--I remember the Percy lion on the bridge over the little river at +Alnwick,--the leaden lion with his tail stretched out straight like a +pump-handle,--and why? Because of the story of the village boy who must +fain bestride the leaden tail, standing out over the water,--which +breaking, he dropped into the stream far below, and was taken out an +idiot for the rest of his life. + +Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, and the guillotine-axe +must have a slanting edge. Something intensely human, narrow, and +definite pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily than +huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will pick a lock that defies +hatchet and hammer. "The Royal George" went down with all her crew, and +Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it; but the leaf that +holds it is smooth, while that which bears the lines on his mother's +portrait is blistered with tears. + +My telling these recollections sets me thinking of others of the same +kind that strike the imagination, especially when one is still young. +You remember the monument in Devizes market to the woman struck dead +with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but it is in the books. Here +is one I never heard mentioned;--if any of the "Note and Query" tribe +can tell the story, I hope they will. Where is this monument? I was +riding on an English stage-coach when we passed a handsome marble +column (as I remember it) of considerable size and pretensions.--What +is that?--I said.--That,--answered the coachman,--is _the hangman's +pillar_. Then he told me how a man went out one night, many years ago, +to steal sheep. He caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope +over his head, and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope +slipped, caught him by the neck, and strangled him. Next morning he was +found hanging dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on the other; +in memory whereof the lord of the manor caused this monument to be +erected as a warning to all who love mutton better than virtue. I will +send a copy of this record to him or her who shall first set me right +about this column and its locality. + +And telling over these old stories reminds me that I have something +that may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I once +ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I +think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully +open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from +falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having +climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. +While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense inane," a strong wind +was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire was rocking. It swayed back +and forward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a +bobolink on it. I mentioned it to the guide, and he said that the spire +did really swing back and forward,--I think he said some feet. + +Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will intersect +it. Long afterwards I was hunting out a paper of Dumeril's in an old +journal,--the "Magazin EncyclopĆ©dique" for _l'an troisiĆØme_, (1795,) +when I stumbled upon a brief article on the vibrations of the spire of +Strasburg Cathedral. A man can shake it so that the movement shall be +shown in a vessel of water nearly seventy feet below the summit, and +higher up the vibration is like that of an earthquake. I have seen one +of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some +of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven +cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it) swinging like a reed, +in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a +stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like a +blade of grass? I suppose. + +You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap way;--perhaps we will +have some philosophy by and by;--let me work out this thin mechanical +vein.--I have something more to say about trees, I have brought down +this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in my woods (that +were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth;--nine feet, +where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, going to the +centre, of the general shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and not +opulent family. Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the +growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and +forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the +rings tells the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate +was slow,--then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550 +it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy years. +In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714; then for the most +part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew pretty well and +uniformly until within the last dozen years, when it seems to have got +on sluggishly. + +Look here. Here are some human lies laid down against the periods of +its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's. The tree +was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches when he died. +A little less than ten inches when Milton was born; seventeen when he +died. Then comes a long interval, and this thread marks out Johnson's +life, during which the tree increased from twenty-two to twenty-nine +inches in diameter. Here is the span of Napoleon's career;--the tree +doesn't seem to have minded it. + +I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this +section. I have seen many wooden preachers,--never one like this. How +much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings of one of +those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on earth, and +where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the stolid apathy of +vegetable being, which remembers all human history as a thing of +yesterday in its own dateless existence! + +I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there is +one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some recollections +of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder if the old Seminary +clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My room-mate thought, when he +first came, it was the bell tolling deaths, and people's ages, as they +do in the country. He swore--(ministers' sons get so familiar with good +words that they are apt to handle them carelessly)--that the children +were dying by the dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off +next day in recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught +before the clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down +in town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been hooped +with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (_Credat Hahnemannus_,) +and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in its wood. Of +course, this is not the tree my relative means. + +Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut, telling +me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town. One hundred and +twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end! What do you say to that? +And gentle ladies beneath it, that love it and celebrate its praises! +And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as +Norwich!--Only the dear people there must learn to call it Norridge, +and not be misled by the mere accident of spelling. + + Nor_wich_. + Por_ch_mouth. + Cincinnat_ah_. + +What a sad picture of our civilization! + +I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the Colman +farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for many years, +and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in memory, and +even noted down, as one of the finest trees in symmetry and beauty I +had ever seen. I have received a document, signed by two citizens of a +neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and a selectman, and +these again corroborated, reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that +extraordinary college-class to which it is the good fortune of my +friend the Professor to belong, who, though he has _formerly_ been a +member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree +"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a +real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we +don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm." + +And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows in +Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything +but thanks. + +[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many +communications, in prose and verse, since I began printing these notes. +The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem, +from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public, though sometimes +requested to do so. Some of them have given me great pleasure, and +encouraged me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen. If +you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell +him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who +perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr +very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things to me.] + +----Sometimes very young persons send communications, which they want +forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to +have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, and of +themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, but, +on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not fair to single out +one for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that are in need of +it. + +Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser than I +was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, for +I think, without committing myself to any opinion on my present state, +that I was not a Solomon at that stage of development. + +You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so +common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those +who are thinking about something else,--very rarely to those who say to +themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!" The +struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in notoriety;--that ladder is +easy to climb, but it leads to pillory which is crowded with fools who +could not hold their tongues and rogues who could not hide their +tricks. + +If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it. The +world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true +originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and +newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the +ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an +intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that any +article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame. Nothing +pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having from a new +hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles for a first-rate +journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety are at or below the +sea-level; some have water enough, but no head; some head enough, but +no water; only two or three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill +which is so hard to climb. + +You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is not +demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you want it. +It not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that +shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture +that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends and no +takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-mistake Osiris. + +_Qu'est ce qu'il a fait?_ What has he done? That was Napoleon's test. +What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy! +You need not make mouths at the public because it has not accepted you +at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest thing you can and wait +your time. + +For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I +dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I know +the standard of a some editors. You must not expect to "leap with a +single bound" into the society of those whom it is not flattery to call +your betters. When "The Paetolian" has paid you for a copy of +verses,--(I can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, +beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with ZoĆ« Zenith,)--when "The +Ragbag" has stolen your piece, after carefully scratching your name +out,--when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you worth shelling, and strung +the kernel of your cleverest poem,--then, and not till then, you may +consider the presumption against you, from the fact of your rhyming +tendency, as called in question, and let our friends hear from you, if +you think it worth while. You may possibly think me too candid, and +even accuse me of incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half +so plain-spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the +long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try +it like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is +shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes +always get to the bottom. + +Believe me, etc., etc. + + * * * * * + +I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these are +by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless, querulous, +unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with. Is a young man +in the habit of writing verses? Then the presumption is that he is an +inferior person. For, look you, there are at least nine chances in ten +that he writes _poor_ verses. Now the habit of chewing on rhymes +without sense and soul to match them is, like that of using any other +narcotic, at once a proof of feebleness and a debilitating agent. A +young man can get rid of the presumption against him afforded by his +writing verses only by convincing us that they are verses worth +writing. + +All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is not addressed to +any individual, and of course does not refer to any reader of these +pages. I would always treat any given young person passing through the +meteoric showers which rain down on the brief period of adolescence +with great tenderness. God forgive us, if we ever speak harshly to +young creatures on the strength of these ugly truths, and so, sooner or +later, smite some tender-souled poet or poetess on the lips who might +have sung the world into sweet trances, had we not silenced the +matin-song in its first low breathings! Just as my heart yearns over +the unloved, just so it sorrows for the ungifted who are doomed to the +pangs of an undeceived self-estimate. I have always tried to be gentle +with the most hopeless cases. My experience, however, has not been +encouraging. + +----X. Y., aet. 18, a cheaply-got-up youth, with narrow jaws, and +broad, bony, cold, red hands, having been laughed at by the girls in +his village, and "got the mitten" (pronounced mittin) two or three +times, falls to souling and controlling, and youthing and training, in +the newspapers. Sends me some strings of verses, candidates for the +Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, in which I learn for the millionth +time one of the following facts: either that something about a chime is +sublime, or that something about time is sublime, or that something +about a chime is concerned with time, or that something about a rhyme +is sublime or concerned with time or with a chime. Wishes my opinion of +the same, with advice as to his future course. + +What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole truth, and send him a +ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded +Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel,--and yet one hates to lie. +Therefore one softens down the ugly central fact of donkeyism, +--recommends study of good models,--that writing verse should +be an incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the +needle, the lapstone, or the ledger,--and, above all, that there should +be no hurry in printing what is written. Not the least use in all this. +The poetaster who has tasted type is done for. He is like the man who +has once been a candidate for the Presidency. He feeds on the madder of +his delusion all his days, and his very bones grow red with the glow of +his foolish fancy. One of these young brains is like a bunch of India +crackers; once touch fire to it and it is best to keep hands off until +it has done popping,--if it ever stops. I have two letters on file; one +is a pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence. My reply to the +first, containing the best advice I could give, conveyed in courteous +language, had brought out the second. There was some sport in this, but +Dulness is not commonly a game fish, and only sulks after he is struck. +You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that +those who ask your _opinion_ really want your _praise_, and will be +contented with nothing less. + +There is another kind of application to which editors, or those +supposed to have access to them, are liable, and which often proves +trying and painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some person in +needy circumstances who wishes to make a living by the pen. A +manuscript accompanying the letter is offered for publication. It is +not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably deficient. If Rachel's +saying is true, that "fortune is the measure of intelligence," then +poverty is evidence of limited capacity, which it too frequently proves +to be, notwithstanding a noble exception here and there. Now an editor +is a person under a contract with the public to furnish them with the +best things he can afford for his money. Charity shown by the +publication of an inferior article would be like the generosity of +Claude Duval and the other gentlemen highwaymen, who pitied the poor so +much they robbed the rich to have the means of relieving them. + +Though I am not and never was an editor, I know something of the trials +to which they are submitted. They have nothing to do but to develope +enormous calluses at every point of contact with authorship. Their +business is not a matter of sympathy, but of intellect. They must +reject the unfit productions of those whom they long to befriend, +because it would be a profligate charity to accept them. One cannot +burn his house down to warm the hands even of the fatherless and the +widow. + + + +THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. + + +--You haven't heard about my friend the Professor's first experiment in +the use of anaesthetics, have you? + +He was mightily pleased with the reception of that poem of his about +the chaise. He spoke to me once or twice about another poem of similar +character he wanted to read me, which I told him I would listen to and +criticize. + +One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied up, looking very +red in the cheeks and heavy about the eyes.--Hy'r'ye?--he said, and +made for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat and then his +person, going smack through the crown of the former as neatly as they +do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at the explosion as if +he had sat down on one of those small _calthrops_ our grandfathers used +to sow round in the grass when there were Indians about,--iron stars, +each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a half long,--stick through +moccasins into feet,--cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in +a day or two. + +The Professor let off one of those big words which lie at the bottom of +the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in his life,--just +as every man's hair _may_ stand on end, but in most men it never does. + +After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript, +together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just been +writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A certain +suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not quite right, +which was confirmed by the way he talked; but I let him begin. This is +the way he read it:-- + +_Prelude_. + + I'm the fellah that tole one day + The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. + + Wan' to hear another? Say. + --Funny, wasn'it? Made _me_ laugh,-- + I'm too modest, I am, by half,-- + Made me laugh 's _though I sh'd split_,-- + Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit? + --Fellahs keep sayin',--"Well, now that's nice; + Did it once, but cahn' do it twice."-- + Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat; + Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. + Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake,-- + Han' us the props for another shake;-- + Know I'll try, 'n' guess I'll win; + Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in! + +Here I thought it necessary to interpose.--Professor,--I said,--you are +inebriated. The style of what you call your "Prelude" shows that it was +written under cerebral excitement. Your articulation is confused. You +have told me three times in succession, in exactly the same words, that +I was the only true friend you had in the world that you would unbutton +your heart to. You smell distinctly and decidedly of spirits.--I spoke, +and paused; tender, but firm. + +Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Professor's lids,--in +obedience to the principle of gravitation celebrated in that delicious +bit of bladdery bathos, "The very law that moulds a tear," with which +the "Edinburgh Review" attempted to put down Master George Gordon when +that young man was foolishly trying to make himself conspicuous. One of +these tears peeped over the edge of the lid until it lost its +balance,--slid an inch and waited for reinforcements,--swelled +again,--rolled down a little further,--stopped,--moved on,--and at last +fell on the back of the Professor's hand. He held it up for me to look +at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine. + +I couldn't stand it,--I always break down when folks cry in my +face,--so I hugged him, and said he was a dear old boy, and asked him +kindly what was the matter with him, and what made him smell so +dreadfully strong of spirits. + +Upset his alcohol lamp,--he said,--and spilt the alcohol on his legs. +That was it.--But what had he been doing to get his head into such a +state?--had he really committed an excess? What was the matter?--Then +it came out that he had been taking chloroform to have a tooth out, +which had left him in a very queer state, in which he had written the +"Prelude" given above, and under the influence of which he evidently +was still. + +I took the manuscript from his hands and read the following +continuation of the lines he had begun to read me, while he made up for +two or three nights' lost sleep as he best might. + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY: + +OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. + + Facts respecting an old arm-chair. + At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. + Seems but little the worse for wear. + That's remarkable when I say + It was old in President Holyoke's day. + (One of his boys, perhaps you know, + Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.) + _He_ took lodging for rain or shine + Under green bed-clothes in '69. + + Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- + Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. + (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- + Standing still, if you must have proof.-- + "Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg + You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- + First great angle above the hoof,-- + That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) + --Nicest place that ever was seen,-- + Colleges red and Common green, + Sidewalks brownish with trees between. + Sweetest spot beneath the skies + When the canker-worms don't rise,-- + When the dust, that sometimes flies + Into your mouth and ears and eyes, + In a quiet slumber lies, + _Not_ in the shape of unbaked pies + Such as barefoot children prize. + + A kind of harbor it seems to be, + Facing the flow of a boundless sea. + Bows of gray old Tutors stand + Ranged like rocks above the sand; + Rolling beneath them, soft and green, + Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- + One wave, two waves, three waves, four, + Sliding up the sparkling floor; + Then it ebbs to flow no more, + Wandering off from shore to shore + With its freight of golden ore! + --Pleasant place for boys to play;-- + Better keep your girls away; + Hearts get rolled as pebbles do + Which countless fingering waves pursue, + And every classic beach is strown + With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + + But this is neither here nor there;-- + I'm talking about an old arm-chair. + You've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? + Over at Medford he used to dwell; + Married one of the Mather's folk; + Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- + Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, + Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- + One of the oddest of human things, + Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- + But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- + Fit for the worthies of the land,-- + Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, + Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in, + --Parson Turell bequeathed the same + To a certain student,--SMITH by name; + These were the terms, as we are told: + "Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; + When he doth graduate, then to passe + To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe, + On payment of"--(naming a certain sum)-- + "By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; + He to ye oldest Senior next, + And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- + "But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, + That being his Debte for use of same." + + _Smith_ transferred it to one of the BROWNS, + And took his money,--five silver crowns. + _Brown_ delivered it up to MOORE, + Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. + _Moore_ made over the chair to LEE, + Who gave him crowns of silver three. + _Lee_ conveyed it unto DREW, + And now the payment, of course, was two. + _Drew_ gave up the chair to DUNN,-- + All he got, as you see, was one. + _Dunn_ released the chair to HALL, + And got by the bargain no crown at all. + --And now it passed to a second BROWN, + Who took it, and likewise _claimed a crown_. + When _Brown_ conveyed it unto WARE, + Having had one crown, to make it fair, + He paid him two crowns to take the chair; + And _Ware_, being honest, (as all Wares be,) + He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. + Four got ROBINSON; five got DIX; + JOHNSON _primus_ demanded six; + And so the sum kept gathering still + Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. + --When paper money became so cheap, + Folks wouldn't count it, but said "a heap," + A certain RICHARDS, the books declare, + (A.M. in '90? I've looked with care + Through the Triennial,--_name not there_,) + This person, Richards, was offered then + Eight score pounds, but would have ten; + Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- + Not quite certain,--but see the book. + --By and by the wars were still, + But nothing had altered the Parson's will. + The old arm-chair was solid yet, + But saddled with such a monstrous debt! + Things grew quite too bad to bear, + Paying such sums to get rid of the chair! + But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, + And there was the will in black and white, + Plain enough for a child to spell. + What should be done no man could tell, + For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, + And every season but made it worse. + + As a last resort, to clear the doubt, + They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. + The Governor came with his Light-horse Troop + And his mounted trackmen, all cock-a-hoop; + Halberds glittered and colors flew, + French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, + The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth + And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; + So he rode with all his band, + Till the President met him, cap in hand. + --The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- + "A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." + The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- + "There is your p'int. And here's my fee. + These are the terms you must fulfil,-- + On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" + The Governor mentioned what these should be. + (Just wait a minute and then you'll see.) + The President prayed. Then all was still, + And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! + --"About those conditions?" Well, now you go + And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. + Once a year, on Commencement-day, + If you'll only take the pains to stay, + You'll see the President in the CHAIR, + Likewise the Governor sitting there. + The President rises; both old and young + May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, + The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, + Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? + And then his Excellency bows, + As much as to say that he allows. + The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; + He bows like t'other, which means the same. + And all the officers round 'em bow, + As much as to say that _they_ allow. + And a lot of parchments about the chair + Are handed to witnesses then and there, + And then the lawyers hold it clear + That the chair is safe for another year. + + God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give + Money to colleges while you live. + Don't be silly and think you'll try + To bother the colleges, when you die, + With codicil this, and codicil that, + That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; + For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, + And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + + * * * * * + +----Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect. The +shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut; his dwelling is all +door and no walls; everybody can come in. To make a morning call on an +Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through a long tunnel; his house +is all walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a +worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation +between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally +hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this +is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good +deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs +really to mean temperature. + +Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at noon, in a very hot +summer's day, one may realize, by a sudden extension in his sphere of +consciousness, how closely he is shut up for the most part.--Do you not +remember something like this? July, between 1 and 2, P.M. Fahrenheit +96Āŗ, or thereabout. Windows all gaping, like the mouths of panting +dogs. Long, stinging cry of a locust comes in from a tree, half a mile +off; had forgotten there was such a tree. Baby's screams from a house +several blocks distant;--never knew of any babies in the neighborhood +before. Tinman pounding something that clatters dreadfully,--very +distinct, but don't know of any tinman's shop near by. Horses stamping +on pavement to get off flies. When you hear these four sounds, you may +set it down as a warm day. Then it is that one would like to imitate +the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has +described it: stroll into the market in natural costume,--buy a +watermelon for a halfpenny,--split it, and scoop out the middle,--sit +down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's head, and +feast upon the pulp. + +----I see some of the London journals have been attacking some of +their literary people for lecturing, on the ground of its being a +public exhibition of themselves for money. A popular author can print +his lecture; if he deliver it, it is a case of _quaestum corpore_, or +making profit of his person. None but "snobs" do that. _Ergo_, etc. To +this I reply,--_Negatur minor_. Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen, +exhibits herself to the public as a part of the service for which she +is paid. We do not consider it low-bred in her to pronounce her own +speech, and should prefer it so to hearing it from any other person or +reading it. His Grace and his Lordship exhibit themselves very often +for popularity, and their houses every day for money.--No, if a man +shows himself other than he is, if he belittles himself before an +audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from +the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight +dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an +outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity +to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too +popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of with +a rapier, as in France.--Poh! All England is one great menagerie, and, +all at once, the jackal, who admires the gilded cage of the royal +beast, must protest against the vulgarity of the talking-bird's and the +nightingale's being willing to become a part of the exhibition! + + +THE LONG PATH. + +(_Last of the Parentheses_.) + +Yes, that was my last walk with the _schoolmistress_. It happened to be +the end of a term; and before the next began, a very nice young woman, +who had been her assistant, was announced as her successor, and she was +provided for elsewhere. So it was no longer the school-mistress that I +walked with, but--Let us not be in unseemly haste. I shall call her the +schoolmistress still; some of you love her under that name. + +----When it became known among the boarders that two of their number +had joined hands to walk down the long path of life side by side, there +was, as you may suppose, no small sensation. I confess I pitied our +landlady. It took her all of a suddin,--she said. Had not known that we +was keepin' company, and never mistrusted anything partic'lar. Ma'am +was right to better herself. Didn't look very rugged to take care of a +family, but could get hired haƤlp, she calc'lated.--The great maternal +instinct came crowding up in her soul just then, and her eyes wandered +until they settled on her daughter. + +----No, poor, dear woman,--that could not have been. But I am dropping +one of my internal tears for you, with this pleasant smile on my face +all the time. + +The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out of +flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen +and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of scientific cruelties there +is hardly anything quite so painful to think of as that experiment of +putting an animal under the bell of an air-pump and exhausting the air +from it. [I never saw the accursed trick performed. _Laus Deo_] There +comes a time when the souls of human beings, women, perhaps, more even +than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they were +made to breathe. Then it is that Society places its transparent +bell-glass over the young woman who is to be the subject of one of its +fatal experiments. The element by which only the heart lives is sucked +out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through its transparent +walls;--her bosom is heaving; but it is in a vacuum. Death is no +riddle, compared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book +of Martyrs." The "dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the images that +frightened her most. How many have withered and wasted under as slow a +torment in the walls of that larger Inquisition which we call +Civilization! + +Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you foolish, plain, overdressed, +mincing, cheaply-organized, self-saturated young person, whoever you +may be, now reading this,--little thinking you are what I describe, and +in blissful unconsciousness that you are destined to the lingering +asphyxia of soul which is the lot of such multitudes worthier than +yourself. But it is only my surface-thought which laughs. For that +great procession of the UNLOVED, who not only wear the crown of thorns, +but must hide it under the locks of brown or gray,--under the snowy +cap, under the chilling turban,--hide it even from themselves,--perhaps +never know they wear it, though it kills them,--there is no depth of +tenderness in my nature that Pity has not sounded. + +Somewhere,--somewhere,--love is in store for them,--the universe must +not be allowed to fool them so cruelly. What infinite pathos in the +small, half-unconscious artifices by which unattractive young persons +seek to recommend themselves to the favor of those towards whom our +dear sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled by their +God-given instincts! + +Read what the singing-women--one to ten thousand of the suffering +women--tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in +earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the +next churchyard with very commonplace blue slate stones at their head +and feet, for whom it was just as true that "all sounds of life assumed +one tone of love," as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning +said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they could +not.--Will you hear a few stanzas of mine? + + +THE VOICELESS. + + + We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,-- + But o'er their silent sister's breast + The wild flowers who will stoop to number? + A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy Fame is proud to win them;-- + Alas for those that never sing, + But die with all their music in them! + + Nay, grieve not for the dead alone + Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- + Weep for the voiceless, who have known + The cross without the crown of glory! + Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, + But where the glistening night-dews weep + On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + O hearts that break and give no sign + Save whitening lip and fading tresses, + Till Death pours out his cordial wine + Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- + If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + +I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all. +That young man from another city, who made the remark which you +remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at our +table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive to this +young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her while she was +playing the accordion,--indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and +got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting +tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the +basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman +should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston +State-house. He can't be very particular. + +The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free in +his remarks, but very good-natured.--Sorry to have you go,--he +said.--Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't taken +anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of +it.--_Mourning fruit,_--said I,--what's that?--Huckleberries and +blackberries,--said he;--couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, currants, +and such, after a solemn thing like this happening.--The conceit seemed +to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, when we came down +to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it out as follows. You +know those odious little "saƤs-plates" that figure so largely at +boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous +attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous +of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into +which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat +dipping her foot into a wash-tub,--(not that I mean to say anything +against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry +many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin +honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of +white silver, with the Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,--as +people in the green stage of millionism will have them,--I can dally +with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a +shiver,)--you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down +the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a +broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn +black huckleberries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was +covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was covered +with a white rose. There was a laugh at this at first, and then a short +silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the old gentleman +opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief. + +--"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for Switzerland, +that season, if we waited much longer."--The hand I held trembled in +mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself before the feet +of Ahasuerus.--She had been reading that chapter, for she looked +up,--if there was a film of moisture over her eyes, there was also the +faintest shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to +accent the dimples,--and said, in her pretty, still way,--"If it please +the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem +right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes"-- + +I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got just +to that point of her soft, humble words,--but I know what I did. That +quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came to a +compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for the last +day of summer. + +In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as you +may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a +certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first +excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters,--but +each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for +instance, when we had chickens, sent the _liver_ instead of the +_gizzard_, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an +accident: the two are _never_ mistaken, though some land-ladies +_appear_ as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the +company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. +There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that +lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally +interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be +considered relevant,--except when the least allusion was made to +matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with +both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun +at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all +behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of +leaving my boarding-house. + +I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's +plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly +fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not what _great +merchants_ call very rich, I was comfortable,--comfortable,--so that +most of those moderate luxuries I described in my verses on +_Contentment_--_most_ of them, I say--were within our reach, if we +chose to have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress had a vein +of charity about her, which had hitherto been worked on a small silver +and copper basis, which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries than +even I did,--modestly as I have expressed my wishes. + +It is rather a pleasant thing to tell a poor young woman, whom one has +contrived to win without showing his rent-roll, that she has found what +the world values so highly, in following the lead of her affections. +That was a luxury I was now ready for. + +I began abruptly:--Do you know that you are a rich young person? + +I know that I am very rich,--she said,--Heaven has given me more than I +ever asked; for I had not thought love was ever meant for me. + +It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell to a whisper as it +threaded the last words. + +I don't mean that,--I said,--you blessed little saint and seraph!--if +there's an angel missing in the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this +boarding-house!--I don't mean that; I mean that I--that is, +you--am--are--confound it!--I mean that you'll be what most people call +a lady of fortune.--And I looked full in her eyes for the effect of the +announcement. + +There wasn't any. She said she was thankful that I had what would save +me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her about +it.--I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce a +sensation. + +So the last day of summer came. It was our choice to go to the church, +but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house. The presents were +all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest +tributes of our fellow-boarders,--for there was not one, I believe, who +did not send something. The landlady would insist on making an elegant +bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin +wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,--namely, +a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags +with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure +you. The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's +Poems. On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate +and careful hand:-- + + Presented to... by... + On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. + May sunshine ever beam o'er her! + +Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy +of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive variegated +sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled. From the divinity-student came the +loveliest English edition of "Keble's Christian Tear." I opened it, +when it came, to the _Fourth Sunday in Lent_, and read that angelic +poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier's "My God, I +love thee."----I am not a Churchman,--I don't believe in planting oaks +in flower-pots,--but such a poem as "The Rose-bud" makes one's heart a +proselyte to the culture it grows from. Talk about it as much as you +like,--one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A +man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for +"scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that-- + + "God only and good angels look + Behind the blissful scene,"-- + +and that other,-- + + "He could not trust his melting soul + But in his Maker's sight,"-- + +that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and profit +by it. + +My laughing and winking young friend undertook to procure and arrange +the flowers for the table, and did it with immense zeal. I never saw +him look happier than when he came in, his hat saucily on one side, and +a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch of tea-roses, which he said +were for "Madam." + +One of the last things that came was an old square box, smelling of +camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, in faded ink, the marks, "Calcutta, +1805." On opening it, we found a white Cashmere shawl, with a very +brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, saying that he had +kept this some years, thinking he might want it, and many more, not +knowing what to do with it,--that he had never seen it unfolded since +he was a young super-cargo,--and now, if she would spread it on her +shoulders, it would make him feel young to look at it. + +Poor Bridget, or Biddy, our red-armed maid of all work! What must she +do but buy a small copper breast-pin and put it under "Schoolma'am's" +plate that morning, at breakfast? And Schoolma'am would wear +it,--though I made her cover it, as well as I could, with a tea-rose. + +It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I could not leave them in +utter silence. + +Good-bye,--I said,--my dear friends, one and all of you! I have been +long with you, and I find it hard parting. I have to thank you for a +thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience and indulgence with +which you have listened to me when I have tried to instruct or amuse +you. My friend the Professor (who, as well as my friend the Poet, is +unavoidably absent on this interesting occasion) has given me reason to +suppose that he would occupy my empty chair about the first of January +next. If he comes among you, be kind to him, as you have been to me. May +the Lord bless you all!--And we shook hands all round the table. + +Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the cloth were gone. I +looked up and down the length of the bare boards, over which I had so +often uttered my sentiments and experiences--and----Yes, I am a man, +like another. + +All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old friends of mine, +whom you know, and others a little more up in the world, perhaps, to +whom I have not introduced you, I took the schoolmistress before the +altar from the hands of the old gentleman who used to sit opposite, and +who would insist on giving her away. + +And now we two are walking the long path in peace together. The +"schoolmistress" finds her skill in teaching called for again, without +going abroad to seek little scholars. Those visions of mine have all +come true. + +I hope you all love me none the less for anything I have told you. +Farewell! + + * * * * * + + + +THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. + + +Just in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph which takes its name +from the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, I read in the September number of that +journal the revelations of an observer who was surprised to find that +he had the power of reading, as they run, the revelations of the wire. +I had the hope that he was about to explain to the public the more +general use of this instrument,--which, with a stupid fatuity, the +public has, as yet, failed to grasp. Because its signals have been +first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and afterwards by means of +the chemical power of electricity, the many-headed people refuses to +avail itself, as it might do very easily, of the same signals, for the +simpler transmission of intelligence,--whatever the power employed. + +The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and alphabet. He +himself eagerly disclaims any pretension to the original conception of +the use of electricity as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought +of that and suggested it; but Morse was the first to give the +errand-boy such a written message, that he could not lose it on the +way, nor mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, +as he deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he +probably cares very little. Nor do I care more. But the public does not +thank him for what he did originate,--this invaluable and simple +alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see +every hour how the public might use it, if it chose, I am really sorry +for this negligence,--both on the score of his fame, and of general +convenience. + +Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that this curious alphabet +reduces all the complex machinery of Cadmus and the rest of the +writing-masters to characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a +space, and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks [Morse code: +.-.] designate the letter A. The marks [Morse code: -...] designate the +letter B. All the other letters are designated in as simple a manner. + +Now I am stripping myself of one of the private comforts of my life, +(but what will one not do for mankind?) when I explain that this simple +alphabet need not be confined to electrical signals. _Long_ and _short_ +make it all,--and wherever long and short can be combined, be it in +marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-fits, canes, or children, ideas can be +conveyed by this arrangement of the long and short together. Only last +night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at a summer party at +the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The +Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she +could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." + +Mrs. Wilberforce had never heard that opera,--indeed, had never heard +of it. My angel-wife was surprised,--stood thrumming at the +piano,--wondered she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant +accord at all,--but checked herself in her effort, as soon as I +observed that her long notes and short notes, in their tum-tee, +tee,--tee-tee, tee-tum tum, meant, "He's her brother." The conversation +on her side turned from "The Butcher of Turin," and I had just time, on +the hint thus given me by Mrs. I., to pass a grateful eulogium on the +distinguished statesman whom Mrs. Wilberforce, with all a sister's +care, had rocked in his baby-cradle,--whom, but for my wife's long and +short notes, I should have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of +the day. + +You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the +business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know this Morse +alphabet, but your business, and that of every man and woman. If our +school-committees understood the times, it would be taught, even before +phonography or physiology, at school. I believe both these sciences now +precede the old English alphabet. + +As I write these words, the bell of the South Congregational strikes +dong, dong, dong;--dong, dong, dong, dong,--dong,--dong. Nobody has +unlocked the church-door. The old tin sign, "In case of fire, the key +will be found at the opposite house," has long since been taken down, +and made into the nose of a water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Two-Shoes +locked in. No! But, thanks to Dr. Channing's Fire-Alarm, the bell is +informing the South End that there is a fire in District +Dong-dong-dong,--that is to say, District No. 3. Before I have +explained to you so far, the "Eagle" engine, with a good deal of noise, +has passed the house on its way to that fated district. An immense +improvement this on the old system, when the engines radiated from +their houses in every possible direction, and the fire was extinguished +by the few machines whose lines of quest happened to cross each other +at the particular place where the child had been building cob-houses +out of lucifer-matches in a paper-warehouse. Yes, it is a very great +improvement. All those persons, like you and me, who have no property +in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit at home at ease,--and little +need we think upon the mud above the knees of those who have property +in that district and are running to look after it. But for them the +improvement only brings misery. You arrive wet, hot or cold, or both, +at the large District No. 3, to find that the lucifer-matches were half +a mile from your store,--and that your own private watchman, even, had +not been waked by the working of the distant engines. Wet +property-holder, as you walk home, consider this. When you are next in +the Common Council, vote an appropriation for applying Morse's alphabet +of long and short to the bells. Then they can be made to sound +intelligibly. Daung ding ding,--ding,--ding daung,--daung daung daung, +and so on, will tell you, as you wake in the night, that it is Mr. B.'s +store which is on fire, and not yours, or that it is yours, and not +his. This is not only a convenience to you and a relief to your wife +and family, who will thus be spared your excursions to unavailable and +unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated return,--it will be a +great relief to the Fire Department. How placid the operations of a +fire where none attend except on business! The various engines arrive, +but no throng of distant citizens, men and boys, fearful of the +destruction of their all. They have all roused on their pillows to +learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street which is in flames. All but the +owner of No. 530 Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He alone has +rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who stands in the uncrowded +street with the Chief Engineer, on the deck of No. 18, as she plays +away. His property destroyed, the engines retire,--he mentions the +amount of his insurance to those persons who represent the daily press, +they all retire to their homes,--and the whole is finished as simply, +almost, as was his private entry in his day-book the afternoon before. + +This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only struck _long_ and +_short_, and we had all learned Morse's alphabet. Indeed, there is +nothing the bells could not tell, if you would only give them time +enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But, +without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and +every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail +Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard +should report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town +for his country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to +speak articulately, in language regarding which the dullest imagination +need not be at loss, + + "Turn again, Higginbottom, + Lord Mayor of Boston!" + +I have suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the +primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own +children,--and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head, +against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it +does;--an alphabet of two characters matched against one of +twenty-six,--or of forty-odd, as the very odd one of the phono-typists +employs! On the Franklin-medal-day I went to the Johnson-School +examination. One of the committee asked a nice girl, what was the +capital of Brazil. The child looked tired and pale, and, for an +instant, hesitated. But, before she had time to commit herself, all +answering was rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-cough +which one of my own sons was seized with,--who had gone to the +examination with me. Hawm, hem hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem;--hawm, hem +hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem,--barked the poor child, who was at the +opposite extreme of the school-room. The spectators and the committee +looked to see him fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I confess that +I felt no alarm, after I observed that some of his gasps were long and +some very staccato;--nor did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered +her color,--and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, +answered, "_Rio_ is the capital of Brazil,"--as modestly and properly +as if she had been taught it in her cradle. They are nothing but +children, any of them,--but that afternoon, after they had done all the +singing the city needed for its annual entertainment of the singers, I +saw Bob and Mabel start for a long expedition into West Roxbury,--and +when he came back, I know it was a long featherfew, from her prize +school-bouquet, that he pressed in his Greene's "Analysis," with a +short frond of maiden's hair. + +I hope nobody will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these +are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is +never trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from +mortification on examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he +is not elected President. If, however, the reader is distressed, +because these illustrations do not seem to his more benighted +observation to belong to the big bow-wow strain of human life, let him +consider the arrangement which ought to have been made years since, for +lee shores, railroad collisions, and that curious class of maritime +accidents where one steamer runs into another under the impression that +she is a light-house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a +steam-whistle, which is often heard five miles. It needs only _long_ +and _short_ again. "_Stop Comet_," for instance, when you send it down +the railroad line, by the wire, is expressed thus: ... - .. .... .. . +.. -- . - Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph +station when it comes! But what if Comet has gone by? Much good will +your trumpery message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound +your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus:--Scre scre, scre; +screeee; scre scre; scre scre scre scre; scre scre--scre, scre scre, +screeeee scrceeee; scre; screeeee;--why, then the whole neighborhood, +for five miles round, will know that Comet must stop, if only they +understand spoken language,--and, among others, the engineman of Comet +will understand it; and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds +which gives the order,--with his nucleus of hot iron and his tail of +five hundred tons of coal.--So, of the signals which fog-bells +can give, attached to light-houses. How excellent to have them +proclaim through the darkness, "I am Wall"! Or of signals for +steamship-engineers. When our friends were on board the "Arabia" the +other day, and she and the "Europa" pitched into each other,--as if, on +that happy week, all the continents were to kiss and join hands all +round,--how great the relief to the passengers on each, if, through +every night of their passage, collision had been prevented by this +simple expedient! One boat would have screamed, "Europa, Europa, +Europa," from night to morning,--and the other, "Arabia, Arabia, +Arabia,"--and neither would have been mistaken, as one unfortunately +was, for a light-house. + +The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark distinctions of time +can use this alphabet of long-and-short, however he may mark them. It +is, therefore, within the compass of all intelligent beings, except +those who are no longer conscious of the passage of time, having +exchanged its limitations for the wider sweep of eternity. The +illimitable range of this alphabet, however, is not half disclosed when +this has been said. Most articulate language addresses itself to one +sense, or at most to two, sight and sound. I see, as I write, that the +particular illustrations I have given are all of them confined to +signals seen or signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the +few years of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted +to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, +of course, is heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the +sounds of its ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he +sees it. As he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing +message without striking a light to see it. But this is only what may +be said of any written language. You can read this article to your +wife, or she can read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether +it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of +Morse and his imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses +whichever of the five senses the listener chooses. This fact is +illustrated by a curious set of anecdotes--never yet put in print, I +think--of that critical dispatch which in one night announced General +Taylor's death to this whole land. Most of the readers of these lines +probably read that dispatch in the morning's paper. The compositors and +editors had read it. To them it was a dispatch to the eye. But half the +operators at the stations _heard_ it ticked out, by the register +stroke, and knew it before they wrote it down for the press. To them it +was a dispatch to the ear. My good friend Langenzunge had not that +resource. He had just been promised, by the General himself, (under +whom he served at Palo Alto,) the office of Superintendent of the +Rocky-Mountain Lines. He was returning from Washington over the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a freight-train, when he heard of the +President's danger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready,--and he felt +badly about his own office, too. But his extempore train chose to stop +at a forsaken shanty-village on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at +midnight. What does he do, but walk down the line into the darkness, +climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and apply the two ends to his +tongue, to _taste_, at the fatal moment, the words, "Died at half past +ten." Poor Langenzunge! he hardly had nerve to solder the wire again. +Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the Naguadavick stations with +Bain's chemical revolving disc. This disc is charged with a salt of +potash, which, when the electric spark passes through it, is changed to +Prussian blue. Your dispatch is noiselessly written in dark blue dots +and lines. + +Just as the disc started on that fatal dispatch, and Cogs bent over it +to read, his spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were +beside themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were +fumbling for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet +blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South +Boston, bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of +potash, as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. +Almost anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed +Morse messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all +the midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where +the companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of +acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where +the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So +universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same +principle as Morse's. + +The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can +be employed by any being who has command of any long and short +symbols,--be they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept +his accounts with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as +these which Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland Bay, so +prophetically and appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope +the reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent +being who has any one of the five senses left him,--by all rational +men, that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both +taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's +telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or +who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the +_Gymnotus electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales +in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only +note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can +listen, too. If they will only note the difference between long and +short, the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the +smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness, +look fearless on the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or +insect, which can discriminate between long and short, may use the +telegraphic alphabet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which can +hear, smell, taste, feel, or see, may take note of its signals, if he +can understand them. A tired listener at church, by properly varying +his long yawns and his short ones, may express his opinion of the +sermon to the opposite gallery before the sermon is done. A dumb +tobacconist may trade with his customers in an alphabet of short-sixes +and long-nines. A beleaguered Sebastopol may explain its wants to the +relieving army beyond the line of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its +short Paixhans and its long twenty-fours. + + + + * * * * * + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Ćtudes sur Pascal_. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN. CinqiĆØme Edition, revue et +augmentĆ©e. Paris: 1857. pp. 566. 8vo. + +We render hearty thanks to M. Cousin for this new edition of a favorite +work. No library which contains Pascal's "Provinciales" and "PensĆ©es" +should be without it. + +"Of all the monuments of the French language," says M. Cousin, in the +_Avant-propos_ to this new edition, "none is more celebrated than the +work 'Les PensĆ©es,' and French literature possesses no artist more +consummate than Pascal. Do not expect to find in this young +geometrician, so soon consumed by disease and passion, the breadth, +surface, and infinite variety of Bossuet, who, supported by vast and +uninterrupted study, rose and rose until he gained the loftiest reaches +of intellect and art, and commanded at pleasure every tone and every +style. Pascal did not fulfil all his destiny. Besides the mathematics +and natural philosophy he knew scarcely more than a little theology, +and he barely passed through good society. It is true, Pascal passed +away from earth quickly; but during his short life he discerned +glimpses of the _beau ideal_, he attached himself to it with all his +heart and soul and strength, and he never allowed anything to leave his +hands unless it bore its lively impress. So great was his passion for +perfection, that unchallenged tradition tells us he wrote the +seventeenth 'Provinciale' thirteen times over. 'Les PensĆ©es' are merely +fragments of the great work on which he consumed the last years of his +life; but these fragments sometimes present so finished a beauty, that +we do not know which most to admire, the grandeur and vigor of the +sentiments and ideas, or the delicacy and depth of the art." + +This praise is unexaggerated. What a career was run by this genius! +Discovering the science of geometry at twelve years of age,--next +inventing the arithmetical machine,--discovering atmospheric pressure, +while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a +vacuum,"--inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains +of the toothache, and succeeding,--inventing the theory of +probabilities,--establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the +public,--then writing the "Provinciales,"--dying at thirty-three, +leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your +pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, +the favorite works of Gibbon, Voltaire, Macaulay, and Cousin! Where +else can so crowded and so short a career be found? + +It is scarcely possible to repress a smile in reading this work and +discovering the patient care with which M. Cousin avoids speaking of +the "Provinciales." And it is strange to say (no contemptible proof of +the influence exercised by the Church of Rome, even when checked as it +is in France) that no decent edition of the "Provinciales" can be found +in the French language. While we possess M. Cousin's "Ćtudes sur +Pascal," and M. Havet's edition of "Les PensĆ©es," the only editions of +"Les Provinciales" of recent date are the miserable publications of +Charpentier and the Didots. Editions of Voltaire and Rousseau are +numerous, elaborate, and elegant; for atheism is pardoned much more +easily than abhorrence of the Jesuits. + +The volume named at the head of this article contains a great many +valuable documents relating to Pascal and his family: all of Pascal's +correspondence known to exist, including his celebrated letter on the +death of Ćtienne Pascal, his father, which is usually printed in "Les +PensĆ©es," being cut up into short sentences to fit it for that work, a +large part of it being omitted; his singular essay on Love; curious +details concerning the De Roanner family; an essay on the true text of +the "PensĆ©es"; a curious fac-simile of a page of that work; and a +discussion (perhaps M. Cousin would say a refutation) of Pascal's +philosophy. But we must protest against the easy manner in which M. +Cousin wears his honors. When a book has reached its fifth edition and +is evidently destined to a good many more during the author's lifetime, +he lies under an obligation to place the new information he may have +collected, and the additional thoughts which may have occurred to him, +during the intervals between the different editions, in a form more +convenient to the render than new prefaces and new notes. To master the +information contained in this work is no recreation, but a severe task, +and one not to be accomplished except upon repeated perusals of the +book. This is the more inexcusable because M. Cousin is now free from +all official and professional cares; and it would involve the less +labor to him, as he never writes, but dictates all his compositions. + + * * * * * + +_Belle Brittan on a Tour; at Newport, and Here and There._ New York: +Derby & Jackson. 1858. + +The compulsion of hunger, or the request of friends, was the excuse for +the printing of sorry books in Pope's time; and it has not become +obsolete yet. The writer of the book, the title of which we have given +above, pleads the latter alternative as the occasion of this +publication. He says it was "a few friends" that preferred this +request. It is unfortunate for him that he had any so void of judgment +and empty of taste. He thinks his Letters will "receive unjust +censure," as well as "undue praise." We think that he may relieve his +mind of any such apprehension. We cannot think his book at all likely +to receive more dispraise than it richly merits. A more discreditable +one, not absolutely indictable, we hope, has seldom issued from the +American press. + +What motive the author had in assuming a female character, we know not. +He certainly has been very unfortunate in his female acquaintance, if +he accurately imitates their tone of thought and style of talk, in his +letters. Should they happen to fall in the way of any foreigners, we +beg them to believe that this is not the way in which American women +converse. But we think that there can scarcely be a cockney so spoony +as not to "spy a great peard under her muffler," and know that it is a +man awkwardly masquerading in women's clothes. It is a libel on the +women of the country, to put such balderdash into the mouth of one who +may be supposed to have been finished at a fifth-rate boarding-school. + +The letters are in the worst style of the "Own Correspondents" of +third-rate papers. The "_deadhead_" perks itself in your face at every +turn, in flunkeyish gratitude for invitations, drinks, dinners, and +free passes,--from "the gentlemanly Lord Napier," down to "intelligent +and gentlemanly" railway-conductors, "gentlemanly and attentive" +hotel-clerks, "gracious, gentlemanly, and gallant" tavern-keepers, and +their "lovely and accomplished brides." The soul of a footman is +expressed by the pen of an abigail,--and the one not a Humphrey +Clinker, nor the other a Winifred Jenkins,--and we are expected to +admire the result as a good imitation of a lively, intelligent, +well-bred American young lady! We protest against the profanation. + +The letters take a wide range of subject, and treat of "Shakspeare, +taste, and the musical glasses," in a vein that would have done no +discredit to Lady Blarney and Miss Arabella Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs +themselves. We might divert our readers with some specimens of +criticism, or opinion, did our limits admit of such entertainment. We +can only inform them, on Belle Brittan's authority, that worthy Dr. +Charles Mackay, who suffers throughout the book from intermittent--nay, +chronic--attacks of puffery, is "one of the best living poets of +England"; Mademoiselle Lamoureux, the _danseuse_, is "better than +Ellsler"; and pretty Mrs. John Wood, the lively _soubrette_ of the +Boston Theatre, "possesses many of the rarest requisites of a great +actress"! But these are inanities which an inexperienced and +half-taught girl might possibly utter in a familiar letter. Not so, we +trust, as to the belief expressed by Belle Brittan, in puffing "Jim +Parton's, Fanny Fern's Jim's," Life of Burr,--"more charming than a +novel," because, as she implies, of the successful libertinism of its +hero,--when she says, speaking in the name of the maidens of America, +"We all, I suppose, must fall, like our first parents, when the hour of +_our_ temptation comes"! + +We should not have given the space we have bestowed on this worthless +book, had it not been made the occasion of newspaper puffs innumerable, +recommending it to the public as something worthy of their time and +money. It is one of the worst signs of our time that a false +good-nature or imperfect taste should lead respectable papers to give +currency to books destitute of all merit, by the application to them of +stereotyped phrases of commendation. These letters, without a grace of +style, without a flash of wit, without a genial ray of humor, deformed +by coarse breeding, vulgar self-conceit, and ignorant assumption, are +bepraised as if they were fresh from the mint of genius, and bore the +image and superscription of Madame de SĆ©vignĆ© or Lady Mary Wortley! +This evil must be cured, or the daily press may find that it will cure +itself. + +We know nothing of the author of this book, excepting what he has here +shown us of himself. He may be capable of better things, and when they +come before us, we shall rejoice to do them justice. But we advise him, +first of all, to discard his disguise, which becomes him as ill as the +gown of Mrs. Ford's "maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford," did Sir +John Falstaff. Or, if he will persist in playing the part of a woman, +let him bear in mind that to be unmanly is not necessarily to be +womanly, and that it does not follow that one writes like a lady +because he does _not_ write like a gentleman. + +_Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Drawing_. Designed as a Text-book for the +Mechanic, Architect, Engineer, and Surveyor. Comprising Geometrical +Projection, Mechanical, Architectural, and Topographical Drawing, +Perspective, and Isometry. Edited by W.E. WORTHEN. New York: D. +Appleton & Co. 1857. + +Mr. Worthen has given us in this book a most judicious and complete +compilation of the best works on the various branches of "practical" +drawing,--having, with real thoughtfulness and knowledge of what was +needed in a handbook, condensed all the most important rules and +directions to be found in the works of MM. Le Brun and Armengaud on +geometrical and mechanical drawing, Ferguson and Garbett on +architectural, and Williams, Gillespie, Smith, and Frome, on +topographical drawing. + +It includes a very full chapter of geometrical definitions, a complete +and minute description of all the implements of mechanical drawing, and +solutions of all the useful problems of geometrical drawing,--a part of +the work especially needed by practical mechanics, and hitherto to be +found, so far as we know, only in the form of results in the +pocket-books of tables, or in the lengthy and elaborate treatises of +the heavy cyclopaedias, or works specially devoted to the topic. + +There is an admirably condensed treatise on the mechanical powers, +containing all the problems of use in construction, with tables of the +mechanical properties of materials. In mechanical drawing there are +directions for the most complicated drawings, going up to the last +improvements in the steam-engine. The same completeness of elementary +instruction marks the section on architectural drawing, though in this +department we should have liked a fuller and better-chosen series of +examples, especially of domestic architecture,--an Italian villa +planned by Mr. Upjohn being the only really tasteful and appropriate +dwelling-house given. The designs by Downing, rarely much more than +commodious residences with great neatness rather than artistic beauty, +stand very well for that style of building which consults comfort and +attains it, but it is a misuse of words to call them artistic. +Picturesque they may be at times, but often the affectation of external +style puts Downing's designs into the category of Gothic follies and +Grecian villanies, in which the outside gives the lie to the +inside,--emulating in wood the forms of stone, giving to cottages on +whose roof snow will never lie three inches deep all the pitch a Swiss +_chĆ¢let_ would need. We are especially sorry to see a plate of Thomas's +house in Fifth Avenue, New York,--the most absurd and ludicrous pile of +building material which can be found on the avenue,--and to find such +evidence of taste as is shown by the editor's commendation of it as +"uniting richness and grandeur of effect," "admirably suited," etc. Mr. +Worthen, however, generally abstains from much expression of opinion as +to styles or the respective merits of works. + +His examples of the steam-engine are nearly all from American models, +and include the oscillating engines of the "Golden Gate," the last +important advance in the construction of the marine engine; for, +although the form of the oscillator has been known for years, it had +never been applied to marine uses until the success of the "Golden +Gate" proved its applicability to the heaviest engines. The examples of +architectural details and ornaments are copious, and represent all +styles with great fairness; but there is much confusion in the +numbering of the plates, so that it is a problem at times to find the +illustration desired. + +The tinted illustrations, though answering their proposed purpose, are +a disgrace to the art of lithotinting,--coarse, ineffective, and cheap. +The publishers, we think, would have profited by a little more +liberality in this respect. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10435 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa2bee6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10435 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10435) diff --git a/old/10435-8.txt b/old/10435-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51cbf1f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10435-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8986 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, +October, 1858, 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 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 11, 2003 [eBook #10435] +[Date last updated: July 2, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, +ISSUE 12, OCTOBER, 1858*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Keith M. Eckrich, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. II.--OCTOBER, 1858.--NO. XII. + + + + + + +THE NEW WORLD AND THE NEW MAN. + +Half a dozen rivulets leap down the western declivity of the Rocky +Mountains, and unite; four thousand miles away the mighty Missouri +debouches into the Mexican Gulf as the result of that junction. Did the +rivulets propose or plan the river? Not at all; but they knew, each, +its private need to find a lower level; the universal law they obeyed +accomplished the rest. So is it with the great human streams. Mighty +beginnings do not lie in the minds of the beginners. History is a +perpetual surprise, ever developing results of which men were the +agents without being the expectants. Individual actors, with respect to +the master claim of humanity, are, for the most part, not unlike that +fleet hound which, enticed by a tempting prospect of meat, outran a +locomotive engine all the way from Lowell to Boston, and won a handsome +wager for his owner, while intent only on a dinner for himself. +Humanity is served out of all proportion to the intention of service. +Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait, +but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations +of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a +voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to +calculate consequences makes the preėminent grandeur of his position; +or he is urged by the high inevitable impulse to publish or verify an +idea: the Divine Destiny _works_ in their hearts, and _plans_ over +their heads. + +Socrates felt a sacred impulse to test his neighbors, what they knew +and were: this is such account of his life as he himself can give at +its close. His contemporaries generally saw in him an imperturbable and +troublesome questioner, fatally sure to come at the secret of every +man's character and credence, whom no subterfuge could elude, no +compliments flatter, no menaces appall,--suspected also of some +emancipation from the popular superstitions: this is the account of him +which _they_ are able to give. At twenty-three centuries' distance _we_ +see in him the source of a river of spiritual influence, that yet +streams on, more than a Missouri, in the minds of men,--more than a +Missouri, for it not only flows as an open current, but, percolating +beneath the surface, and coming up in distinct and distant fountains, +it becomes the hidden source of many a constant tide in the faiths and +philosophies of nations. + +The veil covers the eyes of spectators and agents alike. Columbus +returns, freighted with wondrous tidings, to the Spanish shore; the +nation rises and claps its hands; the nation kneels to bless its gods +at all its shrines, and chants its delight in many a choral Te Deum. +What, then, do they think is gained? Why, El Dorado! Have they not +gained a whole world of gold and silver mines to buy jewelled cloaks +and feathers and frippery with? Have they not gained a cornucopia of +savages, to support new brigades at home by their enslavement, and new +bishoprics abroad by their salvation? Touching, truly, is the childish +eagerness and _bonhommie_ with which those Spaniards in fancy assume, +as it were, between thumb and finger, this continent, deemed to be +nothing less than gold, and feed with it the leanness of hungry purses; +and the effect is not a little enhanced by the extreme pains they are +at to say a sufficient grace over the imagined meal. "Oh, wonderful, +Pomponius!" shouts the large-minded Peter Martyr. "Upon the surface of +that earth are found rude masses of gold, of a weight that one fears to +mention!... Spain is spreading her wings," etc. He is of the minority +there, who does not suppose this New World a Providential donation to +aid him to dinners, dances, and dawdling, or at best to promote his +"glory" and pride of social estimation. Even Columbus, more magnanimous +than most of his contemporaries, is not so greatly more wise. The +noblest use he can conceive for his discovery is to aid in the recovery +of the Holy Sepulchre. With the precious metals that should fall to his +share, says his biographer, he made haste to vow the raising of a force +of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the +Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even +the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, +and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of +the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not +individuals alone, but whole nations, may lawfully claim. + +The Old World, we say, seized upon this magnificent new force now +thrown into history, and harnessed it unsuspiciously to its own car, as +if it could have been designed for no other possible use. Happily, +however, the design was different, and Providence having a peculiar +faculty of protecting its own plans, the holding of the reins after +such a steed proved anything but a sinecure. Spain, indeed, rode in a +high chariot for a time, but at length, in that unlucky Armada drive, +crashed against English oak on the ocean highways, and came off +creaking and rickety,--grew thenceforth ever more unsteady,--finally, +came utterly to the ground, with contusions, fractures, and much +mishap,--and now the poor nation hobbles hypochondriacally upon +crutches, all its brave charioteering sadly ended. England drove more +considerately, but could not avoid fate; so in 1783 she, too, must let +go the rein with some mental disturbance. For the great Destiny was not +exclusively a European Providence,--had meditated the establishment of +a fresh and independent human centre on the western side of the sea. +The excellent citizens of London and Madrid found themselves incapable +of crediting this until it was duly placarded in gunpowder print.--It +is, indeed, an unaccountable foible men have, not to recognize a plain +fact till it has been published in this blazing hieroglyphic. What were +England and France doing at Sebastopol? Merely issuing a poster to this +effect,--"Turkey is not yours,"--in a type that Russia could feel free +to understand. Terribly costly editions these are, and in a type +utterly hideous; but while nations refuse to see the fact in a more +agreeable presentation, it may probably feel compelled to go into this +ugly, but indubitable shape.--Well, somewhat less than a century since, +England had committed herself to the proposition, that America was +really a part or dependency of Europe, a lower-caste Europe, having +about the same relation to the Cisatlantic continent that the farmer's +barn has to his house. Mild refutations of this modest doctrine having +been attempted without success, posters in the necessary red-letter +type were issued at Concord, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc., which might +be translated somewhat thus:--"America has its own independent root in +the world's centre, its own independent destiny in the Providential +thought." This important fact, having then and there exploded itself +into legibility, and come to be known and read of all men, admits now +of no dispute, and requires no confirmation. It is evidently so. The +New World is not merely a newly-discovered hay-loft and dairy-stall for +the Old, but is itself a proper household, of equal dignity with any. +To draw the due inferences from this, to see what is implied in it, is +all that we are here required to do. + +Be it, then, especially noted that the continent by itself can take no +such rank. A spirituality must appear to crown and complete this great +continental body; otherwise America is acephalous. Unless there be an +American Man, the continent is inevitably but an appendage, a kitchen +and laundry for the European parlor. American Man,--and the word Man is +to receive a large emphasis. Observe, that it does not refer to mere +population. The fact required will hardly be reported in the census. +Indeed, there is quite too much talk about population, about +prospective increase of numbers. We are to have thirty millions of +inhabitants, they say, in 1860; soon forty, fifty, one hundred +millions. Doubtless; and if that be all, one yawns over the statement. +Could any prophet assure us of _one_ million of men who would stand for +the broadest justice as Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans stood +for Lacedaemon! But Hebrew David was thought to be punished for taking +a census; nor is the story without significance. To reckon numbers +alone a success _is_ a sin, and a blunder beside. Russia has sixty +millions of people: who would not gladly swap her out of the world for +glorious little Greece back again, and Plato and Aeschylus and +Epaminondas still there? Who would exchange Concord or Cambridge in +Massachusetts for any hundred thousand square miles of slave-breeding +dead-level? Who Massachusetts in whole for as many South American (or +Southern) republics as would cover Saturn and all his moons? Make sure +of depth and breadth of soul as the national characteristic; then roll +up the census columns; and roll out a hallelujah for each additional +thousand. + +Thus had the great Genoese been destined merely to make a new highway +on the ocean and new lines on the map,--to add the potato, maize, and +tapioca to the known list of edibles, and tobacco to that of +narcotics,--to explode Spain, give England a cotton-field, Ireland a +hospital, and Africa a hell. This could by no means seem sufficient. +The crew of the Pinta shouted, "Land! Land!"--peering through the dark +at the new shores; the Spanish nation chanted, "Gold! Gold!"--gazing +out through murky desires toward the wondrous West; but it is only with +the cry of "Man! Man!" as at the sight of new cerebral shores and +wealth of more than golden humanities, that the true America is +discovered and announced. So whatever reason we have to assert for +America a really independent existence and destiny, the same have we +for predicting an opulence of heart and brain, to which Western +prairies and Californian gold shall seem the natural appurtenance. + +And this noble man must be likewise a _new_ man,--not merely a migrated +European. Western Europe pushed a little farther west does not meet our +demand. Why should Europe go three thousand miles off to be Europe +still? Besides, can we afford to England, France, Spain, a larger room +in the world? Are we more than satisfied with their occupancy of that +they already possess? The Englishman is undeniably a wholesome picture +to the mental eye; but will not twenty million copies of him do, for +the present? It would seem like a poverty in Nature, were she unable to +vary, but must go helplessly on to reproduce that selfsame British +likeness over all North America. But history fully warrants the +expectation of a new form of man for the new continent. German and +Scandinavian Teutons peopled England; but the Englishman is _sui +generis_, not merely an exported Teuton. Egypt, says Bunsen, was +peopled by a colony from Western Asia; but the genius and physiognomy +of Egypt are peculiar and its own. Mr. Pococke will have it that Greece +was a migrated India: it was, of course, a migration from some place +that first planted the Hellenic stock in Europe; but if the man who +carved the Zeus, and built the Parthenon, and wrote the "Prometheus" +and the "Phaedrus," were a copy, where shall we find the original? +Indeed, there has never been a great migration that did not result in a +new form of national genius. And it is the thoroughness of the +transformations thus induced which makes the chief difficulty in +tracing the affinities of peoples. + +So it is that the world is enriched. Every new form of man establishes +another current in those reciprocations of thought, in those electrical +streams of sympathy,--of wholesome attraction and wholesome +repulsion,--by which the intellectual life is kindled and quickened. +Thought begins not until two men meet. Col. Hamilton Smith makes it +quite clear that civilization has found its first centres there where +two highways of national movement crossed, and dissimilar men looked +each other in the face. They have met, it may be, with the rudest kind +of greetings; but have obtained good thoughts from hard blows, and +beaten ideas _out_ of each other's heads, if not _into_ them, according +to the ancient pedagogic tradition. Higher culture brings higher terms +of meeting; traffic succeeds war, conversation follows upon traffic; +ever the necessity of various men to each other remains. There is no +pure white light until seven colors blend; so to the mental +illumination of humanity many hues of national genius must consent: and +the value of life to all men is greater so soon as a new man has made +his advent. + +All this is matter of daily experience with us. We do not, indeed, tire +of old friends. A soul whose wealth we have once recognized must be +ever rich to us. Gold turns not to copper by keeping; and perhaps old +friends are rather like old wine, and can never be too old. Yet who +does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a _new_ +rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly +its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our +conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the +spectacle of drunken Helots;--though he who makes habitual _talk_ about +his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there be +sermons in stones, no less is there blessing in bores and in bullies. +We found one day in the face of a black bear what could not be so well +found in libraries. The creature regarded us attentively, and with +affection rather than malice,--saw simply certain amounts of savory +flesh, useful for the satisfaction of ursine hungers,--and saw nothing +more. It was an incomparable lesson to teach that the world is an +endless series of levels, and that each eye sees what its own altitude +commands; the rest to it is non-extant. _That_ bear was in his natural +covering of hair; his brothers we frequently meet in broadcloth. + +Now, as Nature keeps up this inexhaustible variety of individual genius +which individual quickening requires, so on the larger scale is she +ever working and compounding to produce varieties of national genius. +Her aim is the same in both cases,--to enrich the whole by this +electrical and enlivening relation between its parts. And thus an +American man, no copy, but an original, formed in unprecedented moulds, +with his own unborrowed grandeur, his own piquancy and charm, is to be +looked for,--is, indeed, even now to be seen,--on this shore. + +Yes, the man we seek is already found, his features rapidly becoming +distinct. He is the offspring of Northern Europe; he occupies Central +North-America. Other fresh forms are doubtless to appear, but, though +dimly shaping themselves, are as yet inchoate. But the Anglo-American +is an existing fact, to be spoken of without prognostication, save as +this is implied in the recognition of tendencies established and +unfolding into results. The Anglo-American may be considered the latest +new-comer into this planet. Let us, then, a little celebrate his +advent. Let us make all lawful and gentle inquiry about the +distinguished stranger. + +First, what is his pedigree? He need not be ashamed to tell; for he +comes of a noble family, the Teutonic,--a family more opulent of human +abilities, and those, for the most part, the deeper kind of abilities, +than any other on the earth at present. He reckons among his +progenitors and relatives such names as Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, the +two Bacons, Lessing, Richter, Schiller, Carlyle, Hegel, Luther, Behmen, +Swedenborg, Gustavus Adolphus, William of Orange, Cromwell, Frederick +II., Wellington, Newton, Leibnitz, Humboldt, Beethoven, Handel, Turner; +and nations might be enriched out of the names that remain when the +supreme ones in each class have been mentioned. Consider what +incomparable range and variety, as well as depth, of genius are here +affirmed. Greece and India possessed powers not equally represented +here; but otherwise these might stand for the full abilities of +mankind, each in its handsomest illustration.--It is remarkable, too, +that our Anglo-American has no "poor relations." Not a scurvy nation +comes of this stock. They are the Protestant nations, giving religion a +moral expression, and reconciling it with freedom of thought. They are +the constitutional nations, exacting terms of government that +acknowledge private right. _Resource_ may also be emphasized as a +characteristic of these nations. Hitherto they have honored every draft +that has been made upon them. The Dutch first fished their country out +from under the sea, and afterwards defended it in a war of eighty +years' duration against the first military power on the globe: two +feats, perhaps, equally without parallel. + +Being thus satisfied upon the point of pedigree, we may proceed to +inquire about estate. To what inheritance of land has Nature invited +our New Man? He comes to the country of highest organization, perhaps, +upon either hemisphere. Brazil and China suggest, but probably do not +sustain, a rivalry. What is implied in superior organization will +appear from the items to be mentioned. + + 1. Elaboration. Central North-America is to an extraordinary degree +worked out everywhere in careful detail, in moderate hill and valley, +in undulating prairie and fertile plain,--not tossed into barren +mountain-masses and table-lands, like that vast desert _plateau_ which +stretches through Central Asia,--not struck out in blank, like the +Russian _steppes_ and the South American _llanos_, as if Nature had +wanted leisure to elaborate and finish. Indeed, these primary +conditions of fertility and large habitability appertain to America, as +a whole, to such degree, that, with less than half the extent of the +Old World, it actually numbers more acres of fertile soil, and can, of +course, sustain a larger population. + + 2. Unity. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast, and +between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern wheat-limit, a larger space +of fertile territory, embracing a wider variety of climate and +production, is thrown into one mass, broken by no barrier, than can, +perhaps, elsewhere be found. + + 3. Communication. No mass of land equal in other advantages is to the +same extent thrown open and enriched by natural highways. The first +item under this head is access to the ocean, which is the great +road-space and highway of the world. Not mentioning the Pacific, as +that coast is not here considered, we have the open sea upon two sides, +while upon the northern boundary is an inclosed sea, the string of +lakes, occupying a space larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and of +a form to afford the greatest amount of coast-line and accommodation in +proportion to space. But coast-_line_ is not enough; land and sea must +be wedded as well as approximated. The Doge of Venice went annually +forth to wed the Adriatic in behalf of its queen, and to cast into its +bosom the symbolic ring; but Nature alone can really join the hands of +ocean and main. By bays, estuaries, ports, spaces of sea lovingly +inclosed by arms of sheltering shore, are conversation and union +established between them. + +"The sea doth wash out all the ills of life," sings Euripides; and it +is, indeed, with some penetration of wonder that one observes how deep +and productive a relation to man the ocean has sustained. Some share in +the greatest enterprises, in the finest results, it seldom fails to +have. Not capriciously did the subtile Greek imagination derive the +birth of Venus from the foam of the sea; for social love,--that vast +reticulation of wedlock which society is--has commonly arisen not far +from the ocean-shore. The Persian is the only superior civilization, +now occurring to our recollection, which has no intimate relation +either with river or sea; and that pushed inevitably toward the Tigris +and Euphrates. Now to Europe must be conceded the supremacy in this +single respect, that of representing the most intimate coast relation +with the sea; North America follows next in order. Africa, washed, but +not wedded, by the wave, represents the greatest seclusion,--and has +gone into a sable suit in her sorrow. After the ocean, rivers, which +are interior highways, claim regard. The United States have on this +side the Rocky Mountains more than forty thousand miles of river-flow, +that is, eighty thousand miles of river-bank,--counting no stream of +less than one hundred miles in length. Europe, in a larger space, has +but seventeen thousand miles. The American rivers are nearly all +accessible from the ocean, and, owing to the gentle elevation of the +continent, flow at easy declivities, and accordingly are largely +navigable. The Mississippi descends at an average of only eight inches +_per_ mile from source to mouth; the Missouri is said to be navigable +to the very base of the Rocky Mountains; and these monarch streams +represent the rivers of the continent. Thus here do these highways of +God's own making run, as it were, past every man's door, and connect +each man with the world he lives in. + +Rivers await their due celebration. We easily see that Nile, Ganges, +Euphrates, Jordan, Tiber, Thames, are rivers of influence in human +history, no less than water-currents on the earth's surface. They have +borne barks and barges that the eye never saw. They have brought on +their soft bosoms freight to the cities of the brain, as well as to +Memphis, Rome, London. Some experience of their spiritual influence +must have fallen to the lot of most men. The loved and lovely Merrimac +no longer accedes to the writer's eye, but, as of old, glides securely +seaward in his thought,--like a strain of masterly music long ago +heard, and, when heard, identical in its suggestions with the total +significance and vital progress of one's experience, that, intertwining +itself as a twin thread with the shuttled fibre of life, it was woven +into the same fabric, and became an inseparable part of the +consciousness; so, hearken when one will, after the changes and +accessions of many peopled years, and amid the thousand-footed trample +of the mob of immediate impressions, still secure and predominant it is +heard subtly sounding. Deep conversation with any river readily +interprets to us that venerable mythus which connects Eden with the +four rivers of the world; as if water must flow where man is chiefly +blest. + +But the point here to be emphasized is, that rivers are the progressive +and public element in its geographical expression. They throw the +continent open; they are doors and windows, through which the nations +look forth upon the world, and leave and enter their own household. +They are the hospitality of the continent,--every river-mouth chanting +out over the sea a perpetual, "Walk in," to all the world. Or again, +they are geographical senses,--eyes, ears, and speech; for of these +supreme mediators in the body, voice, vision, and hearing, it is the +office, as of rivers, to open communication between the interior and +exterior world; they are rivers of access to the outlying universe of +men and things, which enters them, and approaches the soul through the +freighted suggestions of sight and sound. Rivers, lastly, are the +geographical symbol of public spirit, the flowing and connecting +element, suggesting common interests and large systems of action. + +Thus in these characteristics of Various Productiveness, Unity, and +Openness or Publicity, the continent indicates the description of man +who may be its fit habitant. It suggests a nation vast in numbers and +in power, existing not as an aggregate of fragments, but as an organic +unit, the vital spirit of the whole prevailing in each of its parts; +and consequently predicts a man suitable for wide and yet intimate +societies. Let us not, however, thoughtlessly jump to accept these easy +prognostics; first let it be fully understood what an enormous demand +they imply. Americans speak complacently of their prospective one +hundred millions of inhabitants; but do they bear well in mind that the +requisition upon the individual is augmented by every multiplication +and extension of the mass? It is not without significance, that great +empires have uniformly been, or become, despotisms. Liberty lives only +in the life of just principle; and as the weight of an elephant could +not be sustained by the skeleton of a gazelle,--as, moreover, the bones +must be made stouter as well as longer,--so must a vast body politic be +permeated by a sturdier element of justice than is required for a +diminutive state. It is, indeed, the chief recommendation of our +federative form of government, that this, so far as may be, localizes +legislation, and thus, by lessening the number of interests that demand +a national consent, lessens equally the strain upon the conscience and +judgment of the whole. Near at hand, the mere good feeling of +neighbors, the companionable sentiment of cities and clans, proves a +valuable succedaneum for that deeper principle which is good for all +places and times. But this sentiment, like gravitation, diminishes in +the ratio of the square of the distance, and at any considerable remove +can no longer be reckoned upon as a counter-balance to the lawlessness +of egotism. Athenians could be passably just, or at least not +disastrously unjust, to Athenians; Spartans to Spartans; but Sparta +must needs oppress the other cities of Laconia, while Athens was at +best a fickle ally; and when Grecian liberty could be strong only in +Grecian union, the common sentiment was bankrupted by too great a draft +upon its resources. How far beyond the range of egotism of neighborhood +a _free_ state may go is determined chiefly by limits in the souls of +its constituents. At that point where equal justice begins to halt, +fatigued by too long a journey, the inevitable boundaries of the state +are fixed. Nor is it the mere sentiment of justice alone that suffices; +but this must be sustained in its applications by a certain breadth of +nature, a certain freedom and flexibility, akin to the dramatic +faculty, which enables us to enter into the feelings and wants of +others. Nothing, perhaps, in the world can be so unjust as a narrow and +frigid conscience beyond its proper range. The bounds of the state may, +indeed, not pause where the sustenance of its integral life fails. But +then its extension will be purchased with its freedom,--the quality be +debased as the quantity increases. Jelly-fish, and creatures of the +lowest animation, may sustain magnitude of body, not only with a slight +skeleton, but with none at all; and society of a cold-blooded or +bloodless kind follows the analogy. But these low grades of social +organization, having some show of congruity with the blank levels of +Russia, can pretend to none with the continent we inhabit. Yet some +species of arbitrament between man and man is sure to establish itself; +if it live not, as a part of freedom, in the bosom of each, then does +it inevitably build itself into a Fate over their heads; and despotism, +war, or similar brutal and violent instrumentalities of adjustment, +supply in their way the demand that love and reason failed to meet. + +Accordingly, in our American Man must be found, first, social largeness +and susceptibility,--whatsoever, in the breadth of a flexile and +sympathetic nature, may contribute to the keeping of the Golden Rule. +But the broadest good-feeling will not alone suffice. The great pledge +of peace, fellowship, and profitable co-working among such a population +as we anticipate must be sought in the deeper unity of moral principle. +For Right is one, and is every man's interest. Right is better than +Charity; for Right meets, or even anticipates, normal wants, while +Charity only mends failures. Nothing, therefore, that we could discover +in the New Man would be such a security for his future, nothing so fit +him for his place, as a tendency to simple and universal principles of +action. In the absence of this, he will infallibly be compelled one day +to enter Providence's court of chancery, and come forth bankrupt. But +let him be, even by promise, a seer of those primary truths in which +the interests of all are comprehended and made identical, and the +virtue of his vision will become the assurance of his welfare. +Doubtless, sad men will say that our own eyes are clouded with some +glittering dust of optimism, when we declare that this Man for the +Continent is the very one whose advent we celebrate. This might, +indeed, seem a fatuitously dulcet song to sing just now, when a din of +defection and recreancy is loud through all the land,--now, when we +have immediately in view, and on the largest scale, an open patronage +of infamous wrong-doing, so brazen-fronted and blush-proof that only +the spectacle itself makes its credibility;--the prior possibility of +it we should one and all hasten, for the honor of human nature, to +deny. Yet in the midst of all this are visible the victorious +influences that mould the imported Teuton to the spiritual form which +his appointed tasks imply. These we now hasten to indicate. + +And first, every breath of American air helps to make him the American +Man. The atmosphere of America was early noted as a wonder-worker. Ten +years subsequent to the landing at Plymouth, the Rev. Francis +Higginson, an acute observer, wrote to the mother country,--"A sup of +New England air is better than a whole flagon of old English ale." Jean +Paul says that the roots of humankind are the lungs, and that, being +rooted in air,--we are properly children of the aether. Truly, children +of the aether,--and so, children of fire. For the oxygen, upon which +the lungs chiefly feed, is _the_ fiery principle in Nature,--all that +we denominate fire and flame being but the manifestation of its action. +We are severe upon fire-eaters, Southern and other; yet here are we, +cool Northerns, quaffing this very principle and essence of fire in +large lung-draughts every moment, each of us carrying a perpetual +furnace in his bosom. Now it is doubtless true that we inhale more +oxygen, or at least inhale it less drenched with damp, than the people +of Europe, and are, therefore, more emphatically children of fire than +they. Be this, or be some other, the true theory of the fact, the fact +itself unquestionably is, that our climate produces the highest nervous +intensity. As there are conditions of atmosphere in which the magnetic +telegraph works well, and others in which it works ill, so some +conditions stimulate, while others repress nervous action. The air of +England seems favorable to richness and abundance of blood; there the +life-vessels sit deep, and bring opulent cargoes to the flesh-shores; +and the rotund figure, the ruddy solid cheek, and the leisurely +complacent movement, all show how well supported and stored with vital +resources the Englishman is. But to the American's lip the great +foster-mother has proffered a more pungent and rousing draught,--not an +old Saxon sleeping-cup for the night, but a waking-cup for the bright +morning and busy day. It is forenoon with him. He is up and dressed, +and at work by the job. Bring an Englishman here, and nothing short of +Egyptian modes of preservation will keep him an Englishman long. Soon +he cannot digest so much food, cannot dispose of so much stimulant; his +step becomes quicker, his eye keener, his voice rises a note on the +scale, and grows a trifle sharper. In fine, the effects observed in our +autumn foliage may be traced in the people themselves, a heightening of +colors; and while this accounts for much that is prurient and bizarre, +it infolds also the best promise of America. + +The effect of this upon American physiology and physiognomy is already +quite visible. Of course we must guard against hasty generalizations, +since the interfusing of various elements in our Western States is +producing new types of manhood. But the respective _physiques_ of Old +and New England can easily be compared, and the difference strikes +every eye. The American is lean, he has a paler complexion, a sharper +face, a slighter build than his ancestors brought from the Old World. +Mr. Emerson is reported as saying (though the precise words escape us) +that the Englishman speaks from his chest, the American more from the +mouth or throat,--that is, the one associates his voice more with the +stomach and viscera, the other with the head; and, indeed, the pectoral +quality of the prevailing tones catches the ear immediately upon +setting foot on British soil. Every man instinctively apprehends where +he is strongest, and will tend to associate voice and movement with the +centre of his strengths. The American, since in him the nervous force +predominates, instinctively lifts his voice into connection with the +great household of that force, which is the brain; for an equally good +reason the Englishman speaks from the visceral and sanguineous centres. +The American (we are still dwelling chiefly on the New England type) is +also apt to throw the head forward in walking,--thereby indicating, +first, his chief reliance upon the forces which that part harbors, and, +secondly, his impulse to progress; so that our national motto, "Go +ahead," may have a twofold significance, as if it were in some sort the +antipodes of going a-foot, and suggested not only the direction of +movement, but also the active agent therein! + +Mr. Robert Knox, of England, somewhat known as an ethnological lecturer +and author,--a thinker in a sort, though of the "slam-bang" school, of +far more force than faculty, and of a singular avidity for ugly +news,--dogmatically proclaims that all Americans are undergoing a +physical degeneration, involving, as he thinks, an equal lapse of +mental power, proceeding with swift fated steps, and sure ere long to +land them in sheer impotence and imbecility; and he appeals to the +common loss of adipose tissue and avoirdupois as proof. This author +belongs to a class of well-meaning gentlemen, so unfortunately +constituted that the distractions of their time induce in them an +acetous fermentation (as milk sometimes sours during thunder); and from +acid becoming acrid, they at length fall fairly in love with the +Erinnyes, and henceforth dote upon destruction and ugliness as happier +lovers do upon cosmical health and beauty. Concluding that the universe +is a shabby affair, they like to make it out shabbier still,--and so, +seldom brighten up till they have an ill thing to say. They are not +persons toward whom it is easy to feel amiable. Dogmatism is ever +unlovely, though it be in behalf of the sweetest hopes; but chronic +doubt and disbelief erected into a dogmatism are intolerable. Yet Mr. +Knox's misinterpretations of the facts are taking root in many minds +that do not share his fierce hypochondria and hunger for bitter herbs. +That the American has lost somewhat in animal resources is +incontestable; but Mr. Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the +man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial +paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and +silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical +constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; but +as a china vase is not necessarily less sound than a stone jug or iron +kettle, so delicacy and fragility in man are no proof of disease. The +ominous prognosis of this doctor, therefore, seems no occasion for +despair, perhaps not even for alarm. But to perceive what different +harping can be performed on this string, hear Carus:--"Leanness, as +such," says the master, "is the symbol of a certain lightness, +activity, rapidity, and mental power." Thus the adipose impoverishment, +which to the yellow-eyed Englishman seems utter bankruptcy, is at once +recognized by a superior man as denoting an augmentation, rather than +diminution, of proper human wealth. + +But while the typical American organization is of this admitted +delicacy and lightness, it is still capable, under high and powerful +impulse of extraordinary feats of endurance. This has of late been +admirably illustrated. Not long since, there returned to our shores a +hero who--as Dante was believed by the people of Italy to have entered +the Inferno of Fire--had actually descended into the opposite Inferno +of Frost, and done unprecedented battle with the demons of that realm. +Dr. Kane was slight, delicately framed, lean, with sharp, clear-cut +features, of quivering mobility and fineness of texture, having the +aspect rather of an artist than an explorer,--not at all the personage +to whom most judges would assign great power of endurance. And as one +follows him through those thrice Herculean toils,--sees him not only +bearing cheerfully the great burden of his own cares and ills, but +lifting up, as it were, from his companions, and assuming upon his own +shoulders, the awful oppression of the polar night, as Atlas of old was +fabled to support the heavens,--not even one's admiration at such force +of soul can wholly exclude wonder at such fortitude of body. Whence, we +ask, this power of endurance? We can trace it to no ordinary physical +resource. It _comes_ from no ordinary physical resource. It is pure +brain-power. It streams down upon the body, in rivers of invigoration, +from the cerebral hemispheres. A conversational philosopher, +discoursing to a circle of intelligent New England mechanics, +said,--"It is commonly supposed that the earth supports man. Not so; +man upholds the earth!" "How!" exclaimed a wide-eyed auditor; "upholds +the earth? How do you make that out?" "How?" answered the philosopher, +with superb innocence,--"don't you see that it sticks to his heels?" +When the question is asked, How the slight frame of this Arctic hero +could support such tests, the answer must be analogous,--It clung to +his brain. The usual order of support is reversed; and here is that +truer Mercury, in whom the winged head, possessing as function what its +prototype only exhibited as ornament and symbol, really soars in its +own might, bearing the pendent feet. + +Dr. Kane was one of the purest examples of the American organization; +and as he issued victorious from that region where "the ground burns +frore, and cold performs the effect of fire," the Man of the New World +was represented, and in him came forth with proven strength. The same +significance would not attach to all feats of endurance, even where +equally representative. Here are Hercules and Orpheus in one,--the +organization of a poet, and the physical stamina of a gladiator. + +Now this peculiar organization offers the physical inducement for two +great tendencies,--one relating to the perception of truth, the other +to the feeling of social claims,--while these tendencies are supported +on the spiritual side by the great disciplines of our position; and the +genius which these foreshow is precisely that which ought to be the +genius of the New Man. + +This organization is that of the seer, the poet, the spiritualist, of +all such as have an eye for the deeper essences and first principles of +things. Concede intellectual power, or the spiritual element, then add +this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, +radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. +And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as +well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable +to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,--How +far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like +the winds. Near the earth's surface winds blow in variable directions, +and the weathercock becomes the type of fickleness. So there is a class +of little truths, dependent upon ever-variable relations, with which it +is the function of cunning, shrewdness, tact, to deal, and numbers of +men seldom or never lift their heads above this weathercock region. Yet +the upper air, alike of the spiritual and the physical atmosphere, has +its perpetual currents, unvarying as the revolution of the globe or the +sailing of constellations; and these fail not to represent themselves +by eternal tradewinds upon the surface of our planet and of our life. +Now the grand inquiry about any man is,--Does he belong to the great +current, or to the lesser ones? He appertains to the great in +proportion to his access to principles. Or we may illustrate by another +analogy a distinction, of importance so emphatic. The Arctic voyagers +find two descriptions of ice. The field-ice spreads over vast spaces, +and moves with immense power; but goes with the wind and the +surface-flow. The bergs, on the contrary, sit deep, are bedded in the +mighty under-currents; and when the field-ice was crashing down with +tide and storm, Dr. Kane found these heroes holding their steady +inevitable way in the teeth of both. Thus may one discover men who are +very massive, very powerful, engrossing such enormous spaces that there +hardly seems room in the world for anybody else; but they are Field-ice +Men; they represent with gigantic force the impulse of the hour. But +there is another class, making, perhaps, little show upon the surface, +or making it by altitude alone, who represent the grand circulations of +law, the orbital courses of truth. It is a question of depth, of +penetration. And depth, be it observed, secures unity; diversity, +contrariety, contention are of the surface. Numbers need not concern +us, whether one hundred, or one hundred millions, provided all are +imbedded in the central, commanding truths of the human consciousness. +And if the Man of the New World be characteristically one who will +attach himself to the eternal master-tides, that fact alone fits him +for his place. + +Of course no sane man would intimate that organization alone can bring +about such results. The Arabian horse will hardly manufacture a Saladin +for his back. But let the Saladin be given, and this marvel of nerve +and muscle will multiply his presence,--will, as it were, give two +selves. So, if the Teutonic man who comes to our shores were innately +empty or mean, this nervous intensity would only ripen his meanness, or +make his inanity obstreperous. But in so far as he has real depth of +nature, this radical organization will aid him, quickening by its heat +what is deepest within him; and when he turns his face toward +principles, this flying brain-steed will swiftly bring him to his goal. +Nay, it is best that even meanness should ripen. The slaveholder of +South Carolina must avouch a false principle to cover his false +practice,--must affirm that slavery is a Divine institution. It is +well. A Quaker, hearing a fellow blaspheme, said,--"That is right, +friend; get such bad stuff out of thee!" A lie is dangerous, till it is +told,--like scarlatina, before it is brought to the surface: when +either breaks out, it is more than half conquered. The only falsehoods +of appalling efficacy for evil are those which circulate subtly in the +vital unconsciousness of powerful but obscure or undemonstrative +natures,--deadly from the intimacy which also makes them secret and +secure, and silently perverting to their own purposes the normal vigors +of the system. A Mephistopheles is not dangerous; he is too +clear-headed; he knows his own deserts: some muddiness is required to +harbor self-deceptions, in order that badness may reach real working +power. To all perversion iron limits are, indeed, set; but obscure +falsehood works in the largest spaces and with the longest +tether.--Thus the expressive intensity which appertains to this +organization is serviceable every way, even in what might, at first +blush, seem wholly evil effects. + +While thus the brain-hand of the American is formed for grasping +principles, for apprehending the simple, subtile, universal truths +which slip through coarser and more sluggish fingers, there is also an +influence on the moral and intellectual faculties, coming in to accept +and use these cerebral ones. We are more in conversation with the heart +and pure spiritual fact of humanity than any other people of equal +power and culture. We necessarily deal more with each other on a bond +and basis of common persuasion, of open unenacted truth, than others. +This matter is of moment enough to justify somewhat formal elucidation. + +Nations, like individual men, birds, and many quadrupeds and fishes, +are house-builders. They wall and roof themselves in with symbols, +creeds, codes, customs, etiquettes, and the like; they stigmatize by +the terms heresy, high-treason, and names of milder import, any attempt +to quit this edifice; and send such offenders into purgatory, +penitentiary, coventry, as the case may be. Some nations omit to insert +either door or window; they make penal even the desire to look out of +doors, even the assertion that a sky exists other than the roof of +their building, or that there is any other than a very unblessed +out-of-doors beyond its walls. Such are countries where free speech is +forbidden, where free thought is racked and thumb-screwed, and where +not only a man's overt actions, but his very hopes, his faith, his +prayers, are prescribed. Here man is put into his own institutions, as +into a box; and a very bad box it proves. Now these blank walls not +only encompass society as a mass, but also run between individuals, +cutting off bosom from bosom, and rendering impossible that streaming +of heart-fires, that mounting flame from meeting brands, out of whose +wondrous baptism come the consecrate deeds of mankind. Go to China, and +to any living soul you obtain no access, or next to none,--such +disastrous roods of etiquette are interposed between. It is as if one +very cordially shook hands with you by means of a pair of tongs or a +ten-foot pole. Indeed, it is hardly a man that you meet; it is a piece +of automatic ceremony. Nor is it in China alone that men may be found +who can hardly be accredited with proper personality. As one dying may +distribute his property in legacies to various institutions and +organizations,--so much, for example, to the Tract Society, so much to +the Colonization Society, and the like,--in the same manner do many +make wills at the outset of life for the disposal of their own personal +powers, and do nothing afterward but execute this testament,--executing +themselves in another sense at the same time. They parcel out +themselves, their judgment, their conscience, and whatsoever pertains +to their spiritual being, among the customs, traditions, institutions, +etiquettes of their time, and renounce all claim to a free existence. +After such a piece of spiritual _felo-de-se_, the man is nothing but +one wheel in a machine, or even but one cog upon a wheel. Thenceforth +he merely hangs together;--simple cohesion is the utmost approximation +to action which can be truly attributed to him. + +And as nothing is so ridiculous, so, few things are so mischievous, as +the sincere insincerity, the estrangement from fact, of those who have +thus parted with themselves. It is worse, if anything can be worse, +than hypocrisy itself. The hypocrite sees two things,--the fact and the +fiction, the gold and its counterfeit; he has virtue enough to know +that he is a hypocrite. But the _post-mortem_ man, the walking legacy, +does not recognize the existence of eternal Fact; it has never occurred +to his mind that anything could be more serious than "spiritual +taking-on" and make-belief. An innocent old gentleman, being at a play +where the heroine is represented as destroyed in attempting to +cross a broken bridge, rose, upon seeing her approach it, and in tones +of the deepest concern offered his opinion that said bridge was unsafe! +The _post-mortem_ man reverses this harmless blunder, and makes it +anything but harmless by the change; as that one took theatricals to be +earnest fact, so this conceives virtue itself to consist in posturing; +he thinks gold a clever imitation of brass, and the azure of the sky to +be a kind of celestial cosmetic; in fine, formalities are the realest +things he knows. It is said, that, in the later days of Rome, the +augurs and inspectors of entrails could not look each other in the face +during their ceremonies, for fear of bursting into a laugh. But still +worse off than these pitiful peddlers of fraud is he who feigns without +knowing that he feigns,--feigns unfeignedly, and calls God to witness +that he is faithful in the performance of his part. This is ape's +earnest, and is, perhaps, the largest piece of waste that ever takes +place upon this earth. _Ape's earnest_,--it is a pit that swallows +whole nations, whole ages; and the extent to which it may be carried is +wellnigh incredible, even with the fact before our eyes. A Chinese +gentleman spends an hour in imploring a relative to dine with +him,--utterly refusing, so urgent is his desire of company, to accept +No for an answer,--and then flies into a rage because the cousin +commits the _faux pas_ of yielding to his importunity, and agreeing to +dine. Louis Napoleon perpetrates the king-joke of the century by +solemnly presenting the Russian Czar with a copy of Thomas ą Kempis's +"Imitation of Christ,"--a book whose great inculcation is to renounce +the world! + +Now no sooner do men lose hold upon fact than they inevitably begin to +wither. They resemble a tree drawn with all its roots from the earth; +the juices already imbibed may sustain it awhile, but with every +passing day will sustain it less. If Louis Napoleon is so removed from +conversation with reality as not to perceive the colossal satire +implied in his gift, it will soon require more vigor than he possesses +to keep astride the Gallic steed. That Chinese etiquette explains the +condition of the Chinese nation. Indeed, it is easy to give a recipe +for mummying men alive. Take one into keeping, prescribe everything, +thoughts, actions, manners, so that he never shall find either +permission or opportunity to ask his own intellect, What is true? nor +his own heart, What is right? nor to consider within himself what is +intrinsically good and worthy of a man; and if he does not rebel, you +will make him as good a mummy as Egyptian catacombs can boast. + +The capital art of life is to renew and augment your power by its +expenditure. It was intimated some eighteen centuries since that the +highest are obtained only by loss of the same; and the transmutation of +loss into gain is the essence and perfection of all spiritual +economies. Now of this art of arts he is already master who steadily +draws upon his own spiritual resources. The soul is an extraordinary +well; the way to replenish is to draw from it. It is more miraculous +than the widow's cruse;--that simply continued unexhausted,--never +less, indeed, but also never more; while from this the more you take, +the more remains in it. Were it, therefore, desired to arrange with +forethought a scheme of life that should afford the highest +invigoration, in such scheme there should be the minimum of +prescription, and nothing be so sedulously avoided as the superseding +of inward and active _principles_ by outward and passive _rules_;--that +is, life would be made as much moral and spontaneous, as little +political and mechanical, as possible. + +And this does not ill describe our own case. No civilized nation is so +little imprisoned in precedents and traditions. Our national maxim is, +"The world is too much governed." In the degree of this release we are, +of course, thrown back upon underlying principles and universal +persuasions,--since these of necessity become, in the absence of more +artificial ties, the chief bond of such peace and coöperation as +obtain. Leave two men to deal with each other, not merely as subjects +or citizens, but as men, and they must recur to that which is at once +native and common to both, to the universal elements in their +consciousness, that is, to principles; and thus the most ordinary +mutual dealing becomes, in some degree, a spiritual discipline. Harness +these men in precedents, and whip them through the same action with +penalties, and they will gain only such discipline as the ox obtains in +the furrow and the horse between the thills. Statutes serve men, but +lame them. They render morality mechanical. Men learn to say not, "It +is right," but, "It is enacted." And the difference is immense. "Right" +sends one to his own soul, and requires him to produce the living law +out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the +Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the +former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are +not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;--they pilfer power +from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they +incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not +only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations +which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency toward a +fresh life daily gains impetus. That repeal of the Missouri Compromise, +however blamable, has several happy features, and prominent among these +must be reckoned the illustration it affords of a growing disposition +to say, "No putting To-day into Yesterday's coffin; let the Present +_live_ and be its own lord." + +We need be at no loss to discover the effects of the combined +influences here stated. The ordinary phrases of our country-people +denote an alert judgment,--as, "I reckon," "I calculate," "I guess." +The inventiveness which characterizes Americans, the multiplicity of +patents, comes from the tendency to go behind the actual, to test +possibilities, to bring everything to the standard of thought. Emerson +dissolves England in the alembic of his brain, and makes a thought of +that. Our politics are yearly becoming more and more questions of +principle, questions of right and wrong. There is almost infinite +promise and significance in this gradual victory of the moral over the +political, of life over mechanism. Mr. Benton complains of the +"speculative philanthropy" of New England, because it suggests +questions upon which he could not meet his constituents, and interferes +with his domestic arrangements. It is much as if one should pray God to +abolish the sun because his own eyes are sore! + + * * * * * + +We now pass to the second great tendency which, as is here affirmed, +organization and moral discipline are unitedly tending to establish on +this shore. An inevitable consequence of the nervous intensity and +susceptibility characteristic of Americans is an access of personal +magnetism, or influence; we keenly feel each other, have social +impressibility. The nervous is the public element in the body, the +mediating and communicating power. It is the agent of every sense,--of +sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell,--and of the power of speech. It is +the vehicle of all fellow-feeling, of all social sympathy. It +introduces man to man, and makes strangers acquainted. And a most +unceremonious master of these ceremonies it is;--running +indiscriminately across ranks; introducing beggar and baron; forcing +the haughtiest master, spite of his theories, to feel that the slave +_is_ a man and a fellow; compelling the prince to acknowledge the +peasant,--not with a shake of the hand, perhaps, but, it may be, with +knee-shakings and heart-shakings. A terrible leveller and democrat is +this master element in the human frame; yet king and kaiser must +entertain him in courts and on thrones. Now the high development of +this in the American Man renders him communicative, gives him a quick +interest in men; he cannot let them pass without giving and taking. +Hence the much-blamed inquisitiveness,--"What is your name? Where do +you live? Where are you going? What is your business? Do you eat baked +beans on Sunday?" Mrs. Trollope is horrified; it is a bore; but one +likes the man the better for it. He is interested in you;--that is the +simple secret of all. King Carlyle calls us "eighteen millions of +bores." To be sure; is that so bad? The primitive English element was +pirate; let the primitive American _be_ bore. The fathers of the +Britain that is took men by the throat; let the fathers of the America +that is to be take them by the--button;--that is amelioration enough +for one thousand years! In truth, this intense personal interest which +characterizes the American, though often awkwardly manifested and +troublesome, is an admirable feature in his constitution, and few +traits should awaken our pride or expectation more. It is this keen +fellow-feeling that fits him for the broadest and most beneficent +public interest. This makes him a philanthropist. And his philanthropy +is peculiar. It is not merely of the neighborhood sort, such as sends a +Thanksgiving turkey to poor Robert and a hat that does not fit well to +poor Peter. For here the predilection for principles and +generalizations comes in, and leads him to translate his fellow-feeling +into social axioms. Thus it occurs that the American is that man who is +grappling most earnestly and intelligently with the problem of man's +relation to man. In every village is some knot of active minds that +brood over questions of this kind. The monarch newspaper of America is +deeply tinged with the same hue; nor could one with a contrary +complexion attain its position. This great current of human interest +floats our politics; it feeds the springs of enthusiasm, coming forth +in doctrines of non-resistance, of government by love, and the like; +and our literature contains essays upon love and friendship which, in +our judgment, are not equalled in the literature of the world. + +Nor is a moral discipline wanting to second this tendency. A terrible +social anomaly has been forced upon us,--has had time to intertwine +itself with trade, with creeds, with partisan prejudice and patriotic +pride, and, having become next to unconquerable, now shows that it can +keep no terms and must kill or be killed. And through this the question +of man's duties to man, on the broadest scale, is incessantly kept in +agitation. It is like a lurid handwriting across the sky,--"Learn what +man should be and do to his fellow." And the companion sentence is +this,--"Thy justice to the strangers shall be the best security to +thine own household." + + * * * * * + +By the co-working of these two grand tendencies we obtain at once the +largest speculative breadth and the closest practical and personal +interest. What sweeter promise could any one ask than that of this rare +and admirable combination? Thought and action have been more than +sufficiently separated. The philosopher has discoursed to a few, and in +the dialect of the few, in Academic shades; sanctity has hidden itself +away, lost in the joy of its secret contemplations; the great world has +rolled by, unhearing, unheeding,--like London roaring with cataract +thunder around St. Paul's, while within the choral service is performed +to an audience of one. Thinking and doing have hardly recognized each +other. Now we are not of those vague, enthusiastic persons who fancy +that all truths are for all ears,--that the highest spiritual fact can +be communicated, where there is no spiritual apprehension to lay hold +upon it. _He that hath ears_, let him hear. Nor would we attempt to +confuse the functions of sayer and doer. But let there be a sympathy +and understanding between them, that, when achieved, will mark an epoch +in the world's history. Nowhere, at least in modern times, have thought +and action approached so nearly and intimately as in America; nowhere +is speculative intellect so colored with the hues of practical interest +without limiting its own flight; nowhere are labor and executive power +so receptive of pure intellectual suggestion. The union of what is +deepest and most recondite in thought with clear-sighted sagacity has +been well hit by Lowell in his description of the typical American +scholar,-- + + "Sits in a mystery calm and intense, + And looks round about him with sharp common-sense." + +That is, the New Man has two things that seldom make each other's +acquaintance,--Sight and Insight. Accordingly, our subtilest thinker, +whom the scholarly Mr. Vaughan classes with the mystics and accuses of +going beyond the legitimate range even of mystics, has written such an +estimate of the most practical nation in the world as has never been +written of that or any other before. The American knows what is about +him, has tact, sagacity, conversance with surfaces and circumstances, +is the shrewdest guesser in the world; and seeing him on this side +alone, one might say,--This is the man of to-day, a quick worker, good +to sail ships, bore mountains, buy and sell, but belonging to the +surface, knowing only that. The medal turns, and lo! here is this 'cute +Yankee a thinker, a mystic, fellow of the antique, Oriental in his +subtilest contemplations, a rider of the sunbeam, dwelling upon Truth's +sweetness with such pure devotion and delight that vigorous Mr. +Kingsley must shriek, "Windrush!" "Intellectual Epicurism!" and disturb +himself in a somewhat diverting manner. Pollok declaimed against the +attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the +other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is +born,--to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice, +eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes. +True, but to _both_ extremes; he belongs to the two antipodes. To the +one he appertains by intellectual emancipation and penetrative power; +to the other by his pungent element of sympathy with persons. Speaking +of the older Northern States, and of the people as a whole, we affirm +that their inhabitants are more speculative _and_ more practical, the +scholars know more of immediate common interests and speak more the +dialect of the people, while the mechanics know more of speculative +truth and understand better the necessary vocabulary of thought, than +any other people. + +Lyell says, that the New World is really the Old World,--that there, +preėminently, the antique geological formations are found, and nearer +the surface than elsewhere. Thus the physical peculiarity of our +continent is, that here an elaborate and highly finished surface is +immediately superimposed upon the oldest rock, rock wrought in fire and +kneaded with earthquake knuckles. We discover in this a symbol of the +American Man. He likewise brings into near association the most ancient +and the most modern. By insight he dwells in the old thoughts, the +eternal truths, the meditations that rapt away the early seers into +trance and dream; but he brings these into sharp contact with life, +associates them with the newest work, the toil and interests of this +year and day. + +We shall find space to mention but one peril which besets the New Man. +It is danger of physical exhaustion. Dr. Kane, the hero of two Arctic +nights, came forth to the day only to die. That which makes the +preėminence of our organization makes also its peril. Denmark is said +to be impoverished by the disproportion of the learned to the +industrial class; production is insufficient, and too much of a good +thing cripples the country. The nervous system is a learned class in +the body; it contributes dignity and superior uses, but makes no corn +grow in the physiological fields. A brain of great animation and power +is a perilous freight for the stanchest body; in a weak and shattered +body it is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket,--the richer it would +make him on dry land, the less chance it gives him of arriving there. +That this danger is not imaginary too many are able to testify.--Few +scenes in Rabelais are more exquisitely ludicrous than that in which he +pictures the monk Panurge in a storm at sea. The oily ecclesiastic is +terrified as only a combination of hypocrite and coward can be; and, in +the extremity of his craven distress, he fancies that any situation on +shore, no matter how despicable, would be paradise. So at length he +whines, "Oh that I were on dry land, and somebody kicking me!" In a +similar manner--similar, save that farce deepens to tragedy--many a man +in America of opulent mental outfit, but with only a poor wreck of a +body to bear the precious cargo, must often have been tempted to cry, +"Oh that I had a sound digestion, and were some part of a dunce!" In +truth, we are a nation of health-hunters, betraying the want by the +search. It were to be wished that an accurate computation could be made +how much money has been paid in the United States, within a score of +years, for patent medicines. It would buy up a kingdom of respectable +dimensions. So eager is this health-hunger, that it bites at bare +hooks. The "advertising man" of Arnold's Globules offers his services +as nostrum-puffer-general, and appeals to past success as proof of his +abilities in this line. But Arnold's Globules will sell no whit the +worse. Is the amiable Mr. Knox right, after all? Doubtless, we answer, +the American organization is more easily disordered than the +English,--just as a railway-train running at forty miles an hour is +more liable to accident than one proceeding at twenty. Besides, +Americans have not learned to live as these new circumstances require. +The New Man is a clipper-ship, that can run out of sight of land while +one of the old bluff-bowed, round-ribbed craft is creeping out of port; +but, from the very nature of his superiorities, he is apt to be +shorter-lived, and more likely to spring a leak in the strain of a +storm. He demands nicer navigation. It will not do for him to beat over +sand-bars. Yet dinner-pilotage in this country is reckless and +unscientific to a degree. The land is full of wrecks hopelessly snagged +upon indigestible diet. As yet, it is difficult to obtain a hearing for +precaution. Men answer you out of their past experience,--much like a +headstrong personage who was about to attempt crossing a river in a +boat sure to sink. "You will drown, if you go in that thing," said a +bystander. "Never was drowned yet," was the prompt retort; and pushing +off, he soon lost the opportunity to repeat that boast! But this +resistance is constantly becoming less. Meantime, numbers of foreseeing +men are waking up, or are already awakened, to the importance of +recreation and physical culture,--members of the clerical profession, +to the credit of the craft be it said, taking the lead. Messrs. +Beecher, Bellows, and Hale plead the cause of amusements; the author of +"Saints and their Bodies" celebrates the uses and urges the need of +athletic sports; gymnasia are becoming matters of course in the cities +and larger towns; "The New York Tribune" attends to the matter of +cookery; and it is safe to predict that the habits of the people will +undergo in time the necessary changes. That health is possible to +Americans ought not to be questioned. Of despair we will not listen to +a word. In crossing the ocean, in the backwoods-experience which +everywhere precedes cultivation, in the excitement which has followed +the obliteration of social monopolies and the throwing open of the +wealth of a continent to free competition, the old traditional +precautions have been lost, the old household wisdoms, the old +economies of health; and these we have now to reproduce for ourselves. +It will be done. And when this is done, though ancient English brawn +will not reappear, there will be health, and its great blessing of +cheerful spirits. The special means by which this shall be accomplished +we leave to the care of the gentlemen abovenamed, and their +compeers--merely putting in one word for _gentle_ exercise, and two +words for the cherishing of mental health, the expulsion of morbid +excitements, assume what guise they may. We should take extreme care +not to admit decay at the summit. A healthy soul is a better +prophylactic than belladonna. Refusing to despond respecting American +health, we cheerfully trust that the genius of the New Man will find +all required physical support, and due length of time for demonstrating +its quality. + +And now we may notice a doubt which some readers will cherish. Is not +all this, they may say, over-sanguine and enthusiastic? Is it not a +self-complacent dream? Are the tendencies adverted to so productive? Is +any such genius really forming as is here claimed? Is it not, on the +contrary, now fully understood that the Americans are a commonplace +people, meagre-minded money-makers, destitute of originality? What have +they done to demonstrate genius yet?--These skepticisms are somewhat +prevalent nowadays, and are a natural enough reaction from +Fourth-of-July flatulencies. Let them have their day. The fact will +vindicate itself. Meanwhile we may remark, that the appeal to attained +performance, in justification of the view taken in this paper of +American abilities and prospects, would obviously place us at undue +disadvantage. We speak here, and are plainly entitled to speak, rather +of tendencies than of attainments, of powers forming themselves in man, +and not of results produced without him. Nevertheless, results there +are,--admirable, satisfactory results. + +As first of these may be mentioned American Reform. In depth, in +breadth, in vigor, in practical quality, this may challenge comparison +with anything of a similar kind elsewhere. This is the direct outburst +of a new life, arising and wrestling with the old forms, habitudes, +institutions, with whatsoever is imported and traditional, on the one +hand, and with the crude or barbarous improvisations of native energy, +on the other. It is a force springing out of the summit of the brain, +the angel of its noblest sentiment, going forth with no less an aim +than to construct a whole new social status from ideas. And the token +of its superiority is this, that it builds its new outward life only +from the most ancient incorruptible material, out of the eternal +granite of Moral Law. Sweeping social _schemes_ prevail in France. But +American Reform is not a scheme; it is the service of an _idea_. It is +made conservative by that which also makes it radical, by working in +the interest of the moral sentiment. + +The Literature of the New World is also worthy of the New Man. We are +quite aware that a large portion of this literature is trash. So was a +large part in Shakspeare's, in Cervantes's, in Plato's age and place. +But we admit even that the comparison does not hold,--that an especial +accusation may be brought against the issues of the press in this +country. Wise men should have anticipated this, and, instead of +reasoning from the size of our lakes, prairies, and mountains, and +demanding epics and philosophies of us before we are fairly out of our +primitive woods, the critics should have hastened to say,--A colony +must have time to strike root, and to draw up therefrom a new life, +before it can arrive at valuable and genuine literary expression. The +Life must come before the Thought. Nothing could be more absurd than +the expectation that American literature should spring away into the +air from the top of European performance. Our first literature was +colonial,--that is, imitative, written for the approbation of European +critics,--of course, having somewhat the empty correctness of good +school-boy composition. Next followed what we may call fire-weed +literature,--the first rank, raw product of new lands. Under these two +heads a vast number of books must of course be reckoned. But beyond +these American literature has already passed, and now can point to +books that spring out of the pure genius of the New Man. And having +only these in mind, we hesitate not to say that there is now sounding +upon these shores a deeper, subtler, and more universal note than is +heard in any other land touched by the Atlantic Sea. We have now +writings in several departments of literature, and in both prose and +verse, which are characterized by a breadth and largeness of +suggestion, by a spirituality and a prophetic adherence to the moral +sentiment, which justify all that has here been affirmed or reasoned. +And our deepest thought finds a popular reception which proves it not +foreign or exceptional. Wilkinson's "Human Body," the largest piece of +speculative construction which England has produced in two centuries, +has not yet, after some eight years, we believe, exhausted its first +edition. Emerson's Poems, still less adapted, one would say, than the +work just mentioned, to the taste of populaces, had reached its fourth +edition in about the same period. Learned works have, of course, a +superior reception in the mother-country; works of pure thought in the +daughter. Said to us, during the past season, the subtilest thinker of +Great Britain,--"I must send to America whatever I wish to put in +print, unless I pay for its publication from my own pocket." + +And beyond this, there is a hush in the nation's heart, an expectancy, +a waiting and longing for some unspoken word, which sometimes seems +awful in the bounty of its promise. I know men educated to speak, with +the burden of a speaker's vocation on their hearts, but now these many +years remaining heroically silent; the fountains of a fresh +consciousness sweet within them, but not yet flowing into speech, and +they too earnest, too expectant, too sure of the future to say aught +beneath the strain. "Why do you not speak?" was inquired of one. +"Because I can keep silent," he said, "and the word I am to utter will +command me." No man assumes that attitude until he is already a party +to the deepest truth, is the silent side of a seer; and in a nation +where any numbers are passing this more than Pythagorean lustrum, a +speech is surely coming that will no more need to apologize for itself +than the speech of the forest or the ocean-shore. The region of the +trade-winds is skirted with calm. Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, that +his talk, to render it charming, "needed only a few brilliant flashes +of silence." We are talkative, but the flashes of silence are not +wanting, and there is prophecy in them as well as charm. Said one, of a +speaker,--"He was so rarely eloquent, that what he did not say was even +better than what he did." And here, not only are some wholly silent, +but in our best writings the impressive not-saying lends its higher +suggestion than that expressly put forth. What spaces between Emerson's +sentences! Each seems to float like a solitary summer-cloud in a whole +sky of silence. + +Yes, the fact is already indubitable, a rich life, sure in due time of +its rich expression, is forming here. As out of the deeps of Destiny, +the Man for the Continent, head-craftsman, hand-craftsman, already puts +his foot to this shore. All hail, new-comer! Welcome to great tasks, +great toils, to mighty disciplines, to victories that shall not be too +cheaply purchased, to defeats that shall be better than victories! We +give thee joy of new powers, new work, unprecedented futures! We give +the world joy of a new and mighty artist to plan, a new strong artisan +to quarry and to build in the great architectures of humanity! + + + +THE POET KEATS. + + His was the soul, once pent in English clay, + Whereby ungrateful England seemed to hold + The sweet Narcissus, parted from his stream,-- + Endymion, not unmindful of his dream, + Like a weak bird the flock has left behind. + + Untimely notes the poet sung alone, + Checked by the chilling frosts of words unkind; + And his grieved soul, some thousand years astray, + Paled like the moon in most unwelcome day. + + His speech betrayed him ere his heart grew cold; + With morning freshness to the world he told + Of man's first love, and fearless creed of youth, + When Beauty he believed the type of Truth. + + In the vexed glories of unquiet Troy, + So might to Helen's jealous ear discourse + The flute, first tuned on Ida's haunted hill, + Against OEnone's coming, to betray + In what sweet solitude her shepherd lay. + + Yet, Poet-Priest! the world shall ever thrill + To thy loved theme, its charm undying still! + Hearts in their youth are Greek as Homer's song, + And all Olympus half contents the boy, + Who from the quarries of abounding joy + Brings his white idols without thought of wrong. + + With reverent hand he sets each votive stone, + And last, the altar "To the God Unknown." + + As in our dreams the face that we love best + Blooms as at first, while we ourselves grow old,-- + As the returning Spring in sunlight throws + Through prison-bars, on graves, its ardent gold,-- + And as the splendors of a Syrian rose + Lie unreproved upon the saddest breast,-- + So mythic story fits a changing world: + Still the bark drifts with sails forever furled. + An unschooled Fancy deemed the work her own, + While mystic meaning through each fable shone. + + + +HER GRACE, THE DRUMMER'S DAUGHTER. + + +Foray, a mass of crags embellished by some greenness, looked up to +heaven a hundred miles from shore. It was a fortified position, and a +place of banishment. In the course of a long war, waged on sea and land +between two great nations, this, "least of all," became a point of some +importance to the authority investing it; the fort was well supplied +with the machinery of death, and the prison filled with prisoners. But +peace had now been of long continuance; and though a nation's banner +floated from the tower of the fort, and was seen afar by +mariners,--though the cannon occupied their ancient places, ordered for +instant use,--though all within the fort was managed and conducted day +by day with careful regard to orders,--the operations indicated, in the +spirit of their conduct, no fear of warlike surprises. No man gave or +obeyed an order as if his life depended on his expedition. Neither was +the prison the very place it had been; for, once, every cell had its +occupant,--an exile, or a prisoner of war. + +The officials of the island led an easy life, therefore. Active was the +brain that resisted the influences of so much leisure as most of these +people had. But, under provocation even, Nature must be true. So true +is she, indeed, that every violation of her dignities illustrates the +meaning of that sovereign utterance, VENGEANCE IS MINE. She will not +bring a thorn-tree from an acorn. Pray, day and night, and see if she +will let you gather figs of thistles. Prayer has its conditions, and +faith is not the sum of them. + +But Nature's buoyant spirits must needs conquer the weight of +influences whose business is to depress. And they, seeking, find their +centre among things celestial, in spite of all opposing. Much leisure, +light labor, was not the worst thing that could befall some of the men +whose lot was cast on Foray. + +Adolphus Montier was a member of the military band. He was drummer to +the regiment by the grace of his capacity. Besides, he played on the +French horn, to the admiration of his wife, and others; and he could +fill, at need, the place of any missing member of the company, leaving +nothing to be desired in the performance. + +Adolphus came to Foray in the first vessel that brought soldiers +hither. He saw the first stone laid in the building of the fort. Here +he had lived since. He was growing gray in the years of peace. He had +some scars from the years of strife, he was a brave fellow, and +idleness, a devil's bland disguise, found no favor with him. + +His daughter Elizabeth was the first child born on the island. Bronzed +warriors smiled on her fair infancy; sometimes they called her, with +affectionate intonation, "The Daughter of the Regiment." She deserved +the notice they bestowed,--as infancy in general deserves all it +receives,--but Elizabeth for other reasons than that she had come +whence none could tell, and was going whither no man could +predict,--for other reason than that she was the first discovered +native of the island. She was a beautiful child; and I state this fact +not specially in deference to the universal expectation that a +character brought forward for anybody's notice should be personally +capable of fascinating such. Indeed, it seems inevitable that we find +our heroines and heroes in life beautiful. Miss Nightingale must needs +remain our type of pure charity in person, as in character. Elisha Kent +Kane among his icebergs must stand manifestly efficient for his +"princely purpose," his eye and brow magnificent with beauty. Rachel, +to every woman's memory, must live the unparalleled Camille. + +Little Elizabeth--I smile to write her name upon the page with +these--it were a shame to cheat of beauty by any bungle of description. +Is not a fair spirit predestined conqueror of flesh and blood? Have we +not read of the noble lady whose loveliness a painter's eye was the +very first to discover? Where the likeness? The soul saw it, not the +eye; and he understood, who, seeing it, exclaimed, "Our friend--in +heaven!" While Adolphus Montier cleaned and polished his French horn, +an occupation which was his unfailing resource, if he could find +nothing else to do, or when he practised his music, business in which +he especially delighted when off duty, it was his pleasure to have wife +and child with him. + +Imagination was an active power in the Drummer's sphere. He, away off +in Foray, used to talk about the forms and colors of sounds, as if he +knew about them; and he had not learned the talk in any school. He +would have done no injury to transcendentalism. And he was a happy man, +in that the persons before whom he indulged in this manner of speech +rather encouraged it. Never had his Pauline's pride and fondness failed +Adolphus the Drummer. Life in Foray was little less than banishment, +though it had its wages and--renown; but Pauline made out of this +single man her country, friends, and home. Never woman endeavored with +truer single-heartedness to understand her spouse. In her life's aim +was no failure. Let him expatiate on sound to the bounds of fancy's +extravagance, she could confidently follow, and would have volunteered +her testimony to a doubter, as if all were a question of tangible fact, +to be definitely proved. So in every matter. For all the comfort she +was to the man she loved, for her confidence in him who deserved it, +for her patient endurance of whatsoever ill she met or bore, for +choosing to walk in so peaceful a manner, with a heart so light and a +face so fair, praise to the Drummer's wife! + +Elizabeth, the companion of her parents in all their happy rambling and +unambitious home-life, was their joy and pride. If she frolicked in the +grass while her father played his airs, she lost not a strain of the +music. She hearkened also to his deep discourse, and gave good heed, +when he illustrated the meaning of the tunes he loved to play. And +these were rarely the stirring strains with which the Governor's policy +kept the band chiefly busy when the soldiers gathered on summer nights +in knots of listeners, and the ladies of the fort, the Governor's wife, +and the wives of the officers, came out to enjoy the evening, or when a +vessel touched the rocky shore. + +Elizabeth's vision was clearer than even love could make her +mother's,--clearer than music made her father's; since a distinct +conception of images seems not to be inevitable among the image-makers. +The prophets are not always to be called upon for an interpretation. No +white angel ever floats more clearly before the eyes of those who look +on the sculptor's finished work than before the eyes of Elizabeth +appeared the shapes and hues of sounds which swept in gay or solemn +procession through the windings of her father's horn, floating over the +blue water, dissolving as the mist. No bright-winged bird, fair flower, +or gorgeous sunset or sea-wave, was more distinct to the child's eyes +than the hues of the same notes, stately as palm or pine,--red as +crimson, white as wool, rich and full as violet, softly compelling as +amethyst. + +Pauline Montier was by nature as active and diligent as Adolphus. She +was a seamstress before the days of Foray and the Drummer, and still +continued to ply her needle, though no longer urged by necessity. She +sewed for the officers' wives, she knit stockings and mufflers for the +soldiers. The income thus derived independently of Montier's public +service was very considerable. + +Born of such parents, Elizabeth would have had some difficulty in +persuading herself that her business was to idle through this life. + +Her early experiences were not as peaceful as those which followed her +tenth year. The noise of battle, the cries of defeat, the shouts of +victory, the sight of agonized faces, the vision of death, the +struggles of pain and anguish, the sorrow of bereavement,--she had seen +all with those young eyes. She had heard the whispered command in +hushed moments of mortal danger, and the shout of triumph--in the +tumult of victory,--had watched blazing ships, seen prisoners carried +to their cells, attended the burial of brave men slain in battle, had +marched with soldiers keeping time to funeral strains. Her courage and +her pity had been stirred in years when she could do no more than see +and hear. Once standing, through the heat of a bloody engagement, by +the side of a lad, a corporal's son, who was stationed to receive and +communicate an order, a random shot struck the boy down at her side. +She saw that he was dead,--waited for the order, transmitted it, and +then carried away the lifeless body of her fellow-sentinel, staggering +under the weighty burden, never resting till she had laid him in the +shelter of his father's quarters. After the engagement, this story was +told through the victorious ranks by the witnesses of her valor, and a +medal was awarded the child by acclamation. She always wore it, and was +as proud of it as a veteran of his ribbons and stars. + +But now, in times of peace, the fair flower of her womanhood was +forming. Like a white hyacinth she grew,--a lady to look upon, with +whom, for loveliness, not a lady of the fort could be compared. Not one +of them in courage or unselfishness exceeded her. + +The family lived in a little house adjoining the barracks. It was a +home that could boast of nothing beyond comfort and cleanliness;--the +word comfort I use as the poor man understands it. Neither Adolphus nor +Pauline had any worldly goods to bring with them when they came to +Foray. They lived at first, and for a long time, in the barracks; the +little house they now occupied had once been used for the storage of +provisions; but when the war ended, Adolphus succeeded in obtaining +permission to turn it into a dwelling-house. Here the child was +sheltered, and taught the use of a needle; and here she learned to read +and write. + +In the great vegetable garden which covered the space between the +prison and the fort was a corner that reflected no great credit on the +authorities. The persons who might reasonably have been expected to +take that neglected bit of ground under their loving care did no such +thing. The beds were weeded by Sandy, the gardener, and now and then a +blossom rewarded that attention; but the flower-patch waited for +Elizabeth. + +The gardener knew very well how she prized the pretty flowers;--they +appealed to his own rude nature in a very tender way. He loved to see +the young girl flying down the narrow paths as swiftly as a bird, if +she but spied a bloom from afar. There was a tree whose branches hung +over the wall, every one of them growing, with dreadful perversity, +away from the cold, hard prison-ground which held the roots so fast. +Time was never long enough when she sat in the shade of those branches, +watching Sandy at his work. + +By-and-by it happened that the flower-garden was given over to the +charge of the girl. It was natural that she, who had never seen other +flower-beds than these, should, aided by the home-recollections of her +mother, imagine far prettier,--that she should dare suggest to Sandy, +until his patience and his skill were exhausted,--that the final good +result should have come about in a moment when no one looked for +it,--he giving up his task with vexation, she accepting it with +humility, and both working together thereafter, the most helpful of +friends. + +It required not many seasons for Elizabeth to prove her skill and +diligence in the culture of this garden-ground,--not many for the +transformation of square, awkward beds into a mass of bloom. How did +those flowers delight the generous heart! With what particular splendor +shone the house of Montier through all the summer season! The ladies +now began to think about bouquets, and knew where they could find them. +From this same blessed nook the Governor's table was daily supplied +with its most beautiful ornament. Men tenderly disposed smiled on the +young face that from under the broad-brimmed garden-hat smiled back on +them. Some deemed her fairer than the flowers she cared for. + +One day in the spring of the year that brought her thirteenth birthday, +Elizabeth ran down through the morning mist, and plucked the first +spring flower. She stayed but to gather the beauty whose budding she +had long watched; no one must rob her mother of this gift. + +She carried off the prize before the gaze of one who had also hailed it +in the bleak, drear dawn. This was not the gardener;--and there was +neither man, woman, nor child in sight, during the swift run;--no +freeman; but a prisoner in an upper room of the prison. Through its +grated window, the only one on that side of the building, he had that +morning for the first time looked upon the island which had held him +long a prisoner. + +Since daybreak he had stood before the window. The evening before, the +stone had been rolled away from the door of his sepulchre,--not by an +angel, neither by force of the resistless Life-spirit within, shall it +be said? Who knows that it was _not_ by an angel? who shall aver it was +_not_ by the resistless Life? At least, he was here,--brought from the +cell he had occupied these five years,--brought from the arms of Death. +His window below had looked on a dead stone-wall; this break in the +massive masonry gave heaven and earth to him. + +The first ray of daylight saw him dragging his feeble body to the +window. He did not remove from that post till the rain was over,--nor +then, except for a moment. As the clouds rose from the sea, he watched +them. How strange was the aspect of all things! Thus, while he had +lived and not beheld, these trees had waved, these waters rolled, these +clouds gathered,--grass had grown, and flowers unfolded; for he saw the +scarlet bloom before Elizabeth plucked it. And all this while he had +lived like a dead man, unaware! Not so; but now he remembered not the +days, when, conscious of all this life, he had deathly despair in his +heart, and stones alone for friends. + +Imprisonment and solitude had told upon the man. He was still young, +and one whom Nature and culture had fitted for no obscure station in +the world. He could, by every evidence he gave, perform no mere +commonplaces of virtue or of vice. The world's ways would not assign +his limitation. He was capable of devising and of executing great +things,--and had proved the power; and to this his presence testified, +even in dilapidation and listlessness. + +His repose was the repose of helplessness,--not that of grace or +nature. The opening of this prospect with the daylight had not the +effect to increase his tranquillity. His dejection in the past months +had been that of a strong man who yields to necessity; his present mood +was not inspired with hope. The waves that leaped in the morning's +gloomy light were not so aimless as his life seemed to him. He had +heard a bird sing in the branches of a tree whose roots were in the +prison-yard,--now he could see her nest; he had heard the dismal +pattering of the rain,--and now beheld it, and the clouds from which it +fell; he saw the glimpses of the blue beyond, where the clouds were +breaking; he saw the fort, the cannon mounted on the walls, the flag +that fluttered from the tower, the barracks, the parade-ground, and the +surrounding sea, whose boundaries he knew not; he saw the trees, he saw +the garden-ground. Slowly his eyes scanned all,--and the soul that was +lodged in the emaciated figure grew faint and sick with seeing. But no +tears, no sighs, no indications of grief or despair or desperate +submission. He had little to learn of suffering;--that he knew. How +could he greet the day, hail the light, bless Nature for her beauty, +thank God for his life? Oh, the weariness with which he leaned his head +against those window-bars, faint and almost dying under the weight of +thoughts that rushed upon him, fierce enough to slay, if he showed any +resistance! But he manifested none. The day of struggle was over with +him. He believed that they had brought him to this room to die. If any +thought could give him joy, surely it was this. He was right. Yesterday +the Governor of the island, hearing the condition of the prisoner, this +one remaining man of all whose sentence had been endured within these +walls, had ordered a change of scene for him. His sentence was +imprisonment for life. Did they fear his release by the hands of one +who hears the sighing of the prisoner, and gives to every bondman the +Year of Jubilee? Were they jealous and suspicious of the approach of +Death? + +Though he had been so long a prisoner, he showed in his person +self-respect and dignity of nature. His hair and beard were grown long; +many a gray thread shone in his chestnut locks; his mouth was a firm +feature; his eyes quiet, but not the mildest; his forehead very ample; +he was lofty in stature;--outside the prison, a freeman, his presence +would have been commanding. But he needed the free air for his lungs, +and the light to surround him,--the light to set him in relief, the +sense of life to compel him to stand out in his own powerful +individuality, distinct from every other living man. + +By-and-by, while he stood at the window, looking forth upon the strange +scenes before him, this new heaven and new earth, the landscape became +alive. The first human creature he had seen outside his cell since he +became an inmate of this prison appeared before his eyes,--the young +girl skipping through the garden till she came to the flower-bed and +plucked the scarlet blossom. If she had been a spirit or an angel, he +could hardly have beheld her with greater surprise. + +She was singing when she came. He thought he recognized that +voice,--that it was the same he had often heard from the cell below. +Many a time the horrible stillness of that cell had been broken by the +sound of a child's voice, which, like a spirit, swept unhindered +through the walls,--an essence of life, and a power. + +It was but a moment that she paused before the flower; she plucked it, +and was gone. But his eyes could follow her. She did not really, with +her disappearing, vanish. And yet this vision had not to him the +significance of the bow seen in the cloud, whose interpreter, and whose +interpretation, was the Almighty Love. + +All day he stood before that window. The keeper hailed the symptom. The +Governor was satisfied with the report. Towards sunset the rain was +over, and with the sun came forth abundant indications of the island +life. The gardener walked among the garden-beds and measured his +morrow's work, calculating time and means within his reach,--and +vouchsafing some attention to the flower-garden, as was evident when he +paused before it and made his thoughtful survey. The prisoner saw him +smile when he took hold of the broken stalk which had been +flower-crowned. And Sandy saw the prisoner. + +The next day Elizabeth came out with the gardener, and they began their +day's work together. They seemed to be in the best spirits. The smell +of the fresh-turned earth, the sight of the fresh shoots of tender +green springing from bulb and root and branch, acted upon them like an +inspiration. The warm sun also held them to their task. Sandy was +generous in bestowing aid and counsel,--and also in the matter of his +land,--trenching farther on the ground allotted to the vegetables than +he had ever done before. + +"The land must pay for it," said he. "We'll make a foot give us a +yard's worth. Cram a bushel into a peck, though 'The Doctor' said you +never could do that! I know how to coax." + +"Yes, and you know how to order, if you have not forgotten, Sandy. You +frightened me once for taking an inch over my share." + +"That was a long while back," answered honest Sandy,--"before I knew +what the little girl could do. I've seen young folk work at gardening +afore, but you do beat 'em all. How could I tell you would, though? You +don't look it. Yes,--may-be you do, though. But you've changed since +_I_ first knew you." + +"Why, I was nothing but a baby then, Sandy." + +"Yes, yes,--I know; but you're changed since then!" + +So they all spoke to Elizabeth, praising her, confiding in her with +loving willingness,--the Daughter of the Regiment. + +The gardener was proud of his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part +she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly +a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his +window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new +perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while +before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual low +and rather mysterious tone,-- + +"There's some one will enjoy it when all's done." + +"Who is that?" asked she, thinking he meant herself, perhaps. + +"One up above," was the answer. + +But though Sandy spoke thus plainly, he did not look toward the +prison,--and the prison was the last place of which Elizabeth was +thinking. It was so long a time since the cell with the window had an +occupant, that she was almost unconscious of that gloomy neighborhood. +So, when the gardener explained that it was one up above who would +enjoy her work, her eyes instantly sought the celestial heights. She +was thinking of sun, or star, or angel, may-be, and smiling at Sandy's +speech, for sympathy. + +He saw her new mistake, and made haste to correct this also. + +"Not so high," said he, cautiously. + +Then, but as it seemed of chance, and not of purpose, the eyes of +Elizabeth Montier turned toward the prison-wall, and fixed upon that +window, the solitary one visible from the garden, and her face flushed +in a manner that told her surprise--when she saw a man behind the iron +bars. + +"Oh," said she, looking away quickly, as if conscious of a wrong done, +"what made you tell me?" + +"I guess you will like to think one shut up like him will take a little +pleasure looking at what he can't get at," said Sandy, almost +sharply,--replying to something he did not quite understand, the pain +and the reproof of Elizabeth's speech. + +"Oh, yes!" she answered, and went on with her work. + +But though she might be pleased to think that her labor would answer +another and more serious purpose than her own gratification, or that of +the pretty flowers, it was something new and strange for the girl to +work under this mysterious sense of oversight. + +"You have only got to speak the word," said the gardener, who had +perceived her perplexity, and was desirous of bringing her speedily to +his view of the case, "just speak, and he will be carried back to his +old cell below, t'other side." + +"Will he?" + +"Yes,--sure's you live, if he troubles you, Miss Elizabeth. Nobody will +think of letting him trouble you." + +"Oh, me!" she exclaimed, quickly, "I should die quicker than have him +moved where he couldn't see the garden." + +"I thought so," said Sandy, satisfied. + +"Did you think I would complain of his standing by his window, Sandy?" + +"How did I know you would like to be stared at?" asked he, with a +laugh. + +Elizabeth blushed and looked grave; to her the matter seemed too +terrible. + +"I might have said something," she mused, sadly. + +"And if it had been to the wrong person," suggested Sandy;--"for they +a'n't very fond of him, I guess." + +"Who is he, then? I never heard." + +"He has been shut up in that building now a'most five year, Elizabeth," +said Sandy, leaning on the handle of the spade he had struck into the +ground with emphasis. + +"Five years!" + +"Summer heat, and winter cold. All the same to him. No wonder he +sticks, as if he was glued, to the window, now he's got one worth the +glass." + +"Oh, let him!" + +"If he could walk about the garden, it would be better yet." + +"Won't he, Sandy?" + +"I can't say. He's here for some terrible piece of work, they say. And +nobody knows what his name is, I guess,--hereabouts, I mean. I never +heard it. He won't be out very quick. But let him _look_ out, any way." + +"Oh, Sandy! I might have said something that would have hindered!" + +"Didn't I know you wouldn't for the world? That's why I told you." + +The gardener now went on with his spading. But Elizabeth's work seemed +finished for this day. Above them stood the prisoner. He guessed not +what gentle hearts were pitiful with thinking of his sorrow. + +The next day the prisoner was not at the window, nor the next day, nor +the next. Sandy was bold enough to ask the keeper, Mr. Laval, what was +the meaning of it, and learned that the man was ill, and not likely to +recover. Sandy told Elizabeth, and they agreed in thinking that for the +poor creature death was probably the least of evils. + +But the day following that on which they came to this conclusion, the +sick man appeared before Sandy's astonished eyes. He was under the +keeper's care. The physician had ordered this change of air, and they +came to the garden at an hour when there was least danger of meeting +other persons in the walks. + +Sandy had much to tell Elizabeth when he saw her next. She trembled +while he told her how he thought that he had seen a ghost when the +keeper came leading the prisoner, whose pale face, tall figure, feeble +step, appeared to have so little to do with human nature and affairs. + +"Did he seem to care for the flowers? did he take any?" she asked. + +"No,--he would not touch them. The keeper offered him whatever he would +choose. He desired nothing. But he looked at all, he saw +everything,--even the beds of vegetables," Sandy said. + +"Did he seem pleased?" Elizabeth again asked. + +"Pleased!" exclaimed Sandy. "That's for you and me,--not a man that's +been shut up these five years. No,--he didn't look pleased. I don't +know how he looked; don't ask me; 'tisn't pleasant to think of." + +"I would have made him take the flowers, if I had been here," said +Elizabeth, in a manner that seemed very positive, in comparison with +Sandy's uncertain speech. + +"May-be,--I dare say," Sandy acquiesced; but he evidently had his +doubts even of her power in this business. + +She must take no notice of the prisoner, she was given to understand +one day, if she was to remain in the garden while he walked there. So +she took no notice. + +He came and went. Manuel, the keeper called him; and she was busy with +her weeding, and neither saw nor heard. Ah, she did not!--did _not_ see +the figure that came moving like a spectre through the gates!--did not +hear the slow dragging step of one who is weary almost to +helplessness,--the listless step that has lost the spring of hope, the +exultation of life, the expectation of spirit, the strength of +manhood!--She did hear, did see the man. We feel the nearness of our +friend who is a thousand miles away. Something beside the sunshine is +upon us, and receives our answering smile. That sudden shadow is not of +the passing cloud. That voice at midnight is not the disturbance of a +dream.--He walked about the garden; he retired to his cell. It might +have been an hour, or a minute, or a day. It does not take time to +dream a life's events. How is the drowning man whirled round the circle +of experiences which were so slow in their development! + +Compassion without limit, courageous purpose impatient of inaction, +troubled this young girl. + +"You behaved like a lady," said Sandy,--"you never looked up. You +needn't run now, I'm sure, when he thinks of taking a turn. All we've +got to do is to mind our own business, Mr. Laval says. I guess we can. +But I did want to let off those chains." + +"What chains?" asked Elizabeth, as with a shudder she looked up at +Sandy. + +"His wrists, you know,--locked," he explained. + +"Oh!" groaned the gentle soul, and she walked off, forgetful of the +flowers, tools, Sandy, everything. But Sandy followed her; she heard +him calling to her, and before the garden-gate she waited for him; he +was following on a run. + +"I can tell you what it's for," said he, for he had no idea of keeping +the secret to himself, and he dared not trust it to any other friend. + +"What is it?" she asked,--and she trembled when she asked, and while +she waited for his answer. + +"For lighting the Church. Would you think that? He did such damage, it +wasn't safe for him to be at liberty. That's how it was. I think he +must be a Lutheran;--you know they don't believe in the Holy Ghost! Of +course,--poor fellow!--it's right he should be shut up for warring with +the Church that came down through the holy Apostles, when you know all +the rest only started up with Luther and Calvin. He ought to have +knowed better." + +"Who told you, Sandy?" asked Elizabeth, as if her next words might +undertake to extenuate and justify. + +"It came straight enough, I understand. But--remember--you don't know +anything about it. His name is Manuel, though;--don't dare to mention +it;--that's what Mr. Laval calls him. Are you going? I wouldn't have +told you a word, but you took his trouble so to heart. You see, now, +it's right he should be shut up. But let on that you know anything, all +the worse for me,--I mean, him!" + +"Yes," said Elizabeth, "you're safe, Sandy. Thank you for telling me." + +Sandy walked off with a mind relieved, for he believed in Elizabeth, +and had found the facts communicated too great a burden to bear alone. + +She passed through the garden-gate most remote from the fort; it opened +into a lonely road which ran inland from the coast, between the woods +and the prison, and to the woods she went. The shadows were gloomy +to-day, for she went among them lamenting the fate of the +stranger;--the mystery surrounding him had increased, not lessened, +with Sandy's explanation. + +Fighting against _the Church_ was an unimagined crime. Of the great +conflict in which he had taken part, to the ruin of his fortunes, she +knew nothing. The disputes of Christendom, had they been explained, +would have seemed almost incredible to her. For, whatever was known and +discussed in the circle of the Governor of the island, Drummer Montier, +and such as he, kept the peace with all mankind. The Church took care +of itself, and appeared neither the oppressor nor the Saviour of the +world. What they had fought about in the first years of the possession +of Foray, Montier could hardly have told,--and yet he was no fool. He +could have given, of course, a partisan version of the struggle; but as +to its real cause, or true result, he knew as little as the other five +hundred men belonging to the regiment. + +While Elizabeth wandered through those gloomy woods, she saw no +flowers, gathered no wild fruits,--though flowers and berries were +perfect and abundant. Now and then she paused in her walk to look +towards the prison, glimpses of whose strong walls were to be had +through the trees. At length the sound of her father's horn came loud +and clear from the cliffs beyond the wood. It fell upon her sombre +meditation and slightly changed the current. She hurried forward to +join him, and, as she went, a gracious purpose was shining in her face. + +When she returned home, it was by the unfrequented prison-way, her +father playing the liveliest tunes he knew. For the first time in their +lives they sat down by the side of the lonely road where they had +emerged from the wood; Elizabeth's memory served her to recall every +air that was sweet to her, and she listened while her father played, +endeavoring to understand the sound those notes would have to "Manuel." + +Montier could think of no worthier employment than the practice of his +music. Especially it pleased him that his daughter should ask so much +as she was now asking: he could not discern all that was passing in her +heart, nor see how many shadows moved before those sweet, serious eyes. + +They went home at night-fall together; and the young girl's step was +not more light, now that her heart was troubled by what she must not +reveal, even to him. + +The next morning Sandy was very busy with Elizabeth, tying up some +flowers which had been tossed about, and broken, many of them, in the +night gale, when the keeper came through the gate, leading this Manuel, +who, grim as a spectral shadow, that had been fearful but for its +exceeding pitifulness, stood now between her and all that she rejoiced +in. "There!" exclaimed Sandy. Looking up, she saw them approaching +straight along the path that led past the flowerbeds. + +"Your flowers had a pretty rough time of it in the storm," said Jailer +Laval, as he drew near. He addressed the drummer's daughter,--but his +eyes were on Sandy, with the suspicious and stern inquiry common to men +who have betrayed a secret. But Sandy was busy with his delving. + +"Yes," answered Elizabeth, and she looked from the ground up to the +faces of these men. + +"Is that a rose-bush? That was roughly handled," said Laval, pointing +with his stick to the twisted rose-stalk covered with buds, over whose +blighted promise she had been lamenting. + +"Yes," said Elizabeth again; but she hardly knew what she said, still +less was she aware of the expression her face wore when she looked at +the prisoner. Yes,--even as Sandy said, big wrists were chained +together; he was more like a ghost than a man; his face was pale and +hopeless, and woful beyond her understanding was the majesty of his +mien. + +At such a price he paid for fights against _the Church!_ But in truth +he had not the look of an evil, warring man. His gravity, indeed, was +such as it seemed impossible to dispel. But only pity stirred the heart +of Elizabeth Montier as she looked on him. Surely it was a face that +never, in any excess of passion, could have looked malignance. Ah! and +at such a price he purchased his sunshine, the fresh air, and a near +vision of this flower-garden!--in chains! + +When she looked at him, his gaze was on her,--not upon the roses. She +smiled, for pity's sake; but the smile met no return. His countenance +had not the habit of responding to such glances. Sombre as death was +that face. Then Elizabeth turned hastily away; but as the keeper also +moved on a step, she detained him with a hurried "Wait a minute," and +went on plucking the finest flowers in bloom. Like an iron statue stood +the prisoner while she plucked the roses,--it was but a minute's +work,--then she tied the flowers together and laid them on his fettered +hands; whether he would refuse them, whether the gift pained or pleased +him, whether the keeper approved, she seemed afraid to know,--for, +having given the flowers, she went away in haste. + +It was not long after this first act of friendly courtesy, which had +many a repetition,--for the keeper was at bottom a humane man, and not +disposed to persecute his charge, while he was equally far from any +carelessness in guarding or leniency of treatment that would have +excited suspicion as to his purpose, in the minds of the authorities of +the island,--not long after this day, when the fine sympathy betrayed +for him by Elizabeth fell on Manuel's heart like dew, that the wife of +the jailer died. + +Her death was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the +woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced. +Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that +when he called her there was no resistance. + +Jailer Laval took the bereavement in a remorseful mood. The first thing +to be done now was the very last he would have owned to purposing +during her life-time. Release from that prison had been the woman's +prayer, year in and year out, these ten years, and Death was the bearer +of the answer to that prayer,--not her husband. + +But now, from the day of her sudden decease, the prison had become to +him dreary beyond endurance. The mantle of her discontent fell on him, +and, having no other confidant beside honest, stupid Sandy, he talked +to him like a man who seriously thought of abandoning his labor, and +retiring to that land across the sea for which his wife had pined +during ten homesick years. + +Sandy, who might have regarded himself in the light of an "humble +instrument," had he been capable of a particle of vanity or +presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a +conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk +along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the +prison-wall. What was her answer? It came instantly, without +premeditation or precaution,-- + +"Then we must take his place, Sandy." + +"We, Miss?" said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise. + +"Yes," she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind +him and his blunders,--"papa must take the prison." + +"Oh!"--and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake. Then he +laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it. Then he looked grave, +and wondering, and doubtful. The idea of Adolphus Montier's pretty wife +and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark +prison startled him. He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange. +But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he +glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily, +before her. At what she was looking he could not divine. He saw +nothing. + +"I wouldn't be overly quick about that," said he, cautiously. + +"No danger!" was the prompt reply. + +"For I tell _you_, of all the places I ever see, that prison makes me +feel the queerest. I believe it's one reason I let the flower-garden go +so long," owned Sandy. He did not speak these words without an effort; +and never had Elizabeth seen him so solemn. She also was grave,--but +not after his manner of gravity. + +"You see what I did with the poor flower-beds, Sandy," said she. "Wait +now till you see what happens to the prison." + +But it is one thing to purpose, and another to execute. Far easier for +Elizabeth to declare than to conduct an heroic design. One thing +prevented rest day and night,--the knowledge that Laval's intended +resignation must be followed by a new application and appointment. With +such a degree of sympathy had the condition of the captive inspired +her, that the idea of the bare possibility of cruelty or neglect or +brutality assuming the jailer's authority seemed to lay upon her all +the responsibility of his future. She must act, for she dared not +hesitate. + +One evening Adolphus took his horn, and, attended by wife and child, +went out to walk. He meant to send a strain from the highest of the +accessible coast-rocks. But Elizabeth changed his plan. The time was +good for what she had to say. Instead of expending his enthusiasm on a +flourish of notes, he was called upon to manifest it in a noble +resolution. + +When Elizabeth invited her father to a prospect sylvan rather than +marine, to the shady path on the border of the wood between it and the +prison, Montier, easily drawn from any plan that concerned his own +inclination merely, let his daughter lead, and she was responsible for +all that followed in the history of that little family. So love defers +to love, with divine courtesy, through all celestial movements. + +After playing a few airs, Montier's anticipated evening ended, and +another set in. The sympathies of a condition, the opposite to that of +which he had been so happily conscious, pressed too closely against +him. The musician could not, for the life of him, have played with +becoming spirit through any one of all the strains of victory he knew. + +Near him, under a tulip-tree, sat Pauline, with her knitting in her +hand, the image of peace. Not so Elizabeth. She was doubting, troubled. +But when the bird her father's music moved to sing was still, she +spoke, as she had promised herself she would, asking a question, of +whose answer she had not the slightest doubt. + +"Papa, do you know that Mr. Laval is going away?" + +"Why, yes, that's the talk, I believe." + +"Will they get somebody to take his place?" + +"Of course. There's a prisoner on hand yet, you know,--and the house to +look after." + +"A big house, too, and dreadful dreary," remarked the mother of +Elizabeth. "Laval's wife used to say, when she came up to see me +sometimes, it was like being a prisoner to live in that building. And +now she's dead and gone, he begins to think the same." + +"Suppose we take Laval's place," suggested Montier, looking very +seriously at his wife; but the suggestion did not alarm her. Adolphus +often expressed his satisfaction with existing arrangements by making +propositions of exchange for other states of life, propositions which +never disturbed his wife or daughter. They understood these +demonstrations of his deep content. Therefore, at these words of his, +Pauline smiled, and for the reason that the words could draw forth such +a smile Elizabeth looked grave. + +"I wish we could, papa," said she. + +"You wish we could, you child?" exclaimed her mother, wondering. "It +looks so pleasant, eh?" and the fair face of Pauline turned to the +prison, and surveyed it, shuddering. + +"For the prisoner's sake," said Elizabeth. "Who knows but a cruel +keeper may be put in Laval's place? He is almost dead with grief, that +prisoner is,--I know by his face. After he is gone, there won't be any +prisoner there,--and we could make it very pleasant." + +"Pleasant! What do you mean by pleasant?" asked Pauline, inwardly vexed +that her child had suggested the question,--and yet too just, too +kindly disposed, to put the subject away with imperative refusal to +consider it. "I never was in a place so horrid." + +"But if it was our home, and all our things were there," urged +Elizabeth, "it would be different. It depends on who lives in a house, +you know." + +"Yes, that is so; it depends a little, but not entirely. It would be +more than your mother could do to make a pleasant-looking place out of +that prison. You see it is different in the situation, to begin with. +Up where we live the sun is around us all day, if it is anywhere; and +then the little rooms are so light! If you put a flower into them, you +think you have a whole garden. Besides, it's Home up there, and down +here it isn't."--Saying this, Adolphus rose up quickly, as though he +had a mind to quit the spot. + +"When they select a man to fill Laval's place, of course they will be +careful to choose one as good and kind," said Pauline, with mild +confidence. + +"The jailer before him was not good and kind," remarked her daughter. + +"They dismissed him for it," said Adolphus, quickly. + +"But they said the prisoners were half-starved, and abused every way. +It was a good while before it was found out. That might happen again, +and less chance of any one knowing it. He is so near dead now, it +wouldn't take much to kill him." + +No one replied to this argument. Pauline and Adolphus talked of other +things, and the musician returned to his music. But all in good time. +Elizabeth was capable of patience, and at last her father said, looking +around him to make sure that his remark would have only two +listeners,-- + +"That prisoner isn't a man to be talked of about here. You never heard +_me_ mention him. Laval used to give a--a--bad account of him. He had +to be kept alive." + +"Till he heard your music, papa, and was moved up to the room with a +window. Did he tell you that?" asked Elizabeth. + +"He said he thought the music did him good," acknowledged Adolphus. + +"May-be it was the same as with Saul when David played for him. But he +does not look like a bad man, papa. He looks grander than any of our +officers. And he has fought battles, they say. He is very brave." + +Both Adolphus and Pauline Montier looked at their daughter with the +most profound surprise when she spoke thus. Not merely her words, but +her manner of speaking, caused this not agreeable perplexity. Her +emotion was not only too obvious, it was too deep for their +understanding. The mother was the first to speak. + +"How did you hear all this, child? _I_ never heard him talked of in +this way. They don't talk about him at all,--do they, Adolphus?" + +"No," he answered; but he spoke the word very mildly. The tone did not +indicate a want of sympathy in the compassion of his daughter. + +Elizabeth looked from her mother to her father. What friends had she, +if these were not her friends? + +"The jailer told Sandy, and Sandy told me," she said. "But they never +talk to any other person. Oh! I was afraid to hear about it; but now I +have heard, I was afraid not to speak. Would it be so dreadful for you +to live here, when we could always have music and the garden? And these +woods seem pleasant, when you get acquainted. Day or night I can't get +him out of my mind. It is just as if you were shut up that way, papa. I +am afraid to be happy when any one is so wretched." + +The result was, that Elizabeth's words, and not so much her words as +the state of things she contrived to make apparent by them, brought +Adolphus Montier to a clear, resistless sense of the prisoner's fate. +Over the features of that fate he was for days brooding. Now and then a +word that indicated the direction of his thinking would escape him in +his wife's hearing. Silently Pauline followed Adolphus to the end of +all this thinking. Once she walked alone along the unfrequented road +that ran between the prison and the wood, down to the sea; and she +looked at the gloomy fortress, and tried to think about it as she +should, if certain that within its walls her lot would soon be cast. + +And more than once Montier walked home that way; and if it chanced that +he had his horn or his drum with him, he marched at quickstep, and +played the liveliest tunes, and emerged from the shadows of the wood +with a spirit undaunted. He had played for the prisoner, whom he had +never yet seen,--but not more for him than for himself. + +One Sunday, when the little family walked out together, Adolphus and +his wife fell into a pleasant train of thought,--and when they were +together, thought and speech were generally simultaneous. As they +passed the prison,--for Adolphus had led the way to this path,--Laval +was standing in the door. They stopped to speak with him; whereat he +invited them into his quarters. + +In this walk, Elizabeth had fallen behind her parents. When she saw +them going into the prison, she quickened her pace, for her father +beckoned to her. But she was in no earnest haste to follow, as became +sufficiently manifest when she was left alone. + +They had not gone far in their talk, however, when she came to the +doorway. Laval, in all his speech, was a deliberate man, and neither +Adolphus nor his wife showed any eagerness in the conduct of the +conversation now begun. The contrast between the gloom of the apartment +and the light and cheerfulness of their own home was apparent to all of +them. Elizabeth felt the oppression under which each of the little +party seemed to labor, the instant she joined her parents. Susceptible +as they all were to the influences of Nature, her sunshine and her +shadow, this gloom which fell upon them was nothing more than might +have been anticipated. + +Jailer Laval was homesick, and innocent of a suspicion of what was +passing in the minds of his guests; he was therefore free in making his +complaints, and acknowledged that he was not fit to keep the +prison,--it required a man of more nerve than he had. The dread of the +place which his poor wife had entertained seemed to have taken +possession of him since her death. All the arguments which he once +used, in the endeavor to bolster her courage, he had now forgotten. He +was very cautious when he began to speak of the prisoner, and tried to +divert Adolphus from the point by saying that he would much prefer a +house full of convicts to one so empty as this. There was at least +something like society in that, and something to do. + +Adolphus, in spite of his discontent at hearing merely these deductions +of experience, when his desire was to know something of Manuel, heard +nothing of importance. The speech of the jailer on this subject was not +to be had. His mind seemed to be wandering, except when his wife, or +his native land, was referred to; then he brightened into speech, but +never once into cheerfulness. As he sat there in the middle of his +chamber, he seemed to represent the genius of the place,--and anything +less enlivening or desirable in the way of human life could hardly be +imagined. Pauline looked at him and sighed. She looked at Adolphus;--a +pang shot through her heart; the shadow of the man seemed to overshadow +him. Out of this place, where all appeared to be fast changing into +"goblins damned"! + +It was she who led the way; but, pausing in the court-yard, Elizabeth +evinced still greater haste to be gone, for she ran on with fleet step, +and a heart heavy with foreboding as to the result of this interview. +She was also impatient to get into the open sunlight, and did not rest +in this progress she was making outward till she had come to the +sea-shore. Elizabeth Montier was in a state of dire perplexity just +then, and if she had been asked whether she would really choose to +effect the change proposed in their way of living, it would have been +no easy matter for her to discover her mind. + +By the sea-shore she sat down, and her father and mother followed +slowly on. They were not talking as they came. But as they approached +the beach, Adolphus could not resist the prospect before them. Loud was +the blast he blew upon his horn, nor did he cease playing until his +music had restored him to a more natural mood than that in which the +interview with Laval left him. The prison was becoming a less startling +image of desolate dreariness to him. And Adolphus was the master-spirit +in his family. If he was gay, it was barely possible for his wife and +child to be sad. Of the prison not one word was spoken by either. They +had not revealed to each other their inmost mind when they went into +Laval's quarters; they did not reveal it when they came thence. But as +they strolled along the rocky shore, or returned homeward, they thought +of little beside the prison and the prisoner. As to Elizabeth, nothing +required of her that she should urge the matter further. She had +neither heart nor courage for such urging. + +It was Adolphus himself who spoke to Pauline the next day, after he had +deliberately thrown himself in the way of the prisoner, that he might +with his own eyes see what manner of man he was; for seeing was +believing. + +"Pauline," said he, almost persuaded of the truth of his own words, +"you and Elizabeth would make a different place of that prison from +what it is now. I should like to see it tried." + +Pauline Montier made no haste to answer; she was afraid that she knew +what he expected of her. + +"Do you see," continued Adolphus, "Elizabeth won't speak of it again? +But what must she think of us? He is a man. They say we are all +brothers." + +"I know it," said, almost sighed, his wife. + +"Looking out for our own comfort!" exclaimed Adolphus. "So mighty +afraid of doing what we'd have done for us! Besides, I believe we could +make it pretty pleasant. Cool in summer, and warm in winter. I'd +whitewash pretty thorough. And if the windows were rubbed up, your way, +the light might get through." + +"Poor Joan Laval!" said Pauline. "Body and mind gave out. She was +different at first." + +"Do you think it was the prison?" asked Adolphus, quickly, like a man +halting between two opinions,--there was no knowing which way he would +jump. + +"Something broke her down," replied his wife. She was looking from one +window,--he from another. + +"Joan Laval was Joan Laval," said Adolphus, with an effort. "Always +was. Frightened at her own shadow, I suppose. But--there! we won't +think of it. I know how it looks to you, Pauline. Very well,--I don't +see why we should make ourselves miserable for the sake of somebody who +has got to be miserable anyhow,--and deserves it, I suppose, or he +wouldn't be where he is." + +"Poor fellow!" sighed Pauline,--as if it were now her turn on the rack. + +Here Adolphus let the matter rest. He had overcome his own scruples so +far as honestly to make this proposal to his wife. But he would do no +more than propose,--not for an instant urge the point. Surely, that +could not be required of him. Charity, he remembered, begins at home. + +But Pauline could not let the matter rest here. Her struggle was yet to +come. It was she, then, who alone was unwilling to sacrifice her +present home for the sake of a stranger and prisoner! + +Now Pauline Montier was a good Christian woman, and various words of +holy utterance began herewith to trouble her. And from a by no means +tranquil musing over them, she began to ask herself, What, after all, +was home? Was happiness indeed dependent on locality when the heart of +love was hers? Could she not give up so little as a house, in order to +secure the comfort of a son of misfortune,--a solitary man,--a dying +prisoner? What she would not give up freely might any day be taken from +her. If fire did not destroy it, the government, which took delight in +interference, might see fit to order that the house they occupied +should be used again for the original purpose of storage. + +And then the discomforts of the prison began to appear very +questionable. She remembered that Joan Laval was, as Adolphus hinted, +weakly, nervous, 'frightened at her own shadow,'--a woman who had +never, for any single day of her life, lived with a lofty purpose,--a +cumberer of the ground, who could only cast a shadow. + +She perceived that they would be close to the flower-garden; a minute's +walk would lead them to the pleasant woods,--and Pauline Montier always +loved the woods. + +Indeed, when she began to take this ground, the first steps of +occupation alone could be timid or doubtful. After that, her humanity, +her sympathy, her confidence in her husband and daughter, drew the +woman on, till she forgot how difficult the first steps had been. + +She surprised both husband and daughter by saying to Adolphus, the +moment she came to her conclusion, that he had better make inquiry of +Laval whether he had signified his intention to resign, and forthwith +seek the appointment from the Governor of the island. + +When Pauline said this, she attested her sincerity by making ready to +accompany Adolphus at once to the prison, that they might run no risk +of losing the situation by delay. Seeing that they were of one mind, +and entirely confiding in each other, they all went together to the +prison to consult with Laval. Thus it came to pass, that, before the +week ended, the charge of the prison had been transferred to Adolphus +Montier. + +The family made great efforts in order to impart an air of cheerfulness +and home-comfort to their new dwelling-place. Adolphus whitewashed, +according to promise; Pauline scrubbed, according to nature; they +arranged and rearranged their little stock of furniture,--set the +loud-ticking day-clock on the mantel-shelf, and displayed around it the +china cups, the flower-vase, and the little picture of their native +town which Adolphus cut from a sheet of letter-paper some old friend +had sent him, and framed with more tender feeling than skill. They did +their best, each one, and said to one another, that, when they got used +to the place, to the large rooms and high ceilings and narrow windows, +it would of course seem like home, to them, because--it _was_ their +HOME. Were they not all together? were not these their own household +goods, around them? Still, they needed all this mutual encouragement +and heartiness of coöperation which was so nobly, so generously +manifested; and it was sincere enough to insure the very result of +contentment and satisfaction which they were so wise as to anticipate. +But the Governor thought,--_The Drummer is getting ambitious; he wants +a big house, and authority!_ + +Ex-jailer Laval was exceedingly active in assisting his own outgoing +and the incoming of Montier. He helped Adolphus in the heavy labors of +removal, and laughed more during the conduct of these operations than +he had been known to do in years. He said nothing to Prisoner Manuel of +the intended change in jail-administration until the afternoon when for +the last time he walked out with him. + +The information was received with apparent indifference, without +question or comment, until Laval, half vexed, and wholly sorrowful for +the sad state of the prisoner, said,-- + +"I am sorry for you, Sir. I can say that, now I'm going off. I've been +as much a prisoner as you have, I believe. And I wish you were going to +be set free to-night, as I am. I am going home! But I leave you in good +care,--better than mine. I never have gone ahead of my instructions in +taking care of you. I never took advantage of your case, to be cruel or +neglectful. If anything has ever passed that made you think hard of me, +I hope you will forgive it, for I can say I have done the best I could +or dared." + +Thus called upon to speak, the prisoner said merely, "I believe +you." + +Whereat the jailer spoke again, and with a lighter heart. + +"I am glad you're in luck this time,--for you are. You don't know who +is coming to take the charge,--come, I mean, for they are all in, and +settled. That's Montier, the little girl's father. He is a drummer, and +a little of everything else. It's his horn that you hear sometimes. And +you know Elizabeth, who was always so kind about the flowers. His wife, +too, she's a pretty woman, and kind as kind can be." + +"What have they come here for?" asked the prisoner, amazed. + +"I'll tell you," said Laval, more generous than he had designed to be; +but he knew how he should wish, when the sea rolled between him and +Foray, that he had spoken every comfortable word in his knowledge to +this man; he knew it by his recent experiences of remorse in reference +to his buried wife, and was wise enough to profit by the +knowledge;--"I'll tell you. It's on your account. They were afraid +somebody that didn't know how long you have been here, and how much you +have suffered, would get the place; so they all came together and asked +for it. They had a pretty little house up nigh the barracks, but they +gave it up to come here. You'll see Montier to-night. For when I go +back to your room with you, then I'm going off to--to"----he hesitated, +for foremost among his instructions was this, that he should remain +silent about his purpose of returning home; he was not to go as a +messenger for the prisoner across the ocean to their native land----"to +my business," he said. "If you'll be kind to him, you will make +something by it. I thought I would tell you,--so, when you saw a +strange face in your room, you would know what it meant without +asking." + +"I thank you," said the prisoner; and to the jailer it now seemed as if +the figure of the man beside him grew in height and strength,--as if he +trod the ground less feebly and listlessly while he spoke these words. +A divine consolation must have strengthened him even then, or he could +never have added with such emphasis, "Wherever you go, take this my +assurance with you,--you have not been cruel or careless. You have done +as well as you could. I thank you for it." + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," said the jailer, after a silence +that seemed but brief to him,--such a deal of argument he had +dispatched, so many difficulties he had overcome in those few moments, +whose like, for mental activity and conclusiveness, he had never seen +before, and never would see again. "I shall be asked if I have told +you. But--where did you come from? Do not tell me your name. But whom +did you leave behind you that you would care most should know you are +alive and in good hands?" + +These questions, asked in good faith, would have had their answer; but +while the prisoner was preparing such reply as would have proceeded, +brief and wholly to the point, from the confusion of hope and surprise, +the Governor of Foray came in sight, drew near, and, suspicious, as +became him, walked in silence by the prisoner's side, while Laval +obeyed his mute instructions, leading Manuel back to his cell. A vessel +was approaching the shore of Foray. + +Having disposed of his prisoner, the jailer in turn was marched, like +one under arrest, up to the fort, where he remained, an object of +suspicion, until his time came for sailing, and, without knowing it, he +went home under guard. + +When Adolphus Montier ascended to the prisoner's room that night, he +found him standing by the window. After Laval left him, he had looked +from out that window, and seen the white sail of a vessel; he could not +see it now, but there he stood, watching, as though he knew not that +his chance of hope was over. + +As Adolphus entered the room, the prisoner turned immediately to +him,--asking quietly, as if he had not been suddenly tossed into a gulf +of despair by the breeze that brought him hope,-- + +"Has Laval sailed?" + +"When the cannon fired," was the answer. + +Then Adolphus placed the dish containing the prisoner's supper on the +table; he had already lighted the lamp in the hall. And now he wanted +to say something, on this his first appearance in the capacity of +keeper, and he knew what to say,--he had prepared himself abundantly, +he thought. But both the heart and the imagination of Adolphus Montier +stood in the way of such utterance as he had prepared. The instant his +eyes fell on that figure, lonely and forlorn, the instant he heard that +question, his kind heart became weakness, he stood in the prisoner's +place,--he saw the vessel sailing on its homeward voyage,--he beheld +men stepping from sea to shore, walking in happy freedom through the +streets of home;--a vision that filled his eyes with tears was before +him, and he was long in controlling his emotion sufficiently to say,-- + +"We are in Laval's place, Sir, and we hope you will have no cause to +regret the change. I don't know how to be cruel and severe,--but I must +do my duty. But I wasn't put here for a tyrant." + +"I know why you are here; Laval told me," said the prisoner. + +"Then we're friends, a'n't we?" asked Adolphus; "though I must do my +duty by them that employ me. You understand. I'd set every door and +window of this building wide open for you, if I had my way; though I +don't know what you're here for. But I swear before heaven and earth, +nothing will tempt me to forget my duty to the government;--if you +should escape, it would be over my dead body. So you see my position." + +"Yes," said the prisoner; and if anything could have tempted a smile +from him, this manner of speech would have done it. But Adolphus was +far enough from smiling. + +"Come, eat something," said he, with tremulous persuasion. "My wife +knows how to get up such things. She will do the best for you she can." + +"Thank you." + +The prisoner again looked out of the window. It was growing dark; the +outline of sea and land was fading out of sight; dreary looked the +world without,--but within the lamp seemed shining with a brighter +light than usual. And here was a person and a speech, a human sympathy, +that almost warmed and soothed him. + +He approached the table where Adolphus had spread his supper. He sat in +the chair that was placed for him, and the Drummer waited on him, +recommending Pauline's skill again, much as he might have presented a +petition. The prisoner ate little, but he praised Pauline, and said +outright that he had tasted nothing so palatable as her supper these +five years. This cheered Montier a little, but still his spirits were +almost at the lowest point of depression. + +"You seem to pity me," remarked the prisoner, when Adolphus was +gathering up the remains of the frugal supper. + +"My God!--yes!" exclaimed Adolphus, stopping short, and looking at the +man. + +It was a sort of sympathy that could not harm the person on whom it was +bestowed. + +"I consider myself well off to-night," said he, quietly. "It is your +little daughter that works in the garden so much? I have often watched +her." + +"Yes," said Adolphus, almost with a sob. + +"And you are the man whose music has been so cheering many a time?" + +"I want to know what airs you like best," said the poor Drummer, +hurriedly. + +"I never heard you play one that I did not like."--Precious praise! + +"Then you like music? I can be pretty tolerably severe, Sir, if I make +up my mind!" said Adolphus, as if addressing his own conscience, to set +that at rest by this open avowal. "There's no danger of my doing wrong +by the government. I'd have to pay for you with my life. Yes,--for it +would be with my liberty. And there's my wife and child. So you +understand where I am, as I told you before; but, by thunder! you shall +have all the music you want, and all the flowers; and my little girl +can sing pretty well,--her mother taught her. And if you're sick, there +a'n't a better nurse in the hospital than Pauline Montier. There! good +night!" + +Adolphus took up the tray and hurried out of the room,--and forgot to +fasten the door behind him until he had gone half way down the stairs. +He came back in haste, and turned the great key with half the blood in +his body burning in his face,--not merely an evidence of the exertion +made in that operation, which he endeavored to perform noiselessly. He +was ashamed of this caging business; but he would have argued you out +of countenance then and there, had you ventured a word against the +government,--though, as he said, he was in the dark concerning the +prisoner's crime. + +When he went down stairs he found supper prepared, and Pauline and +their daughter waiting for him. He sat down in silence, seeking to +avoid the questioning eyes which turned toward him so expectant and so +hopeful. Discerning his mood, neither wife nor daughter troubled him +with questions; at last, of himself, he broke out vehemently,-- + +"I wouldn't for the world have lost the chance! Laval wasn't the man to +take care of that gentleman. But he don't say a word against Laval, +mind you. He spoke about the flowers and the music. Oh, hang it!" + +Here, in spite of himself, the Drummer was wholly overcome. He bowed +his head to the table and broke into violent weeping. Another barrier +gave way beside. Elizabeth flew to him. He seemed not to heed her, nor +the sudden cry, "Oh, father!" that escaped her. She sat down by his +side,--she wept as he was weeping. It was a stormy emotion that raged +through her heart, when her tears burst forth. She was not weeping for +pity merely, nor because her father wept. Long before he lifted his +head, she was erect, and quiet, and hopeful,--but a child no more. She +was a woman to love, a woman to dare,--fit and ready for the guiding of +an angel. By-and-by Adolphus said to Pauline,--"If any one else had +undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut +out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. +Why,--why,--he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We +aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, I take it." + +"No, indeed!" said Pauline, as if the bare idea filled her with +indignation. The three were surely one now. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + +WALDEINSAMKEIT. + + I do not count the hours I spend + In wandering by the sea; + The forest is my loyal friend, + Like God it useth me. + + In plains that room for shadows make + Of skirting hills to lie, + Bound in by streams which give and take + Their colors from the sky, + + Or on the mountain-crest sublime, + Or down the oaken glade, + Oh, what have I to do with time? + For this the day was made. + + Cities of mortals woebegone + Fantastic care derides, + But in the serious landscape lone + Stern benefit abides. + + Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, + And merry is only a mask of sad; + But sober on a fund of joy + The woods at heart are glad. + + There the great Planter plants + Of fruitful worlds the grain, + And with a million spells enchants + The souls that walk in pain. + + Still on the seeds of all he made + The rose of beauty burns; + Through times that wear, and forms that fade, + Immortal youth returns. + + The black ducks mounting from the lake, + The pigeon in the pines, + The bittern's boom, a desert make + Which no false art refines. + + Down in yon watery nook, + Where bearded mists divide, + The gray old gods that Chaos knew, + The sires of Nature, hide. + + Aloft, in secret veins of air, + Blows the sweet breath of song; + Ah! few to scale those uplands dare, + Though they to all belong. + + See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's looks. + + And if, amid this dear delight, + My thoughts did home rebound, + I should reckon it a slight + To the high cheer I found. + + Oblivion here thy wisdom is, + Thy thrift the sleep of cares; + For a proud idleness like this + Crowns all life's mean affairs. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE GERMAN POPULAR LEGEND OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS. + + +We doubt whether any popular legend has ever taken deeper root among +the common people and spread farther in the world than the story of Dr. +Faustus and his reckless compact with the Evil One. We do not intend to +compare it, of course, to those ancient traditions which seem to have +constituted a tie of relationship between the most distant nations in +times anterior to history. These are mostly of a mythological +character,--as, for instance, those referring to the existence of +elementary spirits. Their connection with mankind has, in the earliest +times, occupied the imagination of the most widely different races. A +certain analogy we can easily explain by the affinity of human hearts +and human minds. But when we find that exactly the same tradition is +reėchoed by the mountains of Norway and Sweden in the ballad of "Sir +Olaf and the Erl-king's Daughter," which the milkmaid of Brittany sings +in the lay of the "Sieur Nann and the Korigan," and in a language +radically different from the Norse,--when, here and there, the same +_forms_ of superstition meet us in the ancient popular poetry of the +Servians and modern Greeks, which were familiar to the Teutonic and +Cambrian races of early centuries,--must we not believe in a primeval +intimate connection between distant nations? are we not compelled to +acknowledge that there must have existed, in those remote times, means +of communication unknown to us? + +We repeat, however, that, in calling the legend of Dr. Faustus the most +widely-spread we know of, we cannot allude to these primitive +traditions, the circulation of which is perfectly mysterious. We speak +of such popular legends as admit of their origin being traced. Among +these the Faustus-tradition may be called comparatively new. To us +Americans, indeed, whose history commences only with the modern history +of Europe, a period of three hundred years seems quite a respectable +space of time. But to the Germans and the Scandinavians, from whose +popular lore the names of Horny Siegfried and Dietric of Berne, +(Theodoric the Great,) and of Roland, are not yet completely erased, a +story of the sixteenth century must appear comparatively modern. + +The popularity of the legend of Faustus, although of German origin, +was, almost from its first rise, not confined to German lands. The +French, Dutch, and English versions of the poor Doctor's adventurous +life are but very little younger than his German biographies; and it +was about the same time that he was made the subject of a tragedy by +Marlowe, one of the most gifted of Shakspeare's dramatic predecessors. +We are not afraid of erring, when we ascribe the uncommon popularity +and rapid circulation of this legend principally to its deep and +intrinsic _moral_ interest. Faustus's time of action was exactly the +period of the great religious reformation which shook all Europe. +During the sixteenth century, even the untaught and illiterate classes +learned to watch more closely over the salvation of their souls than +when they felt themselves safe beneath the guardianship of the Holy +Mother Church. And to those who remained under the guidance of the +latter, the dangers of learning and independent thinking, and of +meddling with forbidden subjects, were pointed out by the monks with +two-fold zeal. It cannot, therefore, surprise us, that the life and +death of a famous contemporary, who for worldly goods and worldly +wisdom placed his soul at stake, excited a deep and general interest. +In one feature, indeed, his history bears decidedly the stamp of the +great moral revolution of the time: we mean its awful end. There are two +legends of the Middle Ages--and perhaps many more--in which the +fundamental ideas are the same. The two Saints, Cyprianus, (the "Magico +Prodigioso" of Calderon,) and Bishop Theophilus, (the hero of Conrad of +Würzburg,) were both tempted by the Devil with worldly goods and +worldly prosperity, and allured into the pool of sin perhaps deeper +than Faustus; but repentance and penitence saved them, and secured to +them finally a place among the saints of the Church. But for Faustus +there is no compromise; his awful compact is binding; and whatever hope +of his salvation modern poetry has excited for the unfortunate Doctor +is, to say the least, in direct contradiction of the popular legend. + +Faustus was the Cagliostro of the sixteenth century. It is not an easy +task to find the few grains of historical truth referring to him, among +the chaff of popular fiction that several centuries have accumulated +around his name. A halo so mysterious and miraculous surrounds his +person, that not only have various other famous individuals, who lived +long before or after him, been completely amalgamated with him, but +even his real existence has been denied, and not much over a hundred +years after his death he was declared by scholars to be a mere myth. A +certain J.C. Duerr attempted to prove, in a learned "Dissertatio +Epistolica de Johanne Fausto," (printed at Altorf, in 1676,) that the +magician of that name had never existed, and that all the strange +things which had been related of him referred to the printer John +Faust, or Fust,--who had, indeed, been confounded with him before, +although he lived nearly a century earlier. And when we think of the +superstitious fear and monkish prejudice with which the great invention +of printing was at first regarded, such a confusion of two persons of +similar name, and both, in the eyes of a dark age, servants of Satan, +cannot surprise us. Our John Faustus was also sometimes confounded with +two younger contemporaries, one of whom was called Faustus Socinus, and +made Poland the chief theatre of his operations; the other, George +Sabellicus, expressly named himself Faustus Junior, also Faustus Minor. +Both were celebrated necromancers and astrologers, who probably availed +themselves of the advantage derived from the adoption of the famous +name of Faustus.[1] + +A second attempt to prove the historical nonentity of Dr. Faustus was +made at Wittenberg, in the year 1683. Some of his popular biographers +had claimed for him a professorship at that celebrated university, or +at least brought him into connection with it,--a pretension which the +actual professors of that learned institution thought rather +prejudicial to their honor, and which they were desirous of seeing +refuted. Stimulated, as it would seem, by a zeal of this kind, J.G. +Neumann wrote a "Dissertatio de Fausto Praestigiatore," in which he not +only tried to prove that Dr. Faustus had never been at Wittenberg, but +pronounced his whole story fabulous. An attempt like this would not +surprise us in our own time, the age of historical skepticism; but the +seventeenth century gave credit to narratives having much slighter +foundation. Although this dissertation was full of historical mistakes +and erroneous statements, it made some sensation, as is proved by its +four successive editions. It was also translated into German. All +Neumann's endeavors, however, could not stand against the testimony of +contemporaries, who partly had known Faustus personally, partly had +heard of him from living witnesses, and allude to his death as an +occurrence of recent date. + +John Faustus, or rather, after the German form of his name, Faust, was +born in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, probably not before +the year 1490. According to the oldest "Volksbuch" (People's Book) +which bears his name,[2] his parents then lived at Roda, in the present +Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. The same place is likewise named as his native +village by G.R. Widmann, his first regular biographer, who says that +his father was a peasant.[3] Although these two works are the +foundation of the great number of later ones referring to the same +subject, some of these latter deviate with respect to Faustus's +birthplace. J.N. Pfitzer, for instance, who, seventy years after +Widmann, published a revised and much altered edition of his book, +makes Faust see the light at Saltwedel, a small town belonging then to +the principality of Anhalt, and must have had his reasons for this +amendment. A confusion of this kind may, indeed, have early arisen from +a change of residence of our hero's parents during his infancy. But the +oldest Volksbuch was written nearly forty years after the death of +Faustus, and Widmann's work appeared even ten years later,--both, +indeed, professing to be founded on the Doctor's writings, as well as +on an autobiographical manuscript, discovered in his library after his +death. Perhaps, however, the assertion of two of his contemporaries, +one of whom was personally acquainted with him, is more entitled to +credit in this respect. Joh. Manlius and Joh. Wier--the latter in his +biography of Cornelius Agrippa--name Kundlingen, in Würtemberg, as his +birthplace. + +Manlius, in his work, "Collectanea Locorum Communium," (Basel, 1600,) +speaks of him as of an acquaintance. He says that Faustus studied at +Krakow, in Poland, where there was a regular professorship of Magic, as +was the case at several universities. Others let him make his studies +at Ingolstadt, and acquire there the honors of a Doctor of Medicine. +Both these statements may be true, as also that he was for some time +the companion and pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, the +celebrated scholar, whose learning and mysterious researches after the +philosopher's stone brought him, like many other wise men of the age, +into suspicion of witchcraft. Agrippa had a pet dog, black, like the +mystical companion of Dr. Faustus, and, in the eyes of a superstitious +multitude, like him, the representative of the Evil One. Black dogs +seem to have been everywhere considered as rather suspicious creatures. +The Pope Sylvester II. had also a favorite black poodle, in whom the +Devil was supposed to have taken up his abode. According to Wier, +however, Agrippa's black dog was quite a harmless beast, and remarkable +only for the childlike attachment which the great philosopher had for +him. It may be worth remarking, that this writer, although he speaks of +Faustus in his biography of Agrippa, makes no mention of his ever +having been a friend or scholar of the latter. + +In several of the old stories of Faustus, we read that he had a cousin +at Wittenberg, who took him as a boy to his house, brought him up, and +made him his heir when he died. If this was true, it would be more +probable that he was a native of Saxony than of Suabia. It is, however, +more probable that this narrative rests on one of the numerous cases +found in old writings in general, and above all in the history of +Faustus, in which the names Wittenberg and Würtemberg are confounded. +Our hero's abode at the former place was very probably merely that of a +traveller; he left there, as we shall soon see, a very unenviable +reputation. It is true that Saxony was the principal scene of the +Doctor's achievements; but this very circumstance makes it improbable +that he was born and brought up there, as it is well known that "a +prophet hath no honor in his own country." + +Faust's studies were not confined to medicine and the physical +sciences. He was also considered eminent as a philologist and +philosopher. Physiology, however, with its various branches and +degenerate offshoots, was the idol of the scholars of that age, and of +Faustus among the rest. A passionate desire to fathom the mysteries of +Nature, to dive into the most hidden recesses of moral and physical +creation, had seized men of real learning, and seduced them into +mingling absurd astrological and magical fancies with profound and +scholarlike researches. The deepest thinkers of their time, like +Nostradamus, Cardan, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Thomas Campanella, +flattered themselves that they could enter, by means of art and +science, into communion with good or evil spirits, on whose aid they +depended for obtaining knowledge, fame, wealth, and worldly honors and +enjoyments. Faustus was one of those whom a passion for inquiry, in +league with a powerful, sensual nature, led astray. What had been +originally an honest thirst for knowledge, a deep interest in the +supernatural, became gradually a morbid craving after the miraculous, +the pretension of having attained the unattainable, and the attempt to +represent it by means of vulgar jugglery. + +Dr. Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, +and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his _famulus_; for we +never find this _Philister_ among scholars as a companion of the +travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently +lasting. According to the popular legend, the Doctor made him his heir, +and expressly obtained for him Auerhahn, (Heathcock,) a familiar spirit +in the shape of a monkey. This was a sort of caricature of +Mephistopheles, who became, through his ludicrous clumsiness, a +pet-devil of the populace in the puppet-shows, particularly in Holland. +Widmann calls Wagner _Waiger_; while in all other publications +referring to him he bears his right name, Christoph Wagner. + +What city it was where Faustus lived before the reputation of +witchcraft made him the subject of so much talk remains unsettled. +Wittenberg and Ingolstadt are alternately named. Some of his +biographers relate, that he led a loose and profligate life, and soon +wasted his cousin's inheritance. Others represent him as a deep, +secluded student, laying hold of one science after another, and +unsatisfied by them all, until he found, by means of his physical and +chemical experiments, the secret path to the supernatural, and, in +order to reap their full fruits, allied himself with the hellish +powers. Faustus himself tells us, in his "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," (or rather, the author of this book makes him tell us,) +how his intercourse with the Devil commenced almost accidentally and +against his intentions:-- + +"I, Doctor Johann Faust, who apply myself to the Free Arts, having read +many kinds of books from my youth, happened once to light upon a book +that contained various conjurations of the spirits. Feeling some desire +to enlarge my ideas on these things, having, indeed, at the beginning, +small belief that the prescriptions of that book would so soon be +verified, I tried them only for an experiment. Nevertheless, I became +aware that a mighty spirit, named Astaroth, presented himself before +me, and asked me wherefore I had cited him. Then, hurried as I was, I +did not know how to make up my mind otherwise than to demand that he +should be serviceable to me in various wishes and desires, which he +promised _conditionale_, asking to make a compact with me. To do this I +was at first not inclined; but as I was only provided with a bad +_circle_, being merely experimenting, I did not dare to bid him +defiance, but was obliged to yield to the circumstances. I therefore +made up my mind, inasmuch as he would serve me, and would be bound to +me a certain number of years. This being settled, this spirit presented +to me another, named Mochiel, who was commanded to serve me. I asked +him how quick he was. Answer: 'Like the wind.' 'Thou shalt not serve +me! get thee back to whence thou camest!' Now came Aniguel; he +answered, that he was as quick as the bird in the air. 'Thou art still +too slow,' I replied; 'begone!' At the same moment a third stood before +me, named Aziel; this one, too, I asked how quick he was. 'Quick as the +thought of man.' 'Right for me! thee will I keep!' And I accepted him. +This spirit has served me long, as has been made known by many +writings." + +Whether it was this quick Aziel, or Astaroth himself, who became +Faustus's travelling-companion under the name of Mephistopheles, or +whether the prince of the lower regions in person condescended to play +that part, we do not know; but in all popular stories of the Doctor, +his servant bears the latter name,--while in the various books in +which, under the name of _Hoellenzwang_, the system of his magic is +laid down, he is called Aziel. + +In possession of such a power, Faustus soon became tired of his lonely +study. He craved the world for his theatre. His travels seem in reality +to have been very extensive, while in the popular stories a magic +mantle carried him over the whole globe. Conrad Gesner, the great +physiologist, who speaks of him with some respect as a physician, +comparing him with Theophrastus Paracelsus, reckons him among the +_scholastici vagantes_, or _fahrende Schueler_, an order of men already +considerably in the decline, and grown disreputable at that period. As +early as the thirteenth century, we find the custom in Germany, of +young clergymen who did not belong to any monkish order travelling +through the land to get a living,--here by instructing in schools for a +certain period,--there by temporarily serving in churches as +choristers, sacristans, or vicars,--often, too, as clerks and copyists +to lawyers or other private men. When they could no longer find a +livelihood at one place, they went to another. Their offices became, in +course of time, of the most varied and unsuitable order. They were +generally received and treated with hospitality, and this may have been +one reason why all kinds of adventurers were ready to join them. Their +unstable mode of life easily explains their frequenting the society of +other vagabonds, who traversed the country as jugglers, +treasure-diggers, quacks, or sorcerers, and that their clerical dignity +did not prevent their occasionally adopting these professions +themselves. The Chronicle of Limburg, in speaking of the Diet of +Frankfurt in 1397, says: "The number of princes, counts, noblemen, +knights, and esquires, that met there, amounted to five thousand one +hundred and eighty-two"; adding: "Besides these, there were here four +hundred and fifty persons more, such as _fahrende Schueler_, wrestlers, +musicians, jumpers, and trumpeters." The character of the clergy having +sunk so low, the Church declared itself against the custom, and at +several German councils theological students were expressly forbidden +to lead this roving life. It required, however, considerable time for +the ancient custom to become extinct, and we learn, among others, from +Conrad Gesner, that it still existed at the time of the Reformation. + +The part played by Faustus was at first in some degree respectable, and +that of a scholar. An old Erfurt Chronicle tells us that he had come to +that city and obtained permission from the university to deliver a +course of lectures on Homer. A dark rumor of his magic powers had +preceded him; the students, therefore, thronged to hear him, and, +deeply interested, requested him to let them see the heroes of Homer by +calling them from their graves. Faustus appointed another day for this, +received the excited youths in a dark chamber, commanded them to be +perfectly silent, and made the great men of the Greek bard rise up, one +by one, before their eyes. At length Polyphemus appeared; and the +one-eyed Cyclops, with his red hair, an iron spear in his hand, and, to +designate him at once as a cannibal, two bloody human thighs in his +mouth, looked so hideous, that the spectators were seized with horror +and disgust, the more so that the wily magician professed to have some +difficulty in dismissing the monster. Suddenly a violent shake of the +whole house was felt; the young men were thrown one over another, and +were seized with terror and dismay. Two of the students insisted upon +having already felt the teeth of the Cyclops.--This ridiculous story +was soon known throughout the city, and confirmed the suspicions of the +Franciscan monks and magistrates, that the learned guest was in league +with the Evil One. It is said that Faustus had previously offered to +procure for them the manuscripts of the lost comedies of Terence and +Plautus, and to leave them for a short time in their hands, to be +copied,--but that the fathers of the city and of the university +declined, because they believed this could be done only by sorcery, or +with the help of Satan. Now they sent to him the Guardian of the +Convent, Dr. Klinger, in order to convert him and to have masses read +for him, for the purpose of delivering him from his hellish connection. +But Faustus opposed, was by the clergy solemnly delivered to the Devil, +and, in consequence, banished from the city by the magistrates. + +We do not know whether it was for similar juggleries, that, when at +Wittenberg, the Elector John the Steadfast ordered him to be arrested, +as Manlius relates. He saved himself by flight. Melancthon, in one of +his letters, mentions having made his acquaintance; the whole tone of +the allusion, however, expresses contempt. + +The character of the miracles he performed soon ceased to have the +literary tincture of the one related above, and they became mere vulgar +juggleries and exhibitions of legerdemain, suited to the taste of the +multitude. Scholars turned their backs on him, and we find him only +among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their +carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of +his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any +request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of +ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus +enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep +themselves in readiness for cutting the fruit, but not to stir before +he gave them leave. And, behold, before the eyes of the gaping youths, +while they themselves were enveloped in a magic mist, there arose a +great vine, with as many bunches of grapes as there were persons in the +room. Suddenly the obscuring mist dissolved, and each one saw the +others with their hands at their own noses, ready to cut them off, as +the promised grapes. But the vine and the magician had disappeared, and +the disenchanted drunkards were left to their own rage. + +The reader will be aware that this is the tale of which Goethe availed +himself in representing Faustus's visit to Auerbach's cellar at +Leipzig. Whether it really occurred there is not stated; but that +Faustus was said to have been at Leipzig, and even in Auerbach's +cellar, is an historical fact, attested by two pictures still extant at +this famous old tavern, where many of our curious American travellers +may have seen them. These pictures, which have been retouched and +renovated more than once,--last in 1759,--are marked at the top with +the date 1525. Whether this means the year in which they were painted, +or that in which Faustus performed the great feat which the scene +represents, remains uncertain. As it occurred in the beginning of his +career, upon which we may assume him to have entered somewhere between +1520 and 1525, the date is quite likely to refer to the time of the +feat; but, to judge from the costumes and several other signs, the +pictures cannot have been painted much later. They were evidently made +expressly for the locality, sloping off on both sides at the top, to +suit the shape of the vault. The German inscription at the foot of one +of the pictures indicates that it was written after the Doctor's death, +which must have occurred between 1540 and 1550; but it is probable that +these verses were added at a later time, the more so as the traces of +an older inscription, now no longer legible, may still be discovered. +One of these curious paintings represents Faustus in company with +students and musicians sitting around a table covered with dishes and +bottles. Faustus is lifting his goblet with one hand, and with the +other beating time on the table to the music. At the bottom we read the +following verse in barbarous Latin:-- + + "Vive. Bibe. Obgregare. Memor Fausti hujus, et hujus + Poenae. Aderat claudo haec. Ast erat ampla + Gradu. 1525."[4] + +The other picture shows us the same jolly party risen from table, and +all expressing their wonder and astonishment, as Dr. Faustus is just +riding out of the door on a wine-tub. Beneath it is the following +inscription in German:-- + + "Dr. Faustus zu dieser Frist + Aus Auerbach's Keller geritten ist, + Auf einem Fass mit Wein geschwind, + Welches gesehn manch Mutterkind. + Solches durch seine subtilne Kunst hat gethan, + Und des Teufels Lohn empfangen davon. + 1525."[5] + +On neither of the two pictures does Mephistopheles appear, unless he is +meant to be represented in the shape of the black dog. It is not, +however, Goethe's poodle that meets us here, but a sleek little +creature with a collar around his neck, looking very much like a wooden +toy-dog. + +Most of the tricks and pranks reported of Dr. Faustus are of the same +absurd kind, though not all of so harmless a character. According to +the popular legend, he travelled like a great lord, had the spirits +pave the highways for him when he rode in the post-coach,--it seems, +then, that he did not always use his mantle,--and lived in the taverns +at which he stopped with an unheard-of luxury. On his departure, he +paid the hosts in a princely manner; but scarcely was he out of sight, +when the gold in the receiver's hand was changed to straw, or to round +slices of gilded horn,--a shabby trick indeed, as he could have as much +money as he liked. + +How much we have to believe of all these popular stories we may learn +from Dr. Phil. Begardi's "Zeyger der Gesundtheyt," (Guide to Health,) a +book published in 1539, at Worms, at a time when Faustus seems to have +already disappeared from Germany, after having lost caste there +completely, and when he was trying his fortune in other countries. + +"There is still another famous man," says Begardi, "whose name I would +rather not mention at all, only that he himself would not wish to +remain hidden or unknown. For he was roving, _some years ago_, through +all the different countries, principalities, and kingdoms, and has made +known his name and his great skill, boasting not only of his medical +science, but likewise of Chiromancy, Necromancy, Physiognomy, Visions +in Crystals, and more arts of the kind. And he called himself Faustus, +a celebrated experienced master, _philosophum philosophorum_, etc. But +the number of those who have complained to me of having been cheated by +him is very great. Well, his promises were likewise very great, just +like those of Thessalus, (in Galen's time,) and his reputation like +that of Theophrastus; but in deeds he was, I hear, found small and +deceitful. But in taking and receiving money he was never slow, and was +off before any one knew it." + +Thus we see the historical Faustus, the esteemed scholar, the skilful +physician, gradually merged in the juggler, the quack, the adventurer, +and the impostor. The popular legend follows him to foreign countries. +His magic mantle carries him, in eight days, over the whole world, and +even into the Infernal regions. He is honorably received at the +Emperor's court at Innspruck, introduces himself invisibly at Rome, +into the Vatican, where the Pope and his cardinals are assembled at a +banquet, snatches away his Holiness's plate and cup from before his +mouth, and, enraged at his crossing himself, boxes his ears. In the +puppet-shows he figures mostly at the court of the Duke of Parma. In +Venice his daring spirit presumed too far. He announced an exhibition +of a flight to heaven. But Mephistopheles, who had hitherto satisfied +his most extravagant demands, though often with grumbling, would not +permit _that_ feat. In the midst of a staring, wondering multitude, +Faustus rose to a certain height by means of his own Satanic skill, +acquired in his long intercourse with the Devil. But now the latter +showed that he was still his master. He suddenly hurled him from on +high, and he fell half dead upon the ground. The twenty-four years of +the compact, however, were not yet ended, and he was therefore restored +to life by the same hellish power. + +In a very trite, popular ballad, which we find in "Des Knaben +Wunderhorn," we see, that, when the travellers came to Jerusalem, the +Devil declined still another request. Faustus wishes him to make a +picture of Christ crucified, and to write under it his holy name. But +the Devil declared that he would rather give him back his signature +than be obliged to do _such_ a thing, and succeeded in turning the +Doctor's mind from the subject by showing him, instead, a picture of +Venus. + +Popular imagination seems to have been inexhaustible in stories of this +kind. But, after the twenty-four years of vile enjoyments, the hour of +retribution came at last. According to our scanty historical notices, +Faustus died an unnatural death: he was found dead in his bed, at his +birthplace, Kundlingen, with his neck twisted. How such a death must +have confirmed all the superstitious rumors about him the reader will +easily conceive. But, according to the popular legend, his end was +still more terrible. He seems to have returned to his own country, and +scholars, worthy young men, surround him once more, and become much +attached to him. From this one would suppose him to have been at +Wittenberg, or Ingoldstadt, or any university city, but, instead of +this, we find him in a little Saxon village, called Rimlich. The +twenty-fourth year draws to its close. At last, at the eleventh hour, +Faustus bethinks himself to repent; but it is too late. His end, +related in the simple language of the Volksbuch, is truly awful. He +dismisses his sympathizing friends, bidding them not to be disturbed by +any noises in the night. At midnight a terrible storm arises; it +reaches its height amid thunder and lightning. The friends hear a +fearful shriek. They rise and pray. But when, in the morning, they +enter his room, they are horror-struck at seeing his limbs scattered +round, and the walls, against which the fiend had dashed him to pieces, +covered with his blood. His body was found in the court-yard on a +dung-hill. + +The horror of this end made a peculiarly awful impression on the +popular mind. During the Thirty Years' War, it once happened that a +troop of Catholic soldiers broke into a village in Saxony, on the Elbe, +named Breda. They were just about to plunder one of the principal +houses, when the judge of the place, who, it seems, was a shrewd man, +stepped out and told them that this village was the one where Dr. +Faustus was carried off by the Devil, and that in this very house the +blood of the Doctor was still to be seen on the walls. The soldiers +were seized with terror, and left the village. + +The story of Faustus's adventurous life and shocking death, with its +impressive lessons, appears at first to have been kept extant only by +oral tradition. Nearly forty years passed before it was written down +and printed. But then, indeed, the book was received with so much +favor, that not only several new and enlarged editions appeared in a +short time, but many similar works were published soon after, which, +though founded on the oldest Volksbuch (of 1588) and Widmann's +"Histories," were yet abundant in new facts and inventions. And that +not to the illiterate classes alone was the subject interesting is +proved by the circumstance that a Latin version of the first Volksbuch +was advertised, and (probably) appeared. On the title-pages of all +these books it is expressly stated that they were written as a warning +to, and for the edification of, Christian readers. In 1712, a book was +published at Berlin, under the title, "Zauberkünste und Leben Dr. +Fausti," (The Magic Arts and Life of Dr. Faust,) as the author of which +Christoph Wagner was named. Wagner himself became the subject of a +biographical work. + +Of still greater effect was Faustus's history on the stage. Through the +whole of the seventeenth, as well as the first half of the eighteenth +century, it remained one of the favorite subjects of puppet-shows, +popular melodramas, exhibitions of _ombres chinoises_, and pantomimes. +The more the awful event, with its moral lessons, receded into the +background of time, the more it lost its serious and impressive +character, until it became a mere burlesque, and _Hanswurst_ and +_Casperle_ its principal figures. + +The "Historie" had scarcely appeared, when it was translated into +Dutch, and the later publication of other similar works did not prevent +the demand for several new editions. These Dutch books were +illustrated, as were also the _newer_ German ones. Only a little later, +two French versions were published, one of which was even reprinted at +Paris as late as 1712. + +In Holland, our hero excited no small interest even among the artists. +There are extant several portraits of Faustus painted by Rembrandt,-- +whether ideal, or copied from older pictures, is not known. Another +Dutch painter, Christoph von Sichem, represented two scenes from the +life of the celebrated magician; and of these productions engravings +still exist. On the one, we see Faustus and Mephistopheles,--the +latter dressed like a monk, as, according to the popular tales, +he mostly appeared. On the other, Wagner and Auerhahn, (or Auerhain,) +--the latter in the shape of a monkey. There is a striking contrast +between Faustus and Wagner. The first is a well-dressed man, in +deep meditation; globes and instruments of science surround him;-- +the other the impersonation of vulgarity. Various scenes from +Faustus's life adorn the walls. Christoph von Sichem was born in +1580, and flourished at Amsterdam during the first quarter of the +seventeenth century. These pictures were consequently made when the +whole interest of the public for Faustus and his companions was still +fresh. + +Some books seem to have been published by Faustus during his +lifetime,--at least, his biographers allude to them; but it was only +after his death that the work which gave his name its chief reputation +became known. This was his peculiar System of Magic, called "Faust's +Hoellenzwang" (Compulsion of Hell). Wagner, who was said to be his +heir, published it first under the title of "Dr. Johannis Faust's +_Magia Celeberrima_, und _Tabula Nigra_, oder _Hoellenzwang_." It +contained all the different forms of conjuration, as well for the +citation as for the dismissal of spirits. There are, besides this, +several other similar works extant, such as his "Schwarzer +Mohrenstern," "Der schwarze Rabe," the "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," already mentioned, and several more, containing about the +same matter, and most of them written in his name. Of all these +productions only manuscripts are known to remain, although they are all +professedly copies of printed works. The most singular thing is, that, +while they are represented as having been published after the +magician's death, some of them are, nevertheless, marked with dates as +early as 1509, 1510, and 1511,--and with the names of Lion, (Lyons,) +London, etc., as the places where they were printed. These +circumstances make their authenticity very doubtful, even if we allow +for mistakes made by the copyists. + +Although so large a part of Faustus's life was, according to the +popular legend, spent in Italy, we are not aware that this legend was +ever current among the Italian people. Some unfortunate attempts have +been made to engraft the story of Don Giovanni upon this German stock, +but, as it seems to us, by very arbitrary arguments and conclusions. +The career of a mere rake, who shuns no means of gratifying his low +appetites, has little analogy with that of an originally honest +inquirer, led astray by the want of faith and his sensual nature. The +only resemblance is in the end. There was at first more apparent +success in the endeavor to transplant the tale to Spain, where +Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso" was taken by some critics for a +representation of it. The foundation of Calderon's drama, as mentioned +before, is rather the legend of St. Cyprianus. More may be said in +favor of the radical identity of the stories of Faustus with some +popular legends of the Poles, referring to a necromancer called +Twardowski. But Polish scholars will not admit this; at least, they +object to giving up their great magician, and some attempts have even +been made from that side to prove that theirs is the original whom the +Germans appropriated under the name of _Faust_. + +The most interesting result of the publication of the Volksbuch +appeared in England, where it fell, for the first, and in a hundred and +fifty years the only time, into the hands of a poet. Mr. Collier, in +his "History of English Dramatic Poetry," says,--"In 1588, a ballad of +the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus was licensed to be printed"; and +adds,--"This would, according to the language of the time, have meant +any composition in verse, even the play," (of Marlowe,) and +subsequently mentions the same circumstance with reference to "the old +romance of Dr. Faustus." On this, Mr. A. Dyce (Works of Christopher +Marlowe, 1850, I. p. xvi., note) remarks,--"When Mr. Collier states +that the old romance of Faustus was entered into the Stationers' books +in 1588, (according to a note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 42,) he meant, I +apprehend, the old _ballad_." If we bear in mind that the first German +History of Dr. Faustus did not appear before the same year, we should +also conclude that he must have meant the ballad, as a translation +could hardly have been made in so short a time. But considering, on the +other hand, that the tragedy, which cannot have been composed later +than 1589 or 1590, (as the poet, who was murdered in 1593, wrote +several pieces after the one in question,) is evidently and without the +least doubt founded on the Volksbuch, often adopting the very language +of its English version, we must conclude that a translation of the +German work was made immediately after its appearance, or possibly even +from the manuscript,--which Spiess, the German editor, professes to +have obtained from Spires. Although the word "ballad" was not properly +employed for prose romances, it may have been thus used in Henslowe's +Diary by mistake. We are not aware that any _old_ English version of +this "History of Dr. Faustus" is now extant; that from which Mr. Dyce +quotes is of 1648. Marlowe's tragedy was first entered in the +Stationers' books in 1600-1, but brought upon the stage many years +before. In 1597, it had already been played so often that additions +were required. Philips, who wrote about fifty years later, remarks, +that, "of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his 'Dr. Faustus' +has made the greatest noise with its devils and such-like tragical +sport." In course of time it was "made into a farce, with the Humors of +Harlequin and Scaramouch," and represented through the whole kingdom, +like similar compositions, with immense applause. + +Marlowe's "Faustus" has been judged rather favorably by modern English +critics. Mr. Hazlitt calls it, "though an imperfect and unequal +performance, Marlowe's greatest work." Mr. Hallam remarks,--"There is an +awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistopheles, perhaps more +impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work +of Goethe." Charles Lamb even preferred Marlowe's "Faustus," as a +whole, to the latter! Mr. Collier calls it "a drama of power, novelty, +interest, and variety." So, indeed, it is; but all that power, +interest, novelty, and variety do not belong to Marlowe, but to the +prose romance, after which he wrote. Indeed, he followed it so +closely,--as every reader can see for himself, by reading the play in +Dyce's edition, and comparing it with the notes under the text,--that +sometimes whole scenes are copied, and even whole speeches, as, for +instance, that of the Emperor Charles V. The coarse buffoonery, in +particular, of which the work is full, is retained word for word. Of +the countless absurdities and prolixities of the Volksbuch, Marlowe +has, of course, omitted a great deal, and condensed the story to the +tenth part of its original length; but the fundamental idea, the plot, +and the characters, belong exclusively to the original. Marlowe's +poetical merit lies partly in the circumstance that he was the first to +feel the depth and power of that idea, partly in the thoughts and +pictures with which some speeches, principally the monologues of +Faustus himself, are interwoven. The Faustus of Marlowe is the Faust of +the legend, tired of learning because it is so unproductive, and +selling his soul, not for knowledge, but for wealth and power. His +investigating conversations with Mephistopheles, his inquiries, and the +answers of the latter, are almost as shallow and childish as those in +the People's Book; and Faustus himself remarks, on the information +which his companion gives him,-- + + "Those slender trifles Wagner could decide; + Has Mephistopheles no greater skill?" + +This latter, indeed, seems to us, in spite of the admiration of English +critics, a decided failure. There is in him no trace of either the +cruel, icy-cold malignity of the fiend of Goethe, or the awful grandeur +of Milton's Tempter. It cannot be said that Marlowe's Devil seduces +Faustus. He is almost on the verge of repentance himself; of the two, +he is decidedly the better Christian. The proposition of the compact +comes from Faustus himself, and Mephistopheles only accepts it. +Marlowe's Faustus knows nothing of the feeling of aversion and disgust +with which Goethe's Faust sees himself bound to his hellish companion; +he calls him, repeatedly, "sweet Mephistopheles," and declares,-- + + "Had I as many souls as there be stars, + I'd give them all for Mephistopheles." + +Mr. Hallam, in comparing Marlowe's production with Goethe's, +remarks,--"The fair form of Margaret is wanting." As if this were all +that was wanting! Margaret belonged, indeed, exclusively to Goethe. But +Helena, the favorite ideal of beauty of all old writers, is introduced +in the popular tale, and so, too, in Marlowe. Faustus conjures up her +spirit at the request of the students. Her beauty is described with +glowing colors; "it would," says the old romance, "nearly have enflamed +the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, +which made them lightly passe away such fancies." Not so Faustus; +although he is already in the twenty-third year of his compact, he +himself falls in love with the spirit, and keeps her with him until his +end. In all this, Marlowe follows closely; though he has good taste +enough to suppress the figure of the little Justus Faustus, who was the +fruit of this union. + +It now only remains to us to consider the way in which modern poets +have apprehended the idea of the Faust-fable. None of the German dramas +and operas which the seventeenth century produced, though they never +failed to draw large audiences, could be compared, in poetical value, +to Marlowe's tragedy. The German stage of that period was of very low +standing, and the few poets who wrote for it, as, for instance, +Lohenstein, preferred foreign subjects,--the more remote in space and +time, the better. The writers of neither the first nor the second +Silesian school were exactly the men to appreciate the depth of a +legend like that of Faustus,--still less the watery poets of the +beginning of the eighteenth century. Lessing, who, with his sharp, +sound criticism, and his clear perception of the beautiful, led the way +to a higher state of things in literature, appears also to have been +the first to discover the deep meaning buried in the popular farces of +Faustus. He pronounced it worthy the genius of a Shakspeare, and +himself attempted to make it the subject of a tragedy. How much it +occupied his mind we may conclude from the circumstance that he seems +to have made for it two plans, essentially different from each other. +We can only regret that they were never executed. Although Lessing was +not a poetical genius like Goethe, the power and acuteness of his mind +were so eminent, the force of his critical faculties was so +penetrating, that his treatment of a subject of so much depth and +intrinsic poetry would have been of the highest interest. This +expectation is also justified by the few sketches of single scenes +which are all that remain of his plans. One of the latter is, indeed, +also in so far remarkable, as we see from it that Lessing's mind +inclined to the modern view, according to which Faustus ought to be and +would be finally saved. One of the devils describes him, before +temptation, as "a solitary, thinking youth, entirely devoted to +wisdom,--living, breathing, only for wisdom and knowledge,--renouncing +every passion but the one for truth,--highly dangerous to thee [Satan] +and to us all, if he were ever to be a teacher of the people." Satan +resolves at once to seduce and destroy him. But Faustus's good angel +has mercy on him. He buries him in a deep sleep, and creates in his +place a phantom, with which the cheated devils try successfully the +whole process of temptation and seduction. All this appears to Faustus +in a dream. He awakes; the Devil discovers his error, and flies with +shame and fury, and Faustus, thanking Providence for its warning, +clings to truth and virtue more firmly than ever. + +The other plan, to judge from the fragment we possess, is less +fanciful, and seems to follow more closely the popular tradition, +according to which the temptations of Faustus were by no means +external, but lay deep in his individual mind. In one of its +lightly-sketched scenes, the poet has evidently availed himself of the +one from the Miracle-Book heretofore mentioned, and, indeed, with a +great deal of force. Faustus, impatient and annoyed at the slow process +of human action, desires the quickest servant from hell, and +successively cites seven spirits. One after another he rejects. The +arrows of the plague, the wings of the winds, the beams of light, are +all not quick enough for him. The fifth spirit rises:-- + +"_Faustus_. How quick art thou? + +"_Fifth Spirit_. As quick as the thoughts of men. + +"_Faustus_. That is something!--But the thoughts of men are not always +quick. They are slothful when truth and virtue demand them. Thou canst +be quick, if thou wilt. But who will warrant me thy being always +quick?--No, I trust thee as little as I ought to have trusted +myself.--Ah!--(to the sixth spirit.) Now tell me how quick thou art! + +"_Sixth Spirit_. As quick as the vengeance of the Avenger. + +"_Faustus_. Of the Avenger? Of what Avenger? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. Of the All-powerful, the Terrible, who has kept +vengeance for himself alone, because vengeance is his delight. + +"_Faustus_. Devil, thou blasphemest, for I see thou art +trembling!--Quick, thou sayest, as the vengeance of----no! he may not +be named among us! Quick, thou sayest, is his vengeance? Quick? And I +still live? And I still sin? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. That he suffereth thee still to sin is the beginning +of his vengeance. + +"_Faustus_. Oh that a Devil should teach me this!--But no, his +vengeance is not quick; if thou art no quicker, begone!--(To the +seventh spirit.) How quick art thou? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. Unsatisfiable (_unzuvergnuegender_) mortal! If I, +too, am not quick enough for thee------ + +"_Faustus_. Tell me, then, how quick? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. No more nor less than the transition from Good to +Evil. + +"_Faustus_. Ha! thou art my devil! Quick as the transition from Good to +Evil!--Yes, that is quick! Nothing is quicker!--Away from here, ye +horrors of Orcus! Away!--Quick as the transition from Good to Evil!--I +have learned how quick that is! I know it!" + +Lessing had this fragment printed in the "Literaturbriefe," professedly +as a specimen of one of the old popular dramas, despised at that time +by the higher classes, though Lessing remarks,--"How fond was Germany +once of its Dr. Faustus,--and is so, partly, still!" But even this bold +reformer of German taste seems not to have had the temerity to come +forward at once as the author of a conception so entirely contrary to +the reigning rules and the Frenchified taste by which, at the period of +the "Literaturbriefe," (1759-1763,) Germany was still subjugated. + +We do not know whether some of the young poets who took hold of the +subject a short time after were instigated by this fragment of +Lessing's, or whether they were moved by the awakening German Genius, +who, just at that period, was beginning to return to his national +sources for the quenching of his thirst. Between 1770 and 1780, Lenz +and Maler Müller composed, the former his "Hoellenrichter," the latter +his dramatized Life of Dr. Faustus. No more appropriate hero could have +been found for the young "Kraft-Genies" of the "Sturm und Drang +Periode" (Storm and Stress period) of German literature. Schreiber, +Soden, Klinger, Schink, followed them, the last-named with several +productions referring to the subject. In 1786, Goethe communicated to +the world, for the first time, a fragment of that astonishing dramatic +poem which has since been acknowledged, by the whole literary public, +as his masterpiece, and the most remarkable monument of his great +genius.[6] The whole first part of the tragedy, still under the name of +a fragment, was not published before 1808. Since then Germany may be +said to have been inundated by "Fausts" in every possible shape. Dramas +by Nic. Voigt, K. Schoene, Benkowitz,--operas by Adolph Bäurle, J. von +Voss, Bernard, (with music by Spohr,)--tales in verse and prose by +Kamarack, Seybold, Gerle, and L. Bechstein,--and besides these, the +productions of various anonymous writers, followed close upon each +other in the course of the next twenty years. Chamisso's tragedy of +"Faustus," "in one actus," in truth only a fragment, had already +appeared in the "Musenalmanach" of 1804. + +To Goethe the legendary literature of his nation had been familiar from +his boyhood. Very early in life, and several years before the +publication of Maler Müller's spirited drama, his mind was powerfully +impressed by the Faust-fable, and the greater part of the present +fragmentary poem was already written and ready for print when Müller's +first sketch, under the title, "Situations in the Life of Dr. Faustus," +appeared (1776). As the entire poetry of Goethe was more or less +_autobiographical_,--that is, as all his poetical productions reflect, +to a certain extent, his own personal sensations, trials, and +experiences,--he fused himself and his inner life into the mould of +Faustus, with all his craving for knowledge, his passionate love of +Nature, his unsatisfied longings and powerful temptations, adhering +closely in all external action to the popular story, though of course +in a symbolic spirit Goethe had, as he tells us himself, a happy +faculty of delivering himself by poetical production, as well of all +the partly imaginary, partly morbid cares and doubts which troubled his +mind, as of the real and acute sufferings which tormented him, for a +certain period, even to agony. Love, doubt, sorrow, passion, +remorse--all found an egress from his soul into a poem, a novel, a +parable, a dramatic character, or some other form of poetical +expression. He felt as if eased of a burden, after having thus given +his feelings body and shape. Thus his works became his history. +"Faust," in its two parts, is the production of his lifetime. Conceived +in early youth, worked out in manhood, completed in old age, it became +a vehicle for all the various commotions of his existence. There is no +other poem which contains such a diversity of thought and feeling, such +a variety of sentences, pictures, scenes, and situations. For enlarging +on the poetical value of this incomparable work this is not the place. +Closely as Goethe has followed up the popular legend, it is +emphatically and entirely his own production, because it contains his +complete self. + +Nearly a quarter of a century passed before this extraordinary poem was +followed by its second part. It is not difficult to trace in this +continuation, published only after the death of the aged poet, the few +scenes which may have been composed contemporarily with or soon after +the first part; but that the whole is conceived and executed in a +totally different spirit not even the most unconditional admirers of +Goethe's genius will deny. There is no doubt that he regarded his +"Faust" only as a beginning, and always contemplated a continuation. +The _rōle_ of Dr. Faustus, the popular magician, was only half-played. +Its most brilliant part, his intercourse with the great of the earth +and the heroes of the past, had not yet commenced. But as, in the +course of advancing life, the poet's views and ideas changed, the +mirror of his soul reflected an altered world to him; and as the second +part of "Faust" is hardly less an image of himself than the first, it +is not unnatural that it is as different from the latter as the Goethe +the septuagenarian was from Goethe the youth. + +Meanwhile the _literati_ of Germany became exceedingly impatient for +the promised second part; and when the master lingered, and did not +himself come forth with the solution of the mystery, the disciples +attempted to supply him as well as they could. C.C.L. Schoene and J.D. +Hoffmann had both the requisite courage for such an undertaking; and +the first even sent his production, with perfect _naļveté_, to the +great master, as the second part of his own work. C. Rosenkranz and +Gustav Pfitzer--two very honorable names--also wrote after-plays. + +We must confess that we have never felt any desire to see "Faust" +continued. It ought to have remained a fragment. Its last scene, +perhaps, surpasses, in sublimity and heart-rending power, anything ever +written. No light of this world can ever entirely clear up the sacred +mystery of the Beyond, but that scene gives us a surety for the +salvation of Margaret, and _hope_ for Faust, to every one who has not +forgotten the words of the Lord in the second Prologue:-- + + "Draw down this spirit from its source, + And, _canst thou catch him_, to perdition + Carry him with thee in thy course; + But stand abashed, if thou must needs confess + That a good man, though passion blur his vision, + Has of the right way still a consciousness."[7] + +By the appearance of the second part of "Faust" the magic spell was +completely broken. No work of Art of a more chilling, disenchanting +character was ever produced. For the striking individuality of the +first part, we have here nothing but abstractions; for its deep poetry, +symbolism; for its glow and thrilling pathos, a plastic finish, hard +and cold as marble; for its psychological truth, a bewildering +mysticism. All the fine thoughts and reflections, and all the abundance +of poetical passages, scattered like jewels through the thick mist of +the whole work, cannot compensate for its total want of interest; and +we doubt whether many readers have ever worked their way through its +innumerable obscure sayings and mystical allegories without feeling +something of the truth of Voltaire's remark: "_Tout genre est permis +hors le genre ennuyeux_." + +The impression which the first part of "Faust," the poetical +masterpiece of German literature, made among foreigners, was, though in +some instances ultimately powerful, yet on the whole surprisingly slow. +While the popular legend, in its coarsest shape, had, in its time, +spread with the rapidity of a running fire through all countries, the +great German poet's conception of it, two hundred years later, found no +responding echo in either French or English bosoms. Here and there some +eccentric genius may have taken it up, as, for instance, Monk Lewis, +who, in 1816, communicated the fundamental idea to Lord Byron, reading +and translating it to him _vivā vocé_, and suggesting to him, in this +indirect way, the idea of his "Manfred." But even the more profound +among the few German scholars then extant in England did not understand +"Faust," and were inclined to condemn it,--as, for instance, Coleridge, +who, as we see from his "Table-Talk," misconceived the whole idea of +the poem, and found fault with the execution, because it was different +from what he fancied he himself would have made of this legend, had he +taken it in hand. The first English translation was published in the +same year as the first French version, that is, in 1825; both were +exceedingly imperfect. Since then several other translations in prose +and verse have appeared in both languages, especially in +English,--though the "twenty or thirty metrical ones" of which Mr. C.T. +Brooks speaks in his preface are probably to be taken as a mere mode of +speech,--and lately one by this gentleman himself, in our very midst. +This latter comes, perhaps, as near to perfection as it is possible for +the reproduction of all idiomatic poetical composition in another +language to do. All this indicates that the time for the just +appreciation of German literature in general and of Goethe in +particular is drawing near at last; that its influence has for some +time been felt is proved, among other things, by that paraphrastic +imitation of "Faust," Bailey's "Festus." + +That a poem like "Faust" could not at first be generally understood is +not unnatural. Various interpretations of its seeming riddles have been +attempted; and if the volumes of German "Goethe-Literature" are +numerous enough to form a small library, those of the "Faust- +Literature" may be computed to form the fourth part of it. To +the English reader we cannot recommend highly enough, for the full +comprehension of "Faust," the commentary on this poem which Mr. Lewes +gives in his "Life of Goethe," as perhaps the most excellent portion of +that excellent work. Goethe himself has given many a hint on his own +conception, and as to how far it was the reflex of his own soul. "The +puppet-show-fable of 'Faust,'" he says, "murmured with many voices in +my soul. I, too, had wandered into every department of knowledge, and +had returned disgusted, and convinced of the vanity of science. And +life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and had always come back +sorrowing and unsatisfied." "Faust's character," he says in another +place, "at the height to which the modern elaboration (_Ausbildung_) of +the old, crude, popular tale has raised it, represents a man, who, +feeling impatient and uncomfortable within the general limits of earth, +esteems the possession of the highest knowledge, the enjoyment of the +fairest worldly goods, inadequate to satisfy his longings even in the +least degree, a mind which, turning to every side in search of this +satisfaction, ever recedes into itself with increased unhappiness."--He +remarks, too, that "the approbation which this poem has met with, far +and near, may be owing to the rare peculiarity, that it fixes +permanently the developing process of a human mind, which by everything +that torments humanity is also pained, by all that troubles it is also +agitated, by what it condemns is likewise enthralled, and by what it +desires is also made happy."[8] + +If this article were devoted to Goethe's "Faust," instead of the +popular legend of Faustus, of which the former is only the most eminent +apprehension, it would be easy to add to these reasons for the +universal "approbation" which it has won still others, founded on the +great genius of the poet. This, however, would by far exceed our +limits. + +[Footnote 1: Some regard Sabellicus and Faustus Socinus as one and the +same person.] + +[Footnote 2: _Historie von D. Johann Fausten, aan weltbeschreyten +Zauberer und Schwarzkünstler_, etc. Frankfurt a. M. 1588.] + +[Footnote 3: _Wahrhaftige Historien von den greulichen und +abscheulichen Sünden und Lastern, etc., so D. Johannes Faustus, etc., +bis an sein schreckliches End hat getrieben, etc._, erklärt durch Georg +Rudolf Widmann. Hamburg, 1599.] + +[Footnote 4: Live, drink, and be merry, remembering this Faust and his +punishment. It came slowly, but was in ample measure. 1525.] + +[Footnote 5: Dr. Faustus on this day From Auerbach's cellar rode away, +Of a barrel of wine astride, Which many mothers'-children eyed; This +through his subtle art achieved, And for it the Devil's reward +received. 1525.] + +[Footnote 6: It first appeared in the fourth volume of his Works. +Leipzig. Goeschen. 1786.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Brooks's translation.] + +[Footnote 8: _Kunst und Alterthum_. B. VI. Heft I., II.] + + + +MISS WIMPLE'S HOOP. + + +"Believe in God and yourself, and do the best you can." + +In Hendrik on the Hudson, fifty miles from New York, there was, winter +before last, a certain "patent seamless."-- + +But a hooped skirt with a history, touching and teaching, is no theme +for flippancy; so, by your leave, I will unwind my story tenderly, and +with reverential regard for its smooth turns of sequence. + +The Wimples, of whom Sally is the last, were among the oldest and most +respectable of Hendrik families. Sally's father, Mr. Paul Wimple, had +been a publisher in good standing, and formerly did a flourishing +business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite +penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all +gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he +returned to Hendrik, his native place. + +There, the friends of his youth, steadfast and generous, pitying his +sad plight, and having perfect faith in his unimpeached integrity, +purchased--principally at the sale in bankruptcy of his own effects--a +modest stock of new and second-hand books and magazines, together with +some stationery and a few fancy articles in that line, and +reestablished him in the humble but peaceful calling of a country +bookseller. They called his shop "The Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating +Library," and all the county subscribed; for, at first, the Wimples +were the fashionable charity, "the Wimples were always so very +respectable, you know," and Sally was such a sweet girl that really it +was quite an interesting case. Mrs. Splurge forthwith began improving +the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions +for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of +fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times +competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful +charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar +investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note," +motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory +tablets, pencil-sharpeners, and ink-erasers. + +But all their munificence came to nought. Mr. Paul Wimple's heart was +broken,--as they say of any weary Sysiphus who lies down by his stone +and sleeps forever;--so he died. + +Poor little Sally! The first thing she did was to disappoint her +friends, and shock the decencies of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on +all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else +fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold, +corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'" But +when they came, with all their tedious commonplaces of a stupid +condolence not wholly innocent of curiosity, Sally thanked them with +dry eyes and prudent lips and quiet nerves, and only said she thought +she should do very well after she had set the house to rights and slept +awhile. The sewing-circle of that week was a coroner's inquest on +Sally's character, and "ungrateful," "cold-blooded," "indecent," "worse +than a hypocrite," were not the hardest epithets in the verdict of the +jury. + +But Sally set the place to rights, and bade her father's old friends to +the funeral, and buried him with all the money that was in the house, +neither asking nor accepting aid from any; and with the poor pittance +that her severe conscience could afford her sorrow she procured some +cheap material of the doleful sort and went into the most unbecoming of +"full mourning." When she made her appearance in church,--which she +did, as usual, the very first Sunday after the funeral,--that plainest +of bonnets and straitest of black delaines, unadorned save by the +old-fashioned and dingy lace-cape, descended through many shifts of +saving from her long-ago-dead-and-gone mother, were so manifestly a +condescending concession to the conventionalities or superstitions of +Hendrik, and said so plainly, "This is for your 'decencies,'--it is all +that I can honestly spare, and more than you should demand,--my life is +mourning enough,"--that all the congregation bristled at the affront. +Henceforth Miss Wimple--no longer dear Sally, or even Miss Sally, but +sharp "Miss Wimple"--had that pew to herself. + +Now I believe it was not generally known in Hendrik that Miss Wimple +had narrowly escaped being a very pretty girl. She was but just in her +nineteenth year when her father died. Her features were regular, her +expression lovely, her complexion, before trouble nipped the roses of +her cheeks, full of the country's freshness. She had tender eyes, +profoundly overshadowed by long, pensive lashes; in the sweet lines of +her very delicate mouth a trace of quiet pride was prettily blended +with thoughtfulness, and a just-forming smile that was always +melancholy. Her feet were little, and her hands were soft and white; +nor had toil and sorrow, and the weariness, and indifference to self, +that come of them, as yet impaired the symmetry of her well-turned +shape, or the elasticity of her free and graceful carriage. Her +deportment was frank and self-reliant, and her manners, though +reserved, far from awkward; her complete presence, indeed, compelled +consideration and invited confidence. + +In her father's lifetime, she had sought, on occasions of unwonted +cheerfulness, to please him with certain charming tricks of attire; and +sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided +shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a +carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the +prettiness of Sally Wimple. + +But now there was no longer a grateful life for her white rose-star to +brighten; so she sat down, in her loneliness and sombre unbecomingness, +between her forlorn counters with their pitiful shows of stock, and let +her good looks go by, entertaining only brave thoughts of duty,--till +she grew pale "and fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces," +so that "how anybody could see the least beauty in that distressing +Miss Wimple" began to be with many a sincere and almost reasonable +expression of surprise, instead of a malicious sin against knowledge. +She waited for customers, but they seldom came,--often, from opening to +window-barring, not one; for the unwilting little martyr of the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Circulating Library had made herself a highly +disapproved-of Miss Wimple by her ungrateful and contumacious behavior +at her father's death, even if the hard and sharp black lines of that +scrimped delaine had not sufficed to turn the current of admiration, +interest, and custom. Besides, the attractions of her slender stock +were all exhausted. She had not the means of refreshing it with pretty +novelties and sentimental toys in that line,--with albums and +valentines, fancy portfolios and pocket-secretaries, pearl paper-knives +and tortoise-shell cardcases, Chinese puzzles and _papier-maché_ +checker-boards. Nor was the Library replenished "to keep up with the +current literature of the day"; its last new novel was a superannuated +dilapidation; not one of its yearly subscribers but had worked through +the catalogue once and a half. + +Since the funeral, and especially since the inauguration of the +delaine, Mrs. Marmaduke Splurge had been less alive to the necessity of +improving the minds of her girls; and that virginal ten-dollar +investment had provided Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline with supplies +of small arms and ammunition enough for a protracted campaign of +epistolary belligerence, interrupted by hair-strokes of coquettish +diplomacy. + +In the flaunting yellow house on the hill the widow and daughters of +the late Marmaduke Splurge, Esq., railroad-director and real-estate +broker, fondled and hated each other. Mrs. Marmaduke was a +well-preserved woman, stylish, worldly-minded, and weak. Miss +Josephine, her eldest, was handsome, patronizing, _passée_, and a +sentimental fool; Miss Adelaide, who came next, was handsome, +eccentric, malicious, and sly; and Miss Madeline, the youngest, was +handsome, distinguished-looking, intellectual, passionate, and proud. + +Mrs. Marmaduke's heart was set on marrying her daughters +"advantageously," and she gave all of her narrow mind to that thankless +department. Josephine insisted on a romantic attachment, and pursued a +visionary spouse with all the ardor and obstinacy of first-rate +stupidity. Adelaide had the weakness to hate Josephine, the shrewdness +to fear Madeline, and the viciousness to despise her mother; she +skilfully and diligently devoted herself to the thwarting of the +family. Madeline waited, only waited,--with a fierceness so dangerously +still that it looked like patience,--hated her insulting bondage, but +waited, like Samson between the pillars upon which the house of Dagon +stood, resolved to free herself, though she dragged down the edifice +and were crushed among the wreck. + +Mrs. Marmaduke talked tediously of the trials and responsibilities of +conscientious mothers who have grown-up daughters to provide for, was +given to frequent freshets of tears, consumed many "nervous pills" of +the retired-clergyman-whose-sands-of-life-have-nearly-run-out sort, and +netted bead purses for the Select Home for Poor Gentlemen's Daughters. +Josephine let down her back hair dowdily, partook recklessly of poetry +and pickles, read inordinately in bed,--leaning all night on her +elbow,--and was threatened with spinal curvature and spiritualism. +Adelaide set invisible little traps in every nook and cranny, every +cupboard and drawer, from basement to attic, and with a cheerful, +innocent smile sat watching them night and day. Madeline, fiercely +calm, warned off the others, with pale lips and flashing eyes and +bitter tongue, resenting _en famille_ the devilish endearments she so +sweetly suffered in company; but ever as she groped about in her soul's +blindness she felt for the central props of that house of Dagon. + +All the good society of Hendrik said the Splurges were a charming +family, a most attached and happy family, lovely in their lives and in +death not to be divided, and that they looked sweetly in hoops. And yet +the Splurges had but few visitors; the young women of the neighborhood, +when they called there, left always an essential part of their true +selves behind them as they entered, and an ornamental part of their +reputations when they took their departure; nor were the young men +partial to the name,--for Josephine bored them, and Adelaide taunted +them, and Madeline snubbed them, and Mrs. Marmaduke pumped them, and +the combined family confounded them. Only Mr. Philip Withers was the +intimate and encouraged _habitué_ of the house. + +Mr. Philip Withers was the very man for the looser principles of +Hendrik,--a fine gentleman's fine son, and his only one, who, by the +death of his father, had come, whilst he was yet very young, into a +pretty property in the neighborhood,--a sort of idyllic man of the +world, with considerable cleverness, a neat miscellaneous education, +handsome person, effective clothes, plausible address, mischievous +brilliancy of versatile talk, a deep voice, two or three +accomplishments best adapted to the atmosphere of sentimental women, +graceful self-possession, small feet, nice hands, striking attitudes, a +subduing smile, magnetic whisper, Machiavellian tact, and French +morals. He could sing you into tears, and dance you into love, and talk +you into wonder; when he drew, you begged for his portrait by himself, +and when he wrote, you solicited his autograph. + +Mr. Philip Withers had taken his moustache to foreign parts, and done +the Continent sophisticatedly. He was well-read in cities, and had +brought home a budget of light, popular, and profusely illustrated +articles of talk on an equivocal variety of urban life, which he +prettily distributed among clovery pastorals, Wordsworthian ballads, De +Coverly entertainments, Crayon sketches, and Sparrowgrass Papers, for +the benefit of his country subscribers. From all of which you have no +doubt gathered by this time that Mr. Philip Withers was a graceful +scamp, and a friend of the Splurges,--who had money, which Mr. Philip +Withers had not; for he had been a munificent patron of elegant +pleasures abroad, and since his return had erected an addition to his +father's house in the shape of a pair of handsome mortgages, as a +proprietor of romantic tastes in architecture might flank his front +door with mediaeval donjons. + +Mrs. Marmaduke made much of that good-looking and delightful Withers. +Though not a pious man, in the formal sense of the term, she felt sure +he was religious according to that stained-glass and fragrant religion +of the tastes which is an essential attribute of every gentleman,--that +is, of every well-born man of cultivated preferences and sensitive +antipathies,--and she had no doubt that gentlemen's souls could be +saved by that arrangement just as satisfactorily, and so much more +gracefully. She only wished, my dear, you could hear Mr. Withers +express himself on those subjects,--his ideas were so delightfully +"your deal, my love"--clear, his illustrations so sweetly pretty, and +his manner so earnest; really, he stirred her like--"hearts, did you +say?--a trump." + +Josephine Splurge contented herself with letting down her back hair for +Mr. Withers and making eyes at him. + +"Good-morrow to the guileless Genevieve!"--Withers delighted in +dispensing equivocal nothings to the dowdy Muse of the sofa and back +hair.--"Charming weather!" + +"There, you bewildering Joseph Surface, you need not go on,--I know +what you are going to say, and I will neither be flattered nor +fascinated. Come, confess now, like a dear candid creature, throw off +your irresistibly bewitching mask, and own that your sentiments are all +rhetoric." + +"Josy, dear," Adelaide would insinuate, "what a wonderful memory you +have!--so well managed, too! Now whom _did_ you hear say that?" + +Josephine was wont to declare that the Admirable Crichton lived again +in that kaleidoscopic creature; but he was so dazzling, so bewildering, +so dangerous, that to converse with him was like having fireworks in +one's boudoir. + +With Madeline Withers was on strange terms, if any terms at all. She +threatened to him in the middle of his best stories, smiled quietly +when he preached, yawned to his poetical recitations, left the room +when he sang, mistook the subjects of his sketches with a +verisimilitude of innocence that often deceived even himself, was +silent and sneered much whenever he was present. And all these +rudenesses she performed with a successful air of genuine abstraction; +they never failed of their intention by being overdone, or by being too +_directly_ directed at him. + +Remarks seldom passed between these two; when they did, Withers spoke +always first, and Madeline replied briefly and with politeness. And yet +there were occasions when a sharp-sighted and suspicious observer might +have detected a strange discomposure in Madeline's conduct in the +presence of Withers,--when, indeed, she seemed to be laboring under +irritability, and proneness to singular excitement, which began with +his entrance and disappeared with his departure. At such times she +would break her haughty quiet with fierce sallies upon her sisters; but +Withers stung her back into silence with sharp and telling retorts,--as +you may have seen a practised beast-tamer in a cage flog an angry +tigress, when her eyes flashed, and her ears were set back, and she +unsheathed her horrid claws, and lashed her sides, and growled with all +the appalling fee-faw-fum of the jungle,--flog her back into her +corner, with nought more formidable than a lady's riding-whip, dainty, +slender, and sharp. But Withers administered the chastisement with such +devilish grace that it was unperceived, save by the quick, shrewd +Adelaide perhaps, who perceived everything,--but never _saw_, nor ever +spoke. If you could have beheld the lips and the eyes of Madeline, on +such occasions, you would have cursed this Philip Withers, or beaten +him to her feet. + +Between Withers and Adelaide the relations were plainer; indeed, before +the small Splurge set they appeared as avowed lovers. Toward "Addy" +Withers was all elegant devotion and gracious gallantry, knight-like in +his chivalric and debonair devoir. + +For Withers Addy was, openly, all deference and tenderly wistful +solicitude, but in secret not all security and exultation. Even while +it seemed high triumph in her heart's camp, her well-drilled eyes and +ears were still on guard, and her hidden thoughts lay upon their arms. + +Still it wore the aspect of a lyric match, and the hearts of humbler +Hendrik lovers set it to music. + +"For other guests," Withers seemed to say, + + "I wile the hours with tale or song, + Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme; + But how to find a fitting lay for thee, + Who hast the harmonies of every time?" + +And Addy _looked_, + + "Thou art to me most like a royal guest, + Whose travels bring him to some humble roof, + Where simple rustics spread their festal fare, + And, blushing, own it is not good enough. + + "Bethink thee, then, whene'er thou com'st to me, + From high emprise and noble toil to rest, + My thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine, + But the poor mansion offers thee its best." + +So Mrs. Marmaduke exalted her horn and exceedingly magnified her +manoeuvring office. On the strength of it, she treated herself to +profuse felicitations and fished among her neighbors for more. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +And now I will let you into a secret, which, according to the received +rules for story-construction, should be barred against you yet a little +longer. I will fling it wide open at once, instead of holding it ajar +and admitting you edgewise, as it were, one conjecture at a time. + +Miss Wimple had a lover;--she had had him since six months before her +father died, and the decayed publisher had never guessed of him nor +Sally confessed him; for the good, thoughtful daughter knew it would +but complicate the old man's perplexities and cares to no purpose. To +be sure, his joyful consent was certain; but so long as he lived, "the +thing was not to be thought of," she said, and it was not wise to plant +in his mind a wish with which her duty could not accord. So Sally's +lover was hushed up,--hidden in discretion as in a closet. + +Simon Blount was his name, and he was a young farmer of five hundred +acres in first-rate cultivation, with barns, stables, and offices in +complete repair,--a well-stocked, well-watered place, with "all the +modern improvements," and convenient to the Hendrik branch of the New +York and Bunker Hill railroad. + +The young man had inherited this very neat property from his father,--a +thriving, intelligent farmer of the best class, Mr. Wimple's oldest +friend, his playmate in boyhood, and his crony when he died. Simon's +mother and Sally's had likewise been schoolmates, and intimates to the +last, fondly attached to each other, and mutually confiding in each +other's love and truth in times of pain and trouble. + +But Mr. Blount and Mrs. Wimple had been dead these ten years;--they +died in the same month. Simon and Sally were children when that +happened, and since then they had grown up together in the closest +family intimacy, interrupted only by Sally's winter schooling in New +York, and renewed every summer by her regular seasons at Hendrik. + +To the young man and the ripening maiden, then, their love came as +naturally as violets and clover-blooms, and was as little likely to +take their parents or the familiar country-folk by surprise. + +When Simon took trips to New York, he "stopped" at Mr. Wimple's, and +Sally's summer home in Hendrik was always "Aunt Phoebe's," as she had +been taught to call Simon's mother. + +You will wonder, then, that Mr. Paul Wimple should have blushed and +struggled and died in the forlorn little "Athenaeum," and that Sally +should sit down in her loneliness and "that fright of a delaine" to +wait for customers that came not, when in their old friends' house were +comfortable mansions, and in their old friends' hearts tearful kisses +and welcome free as air. But you must remember that with sudden poverty +comes, often, shrinking pride, and a degree of suspicion, and high +scorn of those belittled pensioners who hang upon old ties; that old +age, when it is sorely beset, is not always patient, clear-sighted, and +just; that, when the heart of a young girl, in Sally's extremity, +carries the helpless love that had been clad in purple, and couched in +eider, and pampered with bonny cats, and served in gold, to Pride, and +asks, "Stern master, what shall I do with this now?" the answer will +be, "Strip it of its silken fooleries,--let it lie on the ground, the +broad bosom of its honest, hearty mother,--teach it the wholesomeness +of brown bread and cresses, fairly earned, and water from the +spring,--and let it wait on itself, and wait for the rest!" Once, when +the talk at the Splurge house descended for a moment from its lofty +flights to describe a few eccentric mocking circles around the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Miss Wimple, Madeline said, "If you have sense or +decency, be silent;--the girl is true and brave, every way better +taught than we, and prouder than she knows. If we were truly as +scornful of her as she is indifferent to us, we would let her glorious +insignificance alone." + +So Miss Wimple waited in her shabby little shop and plied her needle +for hire. Her lover was a handsome fellow, with a bright, frank face, +and a vigorous, agile, and graceful form; there was more than common +intellect in his clear, broad brow, overhung with close clusters of +brown country curls; taste was on his lips and tenderness in his eyes; +his soul was full of generosity, candor, and fidelity; his every +movement and attitude denoted native refinement, and in his talk he +displayed an excellent understanding and remarkable cultivation; for +his father had bestowed on him superior advantages of education;--"as +fine a young fellow, Sir," that estimable old Doctor Vandyke would say, +"as ever you saw." + +It was true, Simon's travels had never reached beyond New York; but, +unlike Mr. Philip Withers, he had brought home solid comforts, useful +facts, wholesome sentiments, natural manners, and sensible, but modest +conversation,--instead of an astonishing variety of intellectual +curiosities and intricate moral toys, whereat plain people +marvelled--as in the case of a certain ingenious Chinese puzzle, ball +within ball, all save the last elaborately carved--how the very +diminutive _plain_ one at the centre ever got in there, or ever could +be got out. + +In another respect the young farmer enjoyed a noticeable advantage over +the man-of-the-world;--he was quite able to tear down those fancy +donjon additions, and erect a plain, honest, substantial, very +comfortable, and very cheerful Yankee porch on their site. + +But Miss Wimple said to Simon,--"For a season you will keep aloof from +this place and from me. I must see you no oftener than it would be +allowable for an occasional customer of the better sort to drop in; and +when you do come, state your business--let it always be _business_, or +pass by--and take your leave, like any indifferent neighbor who came to +change a book, or purchase a trifle, or engage work. On these terms our +love must wait, until by my own unaided exertions--without help, mark +you, Simon, from any man or woman on earth--I have discharged the debt +of charity that is due to the good people of this place who helped my +father in his utmost need, and gave him this shop and these things in +trust. From you, of all men, Simon, I will accept no aid. Play no +tricks of kindness upon me; nor let your love tempt you to experiment, +with disguised charity, upon my purpose. You would only find that you +had failed, and ruined all. The proceeds of this poor shop must belong +to those whose money procured it, until I shall have paid its price; on +no pretext shall that fund be touched for other purposes. I will +sustain myself independently; you know that I ply a nimble needle, and +that my handiwork will be in esteem among the richer folks of Hendrik. +And now, dear Simon, let me have my way. You need no more earnest +assurance of my love than the pains I would take, in this matter, to +make you respect me more. When my task is done, I will deck myself as +of old, and again light up the rose-star in my hair, and stand in the +door and clap my hands to call you hither, and hold you fast; but not +till then. Let me have my way till then." + +And Simon said,--"You are wiser than I, Sally, and braver, and every +way better. I will obey you in this, and wait,--the more cheerfully +because I shall be always at hand, and, if your heart should fail you, +I know you will not refuse my aid, nor prefer another's to mine." + +And so they passed for mere acquaintances; and there were some who +said--Philip Withers among them--that "that plausible Golden Farmer, +young Blount, had treated the forlorn thing shabbily." + +About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the +first that appeared in Hendrik. + +One day, as Miss Wimple sat in a low Yankee rocking-chair, sewing among +her books, she was favored with the extraordinary apparition of Miss +Madeline Splurge,--her first visitor that day, whether on business or +curiosity. + +"I wish to procure a small morocco pocket-book, Miss Wimple, if you +keep such things." + +Miss Wimple, with a slight bow of assent, took from a glass +counter-case a paper box in which was a miscellaneous assortment of +such articles; there were five or six of the pocket-books. Madeline +selected one,--a small, flexible affair, of some dark-colored morocco +lined with pink silk. She paid the trifle the shy, demure little +librarian demanded, and was taking her leave in silence, without even a +"Good-day," when, as she was passing the door, Miss Wimple espied on +the counter, near where her customer had stood, a visiting-card; her +eye fell on the engraved name,--"Mr. Philip Withers"; of course Miss +Splurge had dropped it unawares. She hastened with it to the +door,--Madeline had just stept into the street,-- + +"This card is yours, I presume, Miss Splurge?" + +Madeline turned upon her with a surprised air, inquiringly,--looked in +her own hands, and shook her handkerchief with the quick, nervous, +alarmed movement of one who suddenly discovers a very particular +loss,--became, in an instant, pale as death, stared for a moment at +Miss Wimple with fixed eyes, and slightly shivered. Then, quickly and +fiercely, she snatched the card from Miss Wimple's hand,-- + +"Where--where did you find this? Did--did I leave--drop--?" + +"You left it on my counter," Miss Wimple quietly replied, with a +considerate self-possession that admirably counterfeited +unconsciousness of Madeline's consternation. + +"Come hither, into the shop,--a word with you,"--and Madeline entered +quickly, and closed the door behind her. For a moment she leaned with +her elbow on the counter, and pressed her eyes with her fingers. + +"Are you ill, Miss Splurge?" Miss Wimple gently inquired. + +"No. Did you read what is on this card?" + +"Yes." + +"You--you--you read"----Madeline's hands were clenched, her face red +and distorted; she gnashed her teeth, and seemed choking. + +"Why, Miss Splurge, what is the matter with you? Yes, I read the +name,--Mr. Philip Withers. The card lay on the counter,--I could not +know it was yours,--I read the name, and immediately brought it to you. +What excites you so? Sit down, and calm yourself; surely you are ill." + +Madeline did not accept the stool Miss Wimple offered her, but, +availing herself of the pause to assume a forced calmness which left +her paler than at first, she fixed her flashing eyes steadily on the +deep, still eyes of her companion, and asked,-- + +"You did not turn this card, then?--you did not look on the other +side?" + +"On my honor, I did not." + +"On your honor! You are not lying, girl?"--Miss Splurge thrust the card +into the newly-purchased pocket-book, and hid that in her bosom. + +"Miss Splurge," said Miss Wimple, very simply, and with no excitement +of tone or expression, "when you feel sufficiently recovered to appear +on the street, without exposing yourself there as you have done in +here, go out!" + +And Miss Wimple turned from Madeline and would have resumed her sewing; +but Madeline cried,-- + +"Stay, stay, Miss Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; +forgive me, ah, forgive me!--for you are merciful, as you are pure and +true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult +you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,--false, +too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, +and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the +next. If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any +human being, I would come to you--dear, honest, brave girl!--before all +others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech +you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your +gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. Good-by! +Good-by! I need not ask your pardon again,--you have no anger for such +as I. But if your blessed loneliness is ever disturbed by vulgar, +chattering visitors, you will not name me to them, or confess that you +have seen me." And ere Miss Wimple could utter the gentle words that +were already on her lips, Madeline was gone. + +For a while Miss Wimple remained standing on the spot, gazing +anxiously, but vacantly, toward the door by which the half-mad lady had +departed,--her soft, deep eyes full of painful apprehension. Then she +resumed her little rocking-chair, and, as she gathered up her work from +the floor where she had dropped it, tears trickled down her cheeks; she +sighed and shook her head, in utter sorrow. + +"They were always strange women," she thought, "those Splurges,--not a +sound heart nor a healthy mind among them. Could their false, barren +life have maddened this proud Madeline? Else what did she mean by her +'hot head' and her 'fierce heart'? And what had that Philip Withers to +do with her trouble and her distraction? She recollected now that Simon +had once said, in his odd, significant way, that Mr. Withers was a +charming person to contemplate from a safe distance,--Simon, who never +lent himself to idle detraction. She remembered, too, that she had +often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the +man,--that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the +face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly +dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music. Was he +on both sides of that card?--Ah, well! it might be just nothing, after +all; the poor lady might be ill, or vexed past endurance at home; or +some unhappy love affair might have come to fret her proud, impatient, +defiant temper. But not Withers,--oh, of course not Withers!--for was +it not well known that Adelaide was his choice, that his assiduous and +graceful attentions to her silenced even his loudest enemies, who could +no longer accuse him of duplicity and disloyalty to women? But she +would feel less disturbed, and sleep better, perhaps, if she knew that +Madeline was safe at home, and tranquil again." + +Thinking of sleep reminded Miss Wimple that she had a pious task to +perform before she could betake her to her sweet little cot. A +superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her +last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must +cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a +basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night. + +About nine o'clock Miss Wimple had done her charitable errand, and was +on her way home again, with a light step and a happy heart, an empty +basket and old Hetty's abundant blessings. She was alone, but feared +nothing,--the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she +to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently +understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in +town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward +walk; and the rudest respected her. + +As she approached the covered bridge, the moon was shining brightly at +the entrance, making the gloom within profounder. It was a long, wooden +structure, of a kind common enough on the turnpikes of the Atlantic +States, where they cross the broader streams. Stout posts and +cross-beams, and an arch that stretched from end to end, divided the +bridge into two longitudinal compartments, for travellers going and +coming respectively; there were small windows on each side, and at +either end, on a conspicuous signboard, were the Company's +"Rules,"--"Walk your Horses over this Bridge, or be subject to a Fine +of not less than Five nor exceeding Twenty Dollars"--"Keep to the +Right, as the Law directs." + +As Miss Wimple entered the shadow of the bridge on the right hand, she +was startled by hearing excited voices, which seemed to come from the +other side of the central arch, and about the middle of the bridge, +where the darkness was deepest:-- + +"Speak low, I say, or be silent! Some one will be coming presently;--I +heard steps approaching even now"--Miss Wimple instinctively stopped, +and stood motionless, almost holding her breath, at the end of the arch +where the moonlight did not reach. She was no eavesdropper, mark +you,--the meannesses she scorned included that character in a special +clause. But she had recognised the voice, and with her own true +delicacy would spare the speaker the shame of discovery and the dread +of exposure.--"Speak low, or I will leave you. If you are indifferent +for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik." + +"You are right";--it was a woman's voice; but, whatever her tone had +been before, she spoke so low now, and with a voice so hoarse with +suppressed emotion, so altered by a sort of choking whisper, that Miss +Wimple, if she had ever heard it before, could not recognize it;--"You +are right; the time for that has not come;--I could not stay to enjoy +it;--I am going now, but we will meet again." + +"What would you have? I have said I would marry you,--and leave +you,--so soon as I can shake myself clear of that other stupid +infatuation." + +"Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, +having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find +me such a fool, after all,--that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest +shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a +cowardly ass to besot myself with.--There, the subject sickens me, and +I am going. Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you. +I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold +you, my exquisite Joseph Surface--oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the +wisdom of fools!--by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall +find you. I can take care of me and _mine_; but beware how you dare to +claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your +brand be on it,--Joseph!" + +She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful +laugh, departed. As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick +breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where +the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw +a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear. Then Philip +Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or +two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from +the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to +the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once +looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town. + +All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple +remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had +quite disappeared. Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she +resumed her homeward way. As she emerged from the shadows into the same +bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just +passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground. She stooped and +picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk. + +Good Heaven! She remembered,--the one she had sold to Miss Madeline +Splurge that afternoon,--the very same! So, then, that was her voice, +her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, +while that woman was speaking so bitterly,--but had not recognized her +tones, nor once fancied it might be she. Now she easily recalled her +words, and understood some of her allusions. And her wild, distracted, +incoherent speech in the shop, too,--ah! it was all too plain; that was +surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss +Wimple dared not try to guess. This Philip Withers,--was he a villain, +after all? "Had he--this poor lady--Oh, God forbid! No, no, no!" + +She opened the pocket-book;--a visiting-card was all it contained. She +drew it forth,--"Mr. Philip Withers,"--yes, she knew it by that broken +corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose. She held it up +before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and--turned the other +side. + +"Ah, me!" exclaimed that Chevalier Bayard in shabby, skimped delaine, +"what was I going to do?" + +Blushing, she returned the card to its place, and hiding the +pocket-book in her honorable bosom, hurried homeward. But her soul was +troubled as she went; sometimes she sobbed aloud, and more than once +she stood still and wrung her hands. + +"Ah! if Simon Blount would but come now to advise me what is safest and +best to do!" + +Should she go to Mrs. Splurge and tell her all? No,--what right had +she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be +necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a +step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a +different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt +she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer +judgment and information. Till then she would hope for the best. + +When Miss Wimple reached her humble little nest, she knelt beside her +bed and prayed, tearfully, to the God who averts danger and forgives +sin; but she did not sleep all night. + +In the morning a gossiping neighbor came with the news;--"that little +cooped-up Wimple never hears anything," she thought. + +Miss Madeline Splurge had disappeared. Mr. Philip Withers was searching +for her high and low. She had not been seen since yesterday +afternoon,--had not returned home last night. It was feared she had +drowned herself in the river for spite. She, the knowing neighbor, "had +always said so,--had always said that Madeline Splurge was a quare +girl,--sich high and mighty airs, and _sich_ a temper. Now here it was, +and what would people say,--specially them as had always turned up +their nose at her opinion?" + +Miss Wimple said nothing; but she treated Pity to two poor little +lies;--one she told, and the other she looked:--She was not well, she +said, which was the reason why she was so pale; and then she looked +surprised at the news of Madeline's flitting. + +Later in the day another report:--A letter left by Madeline had been +found at home. She had taken offence at some sharp thing that sarcastic +Mr. Withers, who always did hate her, had said; and had gone off in a +miff, without even good-by or a carpet-bag, and taken the night train +to New York, where she had an uncle on the mother's side.--And a good +riddance! Now Miss Addy and Mr. Withers would have some peace of their +time. Such a sweet couple, too! + +Madeline _had_ left a note:--"I was sick of you all, and I have escaped +from you. You will be foolish to take any trouble about it." + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE CUP. + + + The cup I sing is a cup of gold, + Many and many a century old, + Sculptured fair, and over-filled + With wine of a generous vintage, spilled + In crystal currents and foaming tides + All round its luminous, pictured sides. + + Old Time enamelled and embossed + This ancient cup at an infinite cost. + Its frame he wrought of metal that run + Red from the furnace of the sun. + Ages on ages slowly rolled + Before the glowing mass was cold, + And still he toiled at the antique mould, + Turning it fast in his fashioning hand, + Tracing circle, layer, and band, + Carving figures quaint and strange, + Pursuing, through many a wondrous change, + The symmetry of a plan divine. + At last he poured the lustrous wine, + Crowned high the radiant wave with light, + And held aloft the goblet bright, + Half in shadow, and wreathed in mist + Of purple, amber, and amethyst. + + This is the goblet from whose brink + All creatures that have life must drink: + Foemen and lovers, haughty lord + And sallow beggar with lips abhorred. + The new-born infant, ere it gain + The mother's breast, this wine must drain. + The oak with its subtile juice is fed, + The rose drinks till her cheeks are red, + And the dimpled, dainty violet sips + The limpid stream with loving lips. + It holds the blood of sun and star, + And all pure essences that are: + No fruit so high on the heavenly vine, + Whose golden hanging clusters shine + On the far-off shadowy midnight hills, + But some sweet influence it distils + That slideth down the silvery rills. + Here Wisdom drowned her dangerous thought, + The early gods their secrets brought; + Beauty, in quivering lines of light, + Ripples before the ravished sight; + And the unseen mystic spheres combine + To charm the cup and drug the wine. + + All day I drink of the wine and deep + In its stainless waves my senses steep; + All night my peaceful soul lies drowned + In hollows of the cup profound; + Again each morn I clamber up + The emerald crater of the cup, + On massive knobs of jasper stand + And view the azure ring expand: + I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swim + In the wine that o'erruns the jewelled rim, + Edges of chrysolite emerge, + Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge; + My thrilled, uncovered front I lave, + My eager senses kiss the wave, + And drain, with its viewless draught, the lore + That warmeth the bosom's secret core, + And the fire that maddens the poet's brain + With wild sweet ardor and heavenly pain. + + + +THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA. + + +Every calling has something of a special dialect. Even where there is, +one would think, no necessity for it, as in the conversation of +Sophomores, sporting men, and reporters for the press, a dialect is +forthwith partly invented, partly suffered to grow, and the sturdy stem +of original English exhibits a new crop of parasitic weeds which often +partake of the nature of fungi and betoken the decay of the trunk +whence they spring. + +Is this the case with the language of the sea? Has the sea any +language? or has each national tongue grafted into it the technology of +the maritime calling? + +The sea has its own laws,--the common and unwritten law of the +forecastle, of which Admiralty Courts take infrequent cognizance, and +the law of the quarter-deck, which is to be read in acts of Parliament +and statutes of Congress. The sea has its own customs, superstitions, +traditions, architecture, and government; wherefore not its own +language? We maintain that it has, and that this tongue, which is not +enumerated by Adelung, which possesses no grammar and barely a lexicon +of its own, and which is not numbered among the polyglot achievements +of Mezzofanti or Burritt, has yet a right to its place among the +world's languages. + +Like everything else which is used at sea,--except salt-water,--its +materials came from shore. As the ship is originally wrought from the +live-oak forests of Florida and the pine mountains of Norway, the iron +mines of England, the hemp and flax fields of Russia, so the language +current upon her deck is the composite gift of all sea-loving peoples. +But as all these physical elements of construction suffer a sea-change +on passing into the service of Poseidon, so again the landward phrases +are metamorphosed by their contact with the main. But no one set of +them is allowed exclusive predominance. For the ocean is the only true, +grand, federative commonwealth which has never owned a single master. +The cloud-compelling Zeus might do as he pleased on land; but far +beyond the range of outlook from the white watch-tower of Olympus +rolled the immeasurable waves of the wine-purple deep, acknowledging +only the Enosigaios Poseidon. Consequently, while Zeus allotted to this +and that hero and demigod Argos and Mycene and the woody Zacynthus, +each to each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after +nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at +the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has +been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,--now a black raven, then a +broom,--to-day St. Andrew's Cross, to-morrow St George's, perhaps the +next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main +by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined +castles are lying "fifty fathom deep,"--Carthaginian galley and Roman +trireme, the argosy of Spain, the "White Ship" of Fitz Stephen, the +"Ville de Paris," down to the latest "non-arrival" whispered at +Lloyd's,--all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the +green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and +Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one +gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the +fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are +the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, +gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the +language that we are able to trace the successive nations in their +march along the mountain waves; for to that each has from time to time +given its contribution, and of each it has worn the seeming stamp, till +some Actium or Lepanto or Cape Trafalgar has compelled its reluctant +transfer to another's hands. + +Or rather, we may say, the language of the sea comes and makes a part, +as it were, of the speech of many different nations, as the sailor +abides for a season in Naples, Smyrna, Valparaiso, Canton, and New +York,--and from each it borrows, as the sailor does, from this a silk +handkerchief, from that a cap, here a brooch, and there a scrap of +tattooing, but still remains inhabitant of all and citizen of +none,--the language of the seas. + +What do we mean by this? It is that curious nomenclature which from +truck to keelson clothes the ship with strange but fitting +phrases,--which has its proverbs, idioms, and forms of expression that +are of the sea, salt, and never of the land, earthy. Wherever tidewater +flows, goes also some portion of this speech. It is "understanded of +the people" among all truly nautical races. It dominates over their own +languages, so that the Fin and Mowree, (Maori,) the Lascar and the +Armorican, meeting on the same deck, find a common tongue whereby to +carry on the ship's work,--the language in which to "hand, reef, and +steer." + +Whence did it come? From all nautical peoples. Not from the Hebrew +race. To them the possession of the soil was a fixed idea. The sea +itself had nothing wherewith to tempt them; they were not adventurers +or colonizers; they had none of that accommodating temper as to creed, +customs, and diet, which is the necessary characteristic of the sailor. +But the nations they expelled from Canaan, the worshippers of the +fish-tailed Dagon, who fled westward to build Tartessus (Tarshish) on +the Gaditanian peninsula, or who clung with precarious footing to the +sea-shore of Philistia and the rocky steeps of Tyre and Sidon,--these +were seafarers. From them their Greek off-shoots, the Ionian islanders, +inherited something of the maritime faculty. There are traces in the +"Odyssey" of a nautical language, of a technology exclusively belonging +to the world "off soundings," and an exceeding delight in the rush and +spray-flinging of a vessel's motion,-- + + "The purple wave hissed from the bow of the + bark in its going." + +Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a +Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with +classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their +sterns. + +But the Greek and Carthaginian elements of the ocean language must now +lie buried very deep in it, and it is hard to recognize their original +image and superscription in those smooth-worn current coins which form +the basis of the sea-speech. It is not within the limits of a cursory +paper like this to enter into too deep an investigation, or to trace +perhaps a fanciful lineage for such principal words as "mast," and +"sail," and "rope." In one word, "anchor," the Greek plainly +survives,--and doubtless many others might be made out by a skilful +philologist. + +The Roman, to whom the empire of the sea, or, more properly speaking, +the petty principality of the Mediterranean, was transferred, had +little liking for that sceptre. He was driven to the water by sheer +necessity, but he never took to it kindly. He was at best a +sea-soldier, a marine, not brought up from the start in the +merchant-service and then polished into the complete blue-jacket and +able seaman of the navy. Nobody can think of those ponderous old +Romans, whose comedies were all borrowed from Attica, whose poems were +feeble echoes of the Greek, and whose architecture, art, and domestic +culture were at best the work of foreign artists,--nobody can think of +them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of +the first "reef-topsail breeze." Fancy those solemn, stately +Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a +streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor'wester +brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral +Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand +fighters,--none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, +having won them, they dropped sea-going, and made the conquered nations +transport their corn and troops, while they went back to their +congenial camps and solemn Senate-debates. + +But Italy was not settled by the Roman alone. A black-haired, +fire-eyed, daring, flexible race had colonized the Sicilian Islands, +and settled thickly around the Tarentine Gulf, and built their cities +up the fringes of the Apennines as far as the lovely Bay of Parthenope. +Greek they were,--by tradition the descendants of those who took +Troy-town,--Greek they are to this day, as any one may see who will +linger on the Mole or by the Santa Lucia Stairs at Naples. At Salerno, +at Amalfi, were cradled those fishing-hamlets which were to nurse +seamen, and not soldiers. Far up the Adriatic, the storm of Northern +invasion had forced a fair-haired and violet-eyed folk into the +fastnesses of the lagoons, to drive their piles and lay their keels +upon the reedy islets of San Giorgio and San Marco; while on the +western side an ancient Celtic colony was rising into prominence, and +rearing at the foot of the Ligurian Alps the palaces of Genoa the +Proud. + +Thus upon the Italian stock was begun the language of the seas. Upon +the Italian main the words "tack" and "sheet," "prow" and "poop," were +first heard; and those most important terms by which the law of the +marine highway is given,--"starboard" and "larboard." For if, after the +Italian popular method, we contract the words _questo bordo_ (this +side) and _quello bordo_ (that side) into _sto bordo_ and _lo bordo_, +we have the roots of our modern phrases. And so the term "port," which +in naval usage supersedes "larboard," is the abbreviated _porta lo +timone_, (carry the helm,) which, like the same term in military usage, +"port arms," seems traditionally to suggest the left hand. + +But while the Italian races were beginning their brief but brilliant +career, there was in training a nobler and hardier race of seamen, from +whose hands the helm would not so soon be wrested. The pirates of the +Baltic were wrestling with the storms of the wild Cattegat and braving +the sleety squalls of the Skager Rack, stretching far out from the land +to colonize Iceland and the Faroes, to plant a mysteriously lost nation +in Eastern Greenland, and to leave strange traces of themselves by the +vine-clad shores of Narraganset Bay. For, first of all nations and +races to steer boldly into the deep, to abandon the timid fashion of +the Past, which groped from headland to headland, as boys paddle skiffs +from wharf to wharf, the Viking met the blast and the wave, and was no +more the slave, but the lord of the sea. He it was, who, abandoning the +traditionary rule which loosened canvas only to a wind dead aft or well +on the quarter, learned to brace up sharp on a wind and to baffle the +adverse airs. Yet he, too, was overmuch a fighter to make a true +seaman, and his children no sooner set foot on the shore than they drew +their swords and went to carving the conquered land into Norman +lordships. But where they piloted the way others followed, and city +after city along the German Ocean and upon the British coasts became +also maritime. For King Alfred had come, and the English oaks were +felled, and their gnarled boughs found exceedingly convenient for the +curved knees of ships. Upon the Italian stock became engrafted the +Norman, and French, and Danish, the North German and Saxon elements. +And so, after a century of crusading had thoroughly broken up the +stay-at-home notions of Europe, the maritime spirit blazed up. Spain +and Portugal now took the lead and were running races against each +other, the one in the Western, the other in the Eastern seas, and +flaunting their crowned flags in monopoly of the Indian archipelagos +and the American tropics. Just across the North Sea, over the low +sand-dykes of Holland, scarce higher than a ship's bulwarks, looked a +race whom the spleeny wits of other nations declared to be born +web-footed. Yet their sails were found in every sea, and, like resolute +merchants, as they were, they left to others the glory while they did +the world's carrying. Their impress upon the sea-language was neither +faint nor slight. They were true marines, and from Manhattan Island to +utmost Japan, the brown, bright sides, full bows, and bulwarks tumbling +home of the Dutchman were familiar as the sea-gulls. Underneath their +clumsy-looking upper-works, the lines were true and sharp; and but the +other day, when the world's clippers were stooping their lithe +racehorse-like forms to the seas in the great ocean sweepstakes, the +fleetest of all was--a Dutchman. + +But to combine and fuse all these elements was the work of England. To +that nation, with its noble inheritance of a composite language, +incomparably rich in all the nomenclature of natural objects and +sounds, was given especially the coast department, so to speak, of +language. Every variety of shore, from shingly beaches to craggy +headlands, was theirs. While the grand outlines and larger features are +Italian, such as Cape, Island, Gulf, the minuter belong to the Northern +races, who are closer observers of Nature's nice differences, and who +take more delight in a frank, fearless acquaintance and fellowship with +out-door objects. Beach, sand, headland, foreland, shelf, reef, +breaker, bar, bank, ledge, shoal, spit, sound, race, reach, are words +of Northern origin. So, too, the host of local names by which every +peculiar feature of shore-scenery is individualized,--as, for instance, +the Needles, the Eddystone, the Three Chimneys, the Hen and Chickens, +the Bishop and Clerks. The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of +the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the +Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host +of words of which the derivation is doubtful,--such as sea, mist, foam, +scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that +clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman's +tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over +it. They are docked without mercy, or, now and then, when not properly +mouth-filling, they are "spliced" with a couple of vowels. It is +impossible to tell the whys and wherefores of sea-prejudices. + +We have now indicated the main sources of the ocean-language. As new +nations are received into the nautical brotherhood, and as new +improvements are made, new terms come in. The whole whaling diction is +the contribution of America, or rather of Nantucket, New Bedford, and +New London, aided by the islands of the Pacific and the mongrel Spanish +ports of the South Seas. Here and there an adventurous genius coins a +phrase for the benefit of posterity,--as we once heard a mate order a +couple of men to "go forrard and trim the ship's whiskers," to the +utter bewilderment of his captain, who, in thirty years' following of +the sea, had never heard the martingale chains and stays so designated. +But the source of the great body of the sea-language might be marked +out on the map by a current flowing out of the Straits of Gibraltar and +meeting a similar tide from the Baltic, the two encountering and +blending in the North Sea and circling Great Britain, while not +forgetting to wash the dykes of Holland as they go. How to distinguish +the work of each, in founding the common tongue, is not here our +province. + +It would be difficult to classify the words in nautical +use,--impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A +specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the +blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so +far into the tar-bucket as to bother (_nauticč_, "galley") the +landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship +are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is +English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (_mezzano_). To go +from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish _duk_, and +"canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,--from the root _canna_, a +cane or reed,--thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,--hence +any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon _stearn_, +steering-place; "stem," from the German _stamm_. The whole family of +ropes--of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that there are but +three to a ship, namely, _bolt_-rope, _bucket_-rope, and _man_-rope, +all the rest of the cordage being called by its special name, as +_tack_, _sheet_, _clew-line_, _bow-line_, _brace_, _shroud_, or +_stay_--the whole family of ropes are akin only by marriage. "Cable" is +from the Semitic root _kebel_, to cord, and is the same in all nautical +uses. "Hawser"--once written _halser_--is from the Baltic stock,--the +rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope +by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish,--from _painter_, a +snare. "Sheet" is Italian,--from _scotta_; "brace" French, and "stay" +English. "Clew" is Saxon; "garnet" (from _granato_, a fruit) is +Italian,--that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to +the clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through +the block. Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the +same diversity. "Pitch" one easily gets from _pix_ (Latin); "tar" as +easily from the Saxon _tare_, _tyr_. "Junk," old rope, is from the +Latin _juncus_, a bulrush,--the material used along the Mediterranean +shore for calking; "oakum," from the Saxon _oecumbe_, or hemp. The verb +"calk" may come from the Danish _kalk_, chalk,--to rub over,--or from +the Italian _calafatare_. The now disused verb "to pay" is from the +Italian _pagare_;--it survives only in the nautical aphorism, "Here's +the Devil to _pay_,"--that is, to pitch the ship,--"and no pitch hot." +In handing the sails, "to loose" is good English,--"to furl" is +Armorican, and belongs to the Mediterranean class of words. "To rake," +which is applied to spars, is from the Saxon _racian_, to incline;--"to +steeve," which is applied to the bowsprit, and often pronounced +"stave," is from the Italian _stivare_. When we get below-decks, we +find "cargo" to be Spanish,--while "ballast" (from _bat_, a boat, and +_last_, a load) is Saxon. A ship in ballast comes from the Baltic,--a +vessel and cargo from the Bay of Biscay. Sailors must eat; but there is +a significant distinction between merchant-seamen and man-o'-war's-men. +The former is provided for at the "caboose," or "camboose," (Dutch, +_kombuis_); the latter goes to the "galley," (Italian, _galera_, in +helmet, primitively). This distinction is fast dying out,--the naval +term superseding the mercantile,--just as in America the title +"captain" has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, +"master," which is now used only in law-papers. The "bowsprit" is a +compound of English and Dutch. The word "yard" is English; the word +"boom," Dutch. The word "reef" is Welsh, from _rhevu_, to thicken or +fold; "tack" and "sheet" are both Italian; "deck" is German. Other +words are the result of contractions. Few would trace in "dipsey," a +sounding-lead, the words "deep sea"; or in "futtocks" the combination +"foot-hooks,"--the name of the connecting-pieces of the floor-timbers +of a ship. "Breast-hook" has escaped contraction. Sailors have, indeed, +a passion for metamorphosing words,--especially proper names. Those lie +a little out of our track; but two instances are too good to be +omitted:--The "Bellerophon," of the British navy, was always known as +the "Bully-ruffian," and the "Ville de Milan," a French prize, as the +"Wheel-'em-along." Here you have a random bestowal of names which seems +to defy all analysis of the rule of their bestowal. + +If the reader inclines to follow up the scent here indicated, we can +add a hint or two which may be of service. We have shown the sources, +which should, for purposes of classification, be designated, not as +English, Italian, Danish, etc., but nautically, as Mediterranean, +Baltic, or Atlantic. These three heads will serve for general +classification, to which must be added a fourth or "off-soundings" +department, into which should go all words suggested by whim or +accidental resemblances,--such terms as "monkey-rail," "Turk's head," +"dead-eye," etc.,--or which get the name of an inventor, as a +"Matthew-Walker knot." More than that cannot well be given without +going into the whole detail of naval history, tactics, and science,--a +thing, of course, impossible here. + +This brings us to another view of the subject, which may serve for +conclusion. A great many people take upon themselves to act for and +about the sailor, to preach to him, make laws for him, act as his +counsel, write tracts for him, and generally to look after his moral +and physical well-being. Now eleven out of every dozen of these are +continually making themselves ridiculous by an utter ignorance of all +nautical matters. They pick up a few worn-out phrases of sea-life, +which have long since left the forecastle, and which have been bandied +about from one set of landsmen to another, have been dropped by +sham-sailors begging on fictitious wooden-legs, then by small +sea-novelists, handed to smaller dramatists for the Wapping class of +theatres, to be by them abandoned to the smallest writers of pirate and +privateer tales for the Sunday press. And stringing these together, +with a hazy apprehension of their meaning, they think they are "talking +sailor" in great perfection. Now the sailor will talk with pleasure to +any straightforward and perfectly "green" landsman, and the two will +converse in an entirely intelligible manner. But confusion worse +confounded is the result of this ambitious ignorance,--confusion of +brain to the sailor, and confusion of face to the landsman. + +For the sea has a language, beyond a peradventure,--an exceedingly +arbitrary, technical, and perplexing one, unless it be studied with the +illustrated grammar of the full-rigged ship before one, with the added +commentaries of the sea and the sky and the coast chart. To learn to +speak it requires about as long as to learn to converse passably in +French, Italian, or Spanish; and unless it be spoken well, it is +exceedingly absurd to any appreciative listener. + +If you desire to study it philologically, after the living manner of +Dean Trench, it will well repay you. If you desire to use it as a +familiar vehicle of discourse, wherewith to impress the understanding +and heart of the sailor, you undertake a very difficult thing. For +though men are moved best by apt illustrations from the things familiar +to them, _un_apt illustrations most surely disgust them. + +But if you earnestly desire it, we know of but one certain course, +which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who +was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone +to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of +a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in +eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony +of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John's breast. At last the latter +conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, +which was securely lashed to the forward deck of the steamer, he +exclaimed,--"I say, d'ye know, I'd give a guinea to know your secret +for keeping well in this infernal Channel." The traveller solemnly +extended one hand for the money, and, as it dropped into his palm, with +the other shaded his mouth, that no portion of the oracle might fall on +unpaid-for ears, and whispered,--"Hark ye, brother, GO TO SEA TWENTY +YEARS, AS I HAVE." + + + +THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME. + + +"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."--TWELFTH +NIGHT. + +My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in +relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence +in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal +trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in +court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so +indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down +its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had +heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded +it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will +remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the +right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as +well as in novels. + +The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who +tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged +mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, +but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. +Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his +casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old +Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel +as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration +enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters +had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and +holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor +direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that +sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of +beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his +hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart +to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old +mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such +glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty +heiress seemed to be quite enough, even with a field clear of rivals. +But two other suitors now made advances, more or less openly, and poor +Carl thought himself entirely overshadowed. One was Schönfeld, the most +considerable farmer in the neighborhood, a widower, with hair beginning +to show threads of silver, and a fierce man withal, who was supposed to +have once slain a rival, wearing thereafter a seam in his cheek as a +souvenir of the encounter. The other was Hans Stolzen, a carpenter, +past thirty, a shrewd, well-to-do fellow, with nearly a thousand +thalers saved from his earnings. Carl had never fought a duel,--and he +had not saved so much as a thousand groschen, to say nothing of +thalers; he had only a manly figure, a cheery, open face, the freshness +of one-and-twenty, and a heart incapable of guile. Katrine was not long +in discovering these excellences, and, if his boldness had equalled his +passion, she would have shown him how little she esteemed the +pretensions of the proud landholder or the miserly carpenter. But he +took it for granted that he was a fool to contend against such odds, +and, buttoning his jacket tightly over his throbbing heart, toiled away +in his little fields, thinking that the whole world had never contained +so miserable a man. + +Hans Stolzen was the first to propose. He began by paying court to the +jealous Rauchen himself, set forth his property and prospects, and +asked to become his son-in-law. The miller heard him, puffed long +whiffs, and answered civilly, but without committing himself. He was in +no hurry to part with the only joy he had, and, as Katrine was barely +eighteen, he naturally thought there would be time enough to consider +of her marriage hereafter. Hans hardly expected anything more decisive, +and, as he had not been flatly refused, came frequently to the house +and chatted with her father, while his eyes followed the vivacious +Katrine as she tripped about her household duties. But Hans was +perpetually kept at a distance; the humming-bird would never alight +upon the outstretched hand. He had not the wit to see that their +natures had nothing in common, although he did know that Katrine was +utterly indifferent towards him, and after some months of hopeless +pursuit he began to grow sullenly angry. He was not long without an +object on which to vent his rage. + +One evening, as Katrine was returning homeward, she chanced to pass +Carl's cottage. Carl was loitering under a tree hard by, listening to +the quick footsteps to which his heart kept time. It was the coming of +Fate to him, for he had made up his mind to tell her of the love that +was consuming him. Two days before, with tears on his bashful face, he +had confided all to his mother; and, at her suggestion, he had now +provided a little present by way of introduction. Katrine smiled +sweetly as she approached, for, with a woman's quick eye, she had read +his glances long before. His lips at first rebelled, but he struggled +out a salutation, and, the ice once broken, he found himself strangely +unembarrassed. He breathed freely. It seemed to him that their +relations must have been fixed in some previous state of existence, so +natural was it to be in familiar and almost affectionate communication +with the woman whom before he had loved afar off, as a page might sigh +for a queen. + +"Stay, Katrine," he said,--"I had nearly forgotten." He ran hastily +into the cottage, and soon returned with a covered basket. "See, +Katrine, these white rabbits!--are they not pretty?" + +"Oh, the little pets!" exclaimed Katrine. "Are they yours?" + +"No, Katrinchen,--that is, they were mine; now they are yours." + +"Thank you, Carl. I shall love them dearly." + +"For my sake?" + +"For their own, Carl, certainly; for yours also,--a little." + +"Good-bye, Bunny," said he, patting the head of one of the rabbits. +"Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don't keep those long +ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me." + +"Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself,--don't you think +so, Bunny?" said Katrine, taking the basket. + +The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl's pulses bounded; he +seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses. "So! this is +the bashful young man!" thought Katrine. "I shall not need to encourage +him any more, surely." + +The night was coming on; Katrine remembered her father, and started +towards the mill, whose broad arms could scarcely be seen through the +twilight. Carl accompanied her to the gate, and, after a furtive glance +upward to the house-windows, bade her farewell, with a kiss, and turned +homeward, feeling himself a man for the first time in his life. + +Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the +window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son's return. An hour +passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow +anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and +asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl. An hour of terrible +suspense ensued. It was worse than she had even feared. Carl lay by the +roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood, +moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless. +Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid +with bruises. The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently +lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of +Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son. "May he die in a foreign +land," said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, "without wife to +nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul! May his body lie +unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures! May his inheritance pass into +the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!" They +muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless +eyes, and left her with her son. + +For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever +set in, and he raved continually. He fancied himself pursued by Hans +Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff. When this was +reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal; +but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled. His +disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt. In truth, it was the +rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival +in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead. + +Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had +pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a +warmer affection for the victim of his brutality. She threw off all +disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch's cottage, to aid in +nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery. She had, one +day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning +sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle +fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples. An indissoluble tie +now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering +and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death. + +When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped +speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable +opportunity to obtain her father's consent to their marriage. The scars +were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured. No bones had +been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault. +But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy +the happiness for which he hoped,--the love that had called him back to +life. As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk has +seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he +may secure for himself the prize,--so Schönfeld, not uninformed of what +was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain +Katrine's favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way. An officer in +the king's service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for +the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the +entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized +for the shambles. The officer had apparently been a friend and +companion of Schönfeld's in former days, and passed some time at his +house. It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors +as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the +army. He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no +alternative; he must serve his three years. This last blow was too much +for his poor mother. Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing +him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her +grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other +recruits, was marched off. + +What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three +years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such +visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted +from her lover as though it were forever. The miller found that the +light and the melody of his house were gone. Katrine was silent and +sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble. To all his offers +of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears +she had besought his interference in Carl's behalf. She would not be +comforted. The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had +thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish +fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing +look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he +sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his +tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon +the slightest whiff. + +For six months Schönfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought, +would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier. +Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his +hand to Katrine. The miller was inclined to favor his suit. In wealth +and position Schönfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful +ally, and a very disagreeable enemy. In fact, Rauchen really feared to +refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he +could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer. Katrine, +however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl +was a victim of Schönfeld's craft; and her rejection of his proposal +was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal. The +old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the +mill, vowing vengeance for the affront. + +Rauchen and his daughter were now more solitary than ever. The father +had forgotten the roaring stories he used to tell to the neighboring +peasants, over foaming flagons of ale, at the little inn; he sat at his +mill-door and smoked incessantly. Katrine shunned the festivities in +which she was once queen, and her manner, though kindly, was silent and +reserved; she went to church, it is true, but she wore a look of +settled sorrow that awed curiosity and even repelled sympathy. But +scandal is a plant that needs no root in the earth; like the houseleek, +it can thrive upon air; and those who separate themselves the most +entirely from the world are apt, for that very reason, to receive the +larger share of its attention. The village girls looked first with +pity, then with wonder, and at length with aversion, upon the gentle +and unfortunate Katrine. Careless as she was with regard to public +opinion, she saw not without pain the altered looks of her old +associates, and before long she came to know the cause. A cruel +suspicion had been whispered about, touching her in a most tender +point. It was not without reason, so the gossip ran, that she had +refused so eligible an offer of marriage Schönfeld's. The story reached +the ears of Rauchen, at last. With a fierce energy, such as he had +never exhibited before, he tracked it from cottage to cottage, until he +came to Schönfeld's housekeeper, who refused to give her authority. The +next market-day Rauchen encountered the former suitor and publicly +charged him with the slander, in such terms as his baseness deserved. +Schönfeld, thrown off his guard by the sudden attack, struck his +adversary a heavy blow; but the miller rushed upon him, and left him to +be carried home, a bundle of aches and bruises. After this the tongues +of the gossips were quiet; no one was willing to answer for guesses or +rumors at the end of Rauchen's staff; and the father and daughter +resumed their monotonous mode of life. + +The three years at length passed, and Carl Proch returned home,--a +trifle more sedate, perhaps, but the same noble, manly fellow. How +warmly he was received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to +relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter +any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily +married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back; +cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent +rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a +grandson, and often resumed his old place at the inn, telling the old +stories with the old _gusto_ over the ever-welcome ale. But one +morning, not long after, he was found dead in his bed; a smile was on +his face, and his limbs were stretched out as in peaceful repose. + +There was no longer any tie to bind Carl to his native village. All his +kin, as well as Katrine's, were in the grave. He was not bred a miller, +and did not feel competent to manage the mill. Besides, his mind had +received new ideas while he was in the army. He had heard of countries +where men were equal before the laws, where the peasant owed no +allegiance but to society. The germ of liberty had been planted in his +breast, and he could no longer live contented with the rank in which he +had been born. At least he wished that his children might grow up free +from the chilling influences that had fallen upon him. At his earnest +persuasion, Katrine consented that the mill should be sold, and soon +after, with his wife and child, he went to Bremen and embarked for +America. + + * * * * * + +We must now follow the absconding Stolzen, who, with his bag of +thalers, had made good his escape into England. He lived in London, +where he found society among his countrymen. His habitual shrewdness +never deserted him, and from small beginnings he gradually amassed a +moderate fortune. His first experiment in proposing for a wife +satisfied him, but in a great city his sensual nature was fully +developed. His brutal passions were unchecked; conscience seemed to +have left him utterly. At length he began to think about quitting +London. He was afraid to return to Germany, for, as he had left Carl to +all appearance dead, he thought the officers of the law would seize +him. He determined to go to Australia, and secured a berth in a clipper +ship bound for Melbourne, but some accident prevented his reaching the +pier in season; the vessel sailed without him, and was never heard of +afterwards. Then he proposed to buy an estate in Canada; but the owner +failed to make his appearance at the time appointed for the +negotiation, and the bargain was not completed. At last he took passage +for New York, whither a Hebrew acquaintance of his had gone, a year or +two before, and was established as a broker. Upon arriving in that +city, Stolzen purchased of an agent a tract of land in a Western State, +situated on the shore of Lake Michigan; and after reserving a sum of +money for immediate purposes, he deposited his funds with his friend, +the broker, and started westward. He travelled the usual route by rail, +then a short distance in a mail-coach, which carried him within six +miles of his farm. Leaving his luggage to be sent for, he started to +walk the remaining distance. It was a sultry day, and the prairie road +was anything but pleasant to a pedestrian unaccustomed to heat and +dust. After walking less than an hour, he determined to stop at a small +house near the road, for rest, and some water to quench his thirst; but +as he approached, the baying hounds, no less than the squalid children +about the door, repelled him, and he went on to the next house. He now +turned down a green lane, between rows of thrifty trees, to a neat +log-cabin, whose nicely-plastered walls and the regular fence inclosing +it testified to the thrift and good taste of the owner. He knocked; all +was still. Again, and thirsty as he was, he was on the point of +leaving, when he heard a step within. He waited; the door opened, and +before him stood----Katrine! + +She did not know him; but he had not forgotten that voluptuous figure +nor those melting blue eyes. He preferred his requests, looking through +the doorway at the same time to make sure that she had no protector. +Katrine brought the stranger a gourd of water, and offered him a chair. +She did not see the baleful eyes he threw after her as she went about +her household duties. Stolzen had dropped from her firmament like a +fallen and forgotten star. Secure in her unsuspecting innocence, she +chirruped to her baby and resumed her sewing. + +That evening, when Carl Proch returned from his field, after his usual +hard day's labor, he found his wife on the floor, sobbing, speechless, +and the child, unnoticed, crying in his cradle. His dog sat by the +hearth with a look of almost intelligent sympathy, and whined as his +master entered the room. He raised Katrine and held her in his arms +like a child, covered her face with kisses, and implored her to speak. +She seemed to be in a fearful dream, and shrunk from some imagined +danger in the extremest terror. Gradually her sobs became less +frequent, her tremors ceased, and she smiled upon the manly face that +met hers, as though she had only suffered from an imaginary fright. But +when she felt her hair floating upon her shoulders, saw the almost +speaking face of the dog, Bruno, and became conscious of the cries of +the neglected child, the wave of agony swept over her again, and she +could utter only broken ejaculations. As word after word came from her +lips, the unhappy husband's flesh tingled; his hair stiffened with +horror; every nerve seemed to be strung with a new and maddening +tension. There was for him no such thing as fatigue, no distance, no +danger,--no law, no hereafter, no God. All thought and feeling were +drowned in one wild desire for vengeance,--vengeance swift, terrible, +and final. + +He first caressed the dog as though he had been a brother; he put his +arms about the shaggy neck, and shook each faithful paw; he made his +wife caress him also. "God be praised, dear Katrine, for your +protector, the dog!" said he. "Come, now, Bruno!" + +Katrine saw him depart with his dog and gun; but if she guessed his +errand, she did not dare remonstrate. He walked off rapidly,--the dog +in advance, now and then baying as though he were on a trail. + +In the night he returned, and he smiled grimly as he set down the rifle +in its accustomed corner. His wife was waiting for him with intense +anxiety. It was marvellous to her that he was so cheerful. He trotted +her upon his knee, pressed her a hundred times to his bosom, kissed her +forehead, lips, and cheeks, called her his pretty Kate, his dear wife, +and every endearing name he knew. So they sat, like lovers in their +teens, till the purpling east told of a new day. + +The luggage of one Stolzen, a stagecoach passenger, remained at the +tavern uncalled-for, for nearly a year. No one knew the man, and his +disappearance, though a profound mystery, was not an uncommon thing in +a new country. The Hebrew broker in New York received no answers to his +letters, though he had carefully preserved the post-office address +which Stolzen had given him. He began to fear lest he should be obliged +to fulfil the duty of heirship to the property deposited with him. To +quiet his natural apprehensions in view of this event, he determined to +follow Stolzen's track, as much of it as lay in _this_ world, at least, +and find out what had become of him. Upon arriving in the neighborhood, +the Jew had a thorough search made. The country was scoured, and on the +third day there was a discovery. A man walking on the sandy margin of a +river, about two or three miles from Carl's house, saw a skull before +him. As the steep bluff nearly overhung the spot where he stood, he +conjectured that the body to which the skull belonged was to be found +above on its verge. He climbed up, and there saw a headless skeleton. +It was the body of Stolzen, as his memorandum-book and other articles +showed. His pistol was in his pocket, and still loaded; that fact +precluded the idea of suicide. Moreover, upon examining more closely, a +bullet-hole was found in his breast-bone, around which the parts were +broken _outwardly_, showing that the ball must have entered from +behind. It was clear that Stolzen had been murdered. + +The curse of Frau Proch had been most terribly fulfilled. + +Circumstances soon pointed to Carl Proch as the perpetrator. A +stranger, corresponding to the deceased in size and dress, had been +seen, about the time of his disappearance, by the neighboring family, +walking towards Proch's house; and on the evening of the same day an +Irishman met Carl going at a rapid rate, with a gun on his shoulder, as +though in furious pursuit of some one. A warrant for his arrest was +issued, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial. If now the Hebrew +had followed the _lex talionis_, after the manner of his race in +ancient times, it might have fared badly with poor Carl. But as soon as +the broker was satisfied beyond a peradventure that the depositor was +actually dead, he hastened back to New York, joyful as a crow over a +newly-found carcass, to administer upon the estate, leaving the law to +take its own course with regard to the murderer. + +Beyond the two facts just mentioned as implicating Carl, nothing was +proved at the trial. Jameson, the lawyer, whom I mentioned at the +beginning of this story, was engaged for the defence. He found Carl +singularly uncommunicative; and though the government failed to make +out a shadow of a case against his client, he was yet puzzled in his +own mind by Carl's silence, and his real or assumed indifference. +Katrine was in court with her child in her arms, watching the +proceedings with the closest attention; though she, as well as Carl, +was unable to understand any but the most familiar and colloquial +English. The case was speedily decided; the few facts presented to the +jury appeared to have no necessary connection, and there was no known +motive for the deed. The jury unanimously acquitted Carl, and with his +wife and boy he left the court-room. The verdict was approved by the +spectators, for no man in the neighborhood was more universally loved +and respected than Carl Proch. + +Having paid Jameson his fee for his services, Carl was about to depart, +when the lawyer's curiosity could be restrained no longer, and he +called his client back to the private room of his office. + +"Carl," said he, "you look like a good fellow, above anything mean or +wicked; but yet I don't know what to make of you. Now you are entirely +through with this scrape; you are acquitted; and I want to know what is +the meaning of it all. I will keep it secret from all your neighbors. +Did you kill Stolzen, or not?" + +"Well, if I did," he answered, "can they do anything with me?" + +"No," said Jameson. + +"Not if I acknowledge?" + +"No, you have been acquitted by a jury; and by our law a man can never +be tried twice for the same offence. You are safe, even if you should +go into court and confess the deed." + +"Well, then, I did kill him,--and I would again!" + +For the moment, a fierce light gleamed upon the calm and kindly face. +Then, feeling that his answer would give a false view of the case, +without the previous history of the parties, Carl sat down and in his +broken English told to his lawyer the story I have here attempted to +record. It was impossible to doubt a word of it; for the simplicity and +pathos of the narrative were above all art. Here was a simple case, +which the boldest inventor of schemes to punish villany would have been +afraid to use. Its truth is the thing that most startles the mind +accustomed to deal with fictions. + +We leave Carl to return to his farm with his wife, for whom he had +suffered so much, and with the hope that no further temptation may come +to him in such a guise as almost to make murder a virtue. + + + +THE TELEGRAPH. + + Thou lonely Bay of Trinity, + Ye bosky shores untrod, + Lean, breathless, to the white-lipped sea + And hear the voice of God! + + From world to world His couriers fly, + Thought-winged and shod with fire; + The angel of His stormy sky + Rides down the sunken wire. + + What saith the herald of the Lord?-- + "The world's long strife is done! + Close wedded by that mystic cord, + Her continents are one. + + "And one in heart, as one in blood, + Shall all her peoples be; + The hands of human brotherhood + Shall clasp beneath the sea. + + "Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain, + And Asian mountains borne, + The vigor of the Northern brain + Shall nerve the world outworn. + + "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, + Shall thrill the magic thread; + The new Prometheus steals once more + The fire that wakes the dead! + + "Earth gray with age shall hear the strain + Which o'er her childhood rolled; + For her the morning stars again + Shall sing their song of old. + + "For, lo! the fall of Ocean's wall, + Space mocked, and Time outrun!-- + And round the world, the thought of all + Is as the thought of one!" + + Oh, reverently and thankfully + The mighty wonder own! + The deaf can hear, the blind may see, + The work is God's alone. + + Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat + From answering beach to beach! + Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, + And melt the chains of each! + + Wild terror of the sky above, + Glide tamed and dumb below! + Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, + Thy errands to and fro! + + Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, + Beneath the deep so far, + The bridal robe of Earth's accord, + The funeral shroud of war! + + The poles unite, the zones agree, + The tongues of striving cease; + As on the Sea of Galilee, + The Christ is whispering, "Peace!" + + + +THE BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. + + +The singing-birds whose notes are familiar to us, in towns and villages +and the suburbs of the city, are found in the breeding-season only in +these places, and are strangers to the deep woods and solitary +pastures. Most of our singing-birds follow in the wake of the pioneer +of the wilderness, and increase in numbers with the clearing and +settlement of the country,--not, probably, from any dependence on the +protection of mankind, but on account of the increased abundance of the +insect food upon which they subsist, consequent upon the tilling of the +ground. It is well known that the labors of the husbandman cause an +excessive multiplication of all those species of insects whose larvae +are cherished in the soil, and of all that infest the orchard and +garden. The farm is capable of supporting insects just in proportion to +its capacity for producing corn and fruit. Insects will multiply with +their means of subsistence in and upon the earth; and birds, if not +destroyed by artificial methods, will increase in proportion to the +multiplication of those insects which constitute their principal food. + +These considerations will sufficiently account for the fact, which +often excites a little astonishment, that more singing-birds are found +in the suburbs of the city, and among the parks and gardens of the +city, than in the deep forest, where, even in the singing-season, the +silence is sometimes melancholy. It is still to be remarked, that the +species which are thus familiar in their habits do not include all the +singing-birds, but they include all that are well known to the majority +of our people. These are the birds of the garden and orchard. There are +many other species, wild and solitary in their habits, which are +delightful songsters in uncultivated regions remote from the town. But +even these are rare in the depths of the forest. They live on the edge +of the wood and in the half-wooded pasture. + +The birds of the garden and orchard have been frequently described, and +their habits are very generally known; but in the usual descriptions +little has been said of their powers and peculiarities of song. In the +present sketches, I have given particular attention to the vocal powers +of the different birds, and have endeavored to designate the parts +which each one performs in the grand hymn of Nature. I shall first +introduce the Song-Sparrow, (_Fringilla melodia_,) a little bird that +is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest +visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He +is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any +superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his +departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which he +is always recognized. + +In March, before the violet has ventured to peep out from the southern +knoll of the pasture or the sunny brow of the hill, while the northern +skies are liable to pour down at any hour a storm of sleet and snow, +the Song-Sparrow, beguiled by southern winds, has already made his +appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry +notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, +therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest +songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest +tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises +of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come +with a double charm to our ears, because they are harmonized by silence +and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose--in like manner does +the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the +sweet prelude to the universal hymn of Nature. + +His haunts are the pastures which have been half reduced to tillage, +and are still partially filled with wild shrubbery; for he is not so +familiar in his habits as the Hair-bird, that comes close up to our +door-step, to find the crumbs that are swept from our tables. Though +his voice is constantly heard in the garden and orchard, he selects a +more retired spot for his nest, preferring not to trust his progeny to +the doubtful mercy of the lords of creation. In some secure retreat, +under a tussock of herbage or a tuft of shrubbery, the female sits upon +her nest of soft dry grass, containing four or five eggs, of a greenish +white ground, almost entirely covered with brownish specks. Commencing +in April, she rears three broods of young during the season, and her +mate prolongs his notes until the last brood has flown from the nest. + +The notes of the Song-Sparrow would not entitle him to be ranked among +our principal singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations +of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other +bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be +distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate +tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in +the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and +repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one +occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each of the tunes, +and the order of singing them. Of the tunes, as he had numbered them, +the bird "sang No. 1, 27 times; No. 2, 36 times; No. 3, 23 times; No. +4, 19 times; No. 5, 21 times; No. 6, 32 times; No. 7, 18 times. Perhaps +next he would sing No. 2, then perhaps No. 4, or 5, and so on." Mr. +Paine adds, "Some males will sing each tune about fifty times, though +seldom; some will only sing them from five to ten times. But as far as +I have observed, each male has his seven songs. I have applied the rule +to as many as a dozen different birds, and the result has been the +same." + +An individual will sometimes, for half a day, confine himself almost +entirely to a few of these variations; but he will commonly sing each +one more or less in the course of the day. I have observed also, that, +when one principal singer takes up a particular tune, other birds in +the vicinity will unite in the same. The several variations are mostly +in triple time, a few in common time, and there is an occasional +blending of both in the same tune, which consists usually of four bars +or strains, sometimes five, though the song is frequently broken off at +the end of the third strain. This habit of varying his notes through so +many permutations, and the singularly fine intonations of many of them, +entitle the Song-Sparrow to a very high rank as a singing-bird. + +There is a manifest difference in the expression of these several +tunes. The one which I have marked as No. 3 is particularly plaintive, +and is usually in common time. No. 2 is the one which I think is most +frequently sung. No. 5 is querulous and entirely unmusical. There is a +remarkable precision in the song of this bird, and the finest singers +are those which, in the language of musicians, have the least +execution. There are some individuals that blend their notes together +so promiscuously, and use so many flourishes, that it is difficult to +identify their song, or to perceive its expression. Whether these tunes +of the Song-Sparrow express to his mate, or to others of his species, +different sentiments, and convey different messages, or whether the +bird adopts them for his own amusement, I have not been able to +determine. Neither have I learned whether a certain hour of the day or +a certain state of the weather predisposes him to sing a particular +tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; +and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their +matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, +of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and +solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent +and a definite object in every instinct which she has established among +her creatures, it is not probable that this habit of the Song-Sparrow +is the mere result of accident. All the variations of his song are +given, with the specimens, at the end of this article, and, though +individuals differ in their singing, the notes will afford the reader a +good general idea of the several tunes. + +Soon after the arrival of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers +have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more +fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (_Fringilla +graminea_,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This +species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, +when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp +of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a lower key, than +that of the present species. By careless observers, these two Finches, +on account of the similarity in their general appearance and habits, +are considered identical. The Vesper-bird, however, is the least +familiar of the two, and, when both are singing at the same time, will +be found to occupy a position more remote from the house than the +other. In several localities, these two species are distinguished by +the names of Bush-Sparrow and Ground-Sparrow, from their supposed +different habits of placing their nests, one in a bush and the other on +the ground. But they do not in fact differ in this respect, as each +species occasionally builds in both ways. + +The Vesper-bird attracts more general attention to his notes than the +Sparrow, because he sings a longer, though a more monotonous song, and +warbles with more fervency. His notes bear considerable resemblance to +those of the Canary-bird, but they are more subdued and plaintive, and +have a peculiar reedy sound, which is never perceived in the notes of +the Canary. This bird is periodical in his habits of song, confining +his lays to particular hours of the day and conditions of the weather. +The Song-Sparrow, on the contrary, sings about equally from morning to +night, and but little more at one hour than another; and the different +performers of this species do not seem to join in concert. This habit +renders the latter more companionable, at the same time it causes his +notes to be less regarded than those of the Vesper-bird, who pours them +forth more sparingly, and at regular periods. + +The Vesper-bird begins with all his kindred in a general concert at +early dawn, after which they are comparatively silent until sunset, +when they repeat their concert, with still greater zeal than they +chanted in the morning. It is from this circumstance that it has +obtained the name it bears--from its evening hymn, or vespers. I have +heard this name applied to it only in one locality; but it is so +precisely applicable to its habits, that I have thought it worthy of +being retained as its distinguishing cognomen. There are particular +states of the weather that frequently call out the birds of this +species into a general concert at other periods of the day--as when +rain is suddenly followed by sunshine, or when a clear sky is suddenly +darkened by clouds, presenting to them a sort of occasional morn and +occasional even. It may be remarked, that you seldom hear one of these +birds singing alone; but when one begins, all others in the vicinity +immediately join him. + +The usual resorts of the Vesper-bird are the pastures and the +hay-fields; hence the name of Grass-Finch, by which he is usually +distinguished. His voice is heard frequently by the rustic roadsides, +where he picks up a considerable portion of his subsistence. This is +the little bird that so generally serenades us during our evening +walks, at a little distance from the town, and not so far into the +woods as the haunts of the Thrushes. When we go out into the country, +on pleasant days in June or July, at nightfall, we hear multitudes of +them singing sweetly from a hundred different points in the fields and +farms. + +Among the birds which are endowed by Nature with the gift of song in +connection with gaudy plumage is the American Goldfinch, or Hemp-bird, +(_Fringilla tristis_,) one of the most interesting and delicate of the +feathered tribe. Of all our birds this bears the closest resemblance to +the Canary, both in his plumage and in the notes of his song. He cannot +be ranked with the finest of our songsters, being deficient in compass +and variety. But he has great sweetness of tone, and is equalled by few +birds in the rapidity of his execution. His note of complaint is +exactly like that of the Canary, and is heard at almost all times of +the year. He utters also, when flying, a very animated series of notes, +during the repeated undulations of his night, and they seem to be +uttered with each effort he makes to rise. + +It is remarkable that this bird, though he often rears two broods in a +season, does not begin to build his nest until July, after the first +broods of the Robin and the Song-Sparrow have flown from their nests. +Mr. Augustus Fowler[2] is of opinion, from his observation of their +habits of feeding their young, that the cause of this procrastination +is, "that they would be unable to find, in the spring and early summer, +those new and milky seeds which are the necessary food of their young," +and takes occasion to allude to that beneficent law of Nature which +provides that these birds "should not bring forth their young until the +very time when those seeds used by them for food have passed into the +milk, in which state they are easily dissolved by the stomach, and when +an abundant supply may always be found." + +The Hemp-birds are remarkable for associating at a certain season, and +singing, as it were, in choirs. "During spring and summer," says Mr. +Fowler, "they rove about in small flocks, and in July will assemble +together in considerable numbers on a particular tree, seemingly for no +other purpose than to sing. These concerts are held by them on the +forenoon of each day, for a week or ten days, after which they soon +commence building their nests. I am inclined to believe that this is +their time of courtship, and that they have a purpose in these meetings +beside that of singing. If perchance one is heard in the air, the males +utter their call-note with great emphasis, particularly if the +new-comer be a female; and while in her undulating flight she describes +a circle, preparatory to alighting, they will stand almost erect, move +their heads to the right and left, and burst simultaneously into song." + +While engaged in these concerts, it would seem as if they were governed +by some rule, that enabled them to time their voices, and to swell or +diminish the volume of sound. Some of this effect is undoubtedly +produced by the gradual manner in which the different voices join in +harmony, beginning with one or two, and increasing in numbers in a sort +of geometrical progression, until all are singing at once, and then in +the same gradual manner becoming silent. This produces the effect of a +perfect _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_. Beginning, as it seems, at a +distance, one voice leads on another, and the numbers multiply until +they make a loud shout, which dies away gradually until one single +voice winds up the chorus. These concerts are repeated at intervals, +sometimes for an hour in duration. + +Another peculiar habit of the Hemp-bird is that of building a nest, and +then tearing it to pieces before any eggs have been deposited in it, +and using the materials to make a new nest in another locality. In +former years I have repeatedly watched this singular operation, in the +Lombardy poplars that stood before my study-windows. I have thought +that the male bird only was addicted to this practice, and that this +might be his method of amusement while unprovided with a partner. The +nest of the Hemp-bird is made of cotton, the down of the fern, and +other soft materials, woven together with threads and the fibres of +bark, and lined with thistle-down, if it be late enough to obtain it, +and sometimes with cow's hair. It is commonly placed in the fork of the +slender branches of a maple, linden, or poplar, and is fastened to them +with singular ingenuity. + +Among the earliest songsters of spring, occasionally tuning his voice +before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or +American Linnet (_Fringilla purpurea_). I have frequently heard his +notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard +one warbling cheerily on the 18th of February. But the Linnet does not +persevere like the Song-Sparrow, after he has once commenced. His voice +is only occasionally heard, until the middle of April, after which he +is a very constant singer. + +The notes of this bird are very simple and melodious, and some +individuals greatly excel others in their powers of song. It is +generally believed that the young males are the best singers, and that +age diminishes their vocal capacity. The greater number utter only a +few strains, resembling the notes of the Warbling Fly-catcher, (_Vireo +gilvus_,) and these are constantly repeated during the greater part of +the day. His song consists of four or five bars or strains; but there +are individuals that extend them _ad libitum_, varying their notes +after the manner of the Canary. The latter, however, sings with more +precision, and is louder and shriller in his tones. I have not observed +that this bird is more prone to sing in the morning and evening than at +noonday and at all hours. + +I have alluded to the fact that the finest singing-birds build their +nests and seek their food either on the ground or among the shrubbery +and the lower branches of trees, and that, when singing, they are +commonly perched rather low. The Linnet is an exception to this general +habit of the singing-birds, and, in company with the Warbling +Fly-catchers, he is commonly high up in an elm or some other tall tree, +and almost entirely out of sight, when exercising himself in song. It +is this preference for the higher branches of trees that enables these +birds, as well as the Golden Robin, to be denizens of the city. Hence +they may be heard singing as freely and melodiously from the trees on +Boston Common as in the wild-wood or orchard in the country. + +I have seen the Linnet frequently in confinement; but he does not sing +so well in a cage as in a state of freedom. His finest and most +prolonged strains are delivered while on the wing. On such occasions +only does he sing with fervor. While perched on a tree, his song is +short and not greatly varied. If you closely watch his movements when +he is singing, he may be seen on a sudden to take flight, and, while +poising himself in the air, though still advancing, he pours out a +continued strain of melody, not surpassed by the notes of any other +bird. On account of the infrequency of these occasions, it is seldom we +have an opportunity to witness a full exhibition of the musical powers +of the Linnet. + +The male American Linnet is crimson on the head, neck, and throat, +dusky on the upper part of its body, and beneath somewhat +straw-colored. It is remarkable that a great many individuals are +destitute of this color, being plainly clad, like the female. These are +supposed to be old birds, and the loss of color is attributed to age. +The same change takes place when the bird is confined. + +The little bird whose notes serve more than those of any other species +to enliven the summer noondays in our villages is the House-Wren +(_Troglodytes fulvus_). It is said to reside and rear its young chiefly +in the Middle States; but it is far from being uncommon in +Massachusetts, and, as it extends its summer migrations to Labrador, it +is probable that it breeds there also. It is evident, however, that its +breeding-places are not confined to northern latitudes. It is a +migratory bird, is never seen here in winter, but commonly arrives in +May and returns south early in October. It builds in a hollow tree, +like the Blue-bird, or in a box or other vessel provided for it, and by +furnishing such accommodations we may easily entice one to make its +home in our inclosures. + +The Wren is a very active bird, and one of the most restless of the +feathered tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when singing he +is always flitting about and changing his position. We see him in +almost all places, as it were, at the same moment of time,--now +warbling in ecstasy from the roof of a shed, then, with his wings +spread and feathers ruffled, scolding furiously at a Blue-bird or a +Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a +cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we +observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and +out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the +stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of +the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden +under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a +cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling +vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have occupied +hardly a minute, so rapid and incessant is he in his motions. + +The notes of the Wren are very lively and garrulous, and, if not +uttered more frequently during the heat of the day, are certainly more +noticeable at this hour. There is a concert at noonday, as well as in +the morning and evening, among the birds, and in the former the Wren is +one of the principal musicians. After the full rays of the sun have +silenced the early performers, the Song-Sparrow and the Red Thrush +continue to sing, at intervals, the greater part of the day. The Wren +is likewise heard at all hours; but when the languishing heat of noon +has arrived, and most of the birds are silent, the few that continue to +sing become more than usually vocal, and seem to form a select company. +They appear, indeed, to prefer the noonday, because the general silence +that prevails at this hour renders their voices more distinguishable +than at other times. The birds which are thus, as it were, associated +with the Wren, in this noonday concert, are the Bobolink, the Cat-bird, +and the two Warbling Fly-catchers, occasionally joined by the few and +simple notes of the Summer Yellow-bird. If we are in the vicinity of +the deep woods, we may also hear, at this hour, the loud and shrill +voice of the Golden-Crowned Thrush, a bird that is partial to the heat +of noon. + +Of all these, however, the Wren is the most remarkable, having a note +that is singularly varied and animated. He exhibits great compass and +power of execution, but wants variety in his tones. He begins very +sharp and shrill, like a grasshopper, then suddenly falls to a series +of low guttural notes, and ascends, like the rolling of a drum, to +another series of high notes, rapidly trilled. Almost without a pause, +he recommences with his querulous insect-chirp, and proceeds through +the same trilling and demi-semiquavering as before. He is not +particular about the part of the song which he makes his closing note, +but will leave off right in the middle of a strain, when he appears to +be in the height of ecstasy, to pick up a spider or a fly. + +As the Wren raises two broods of young in a season, his notes are +prolonged to a late period of the summer, being frequently heard in the +second or third week in August. He leaves for a southern clime about +the first of October. In his migratory habits he differs from the +European Wren, which is a constant resident in his native regions. + +Our American birds, like the American flowers, have not been celebrated +in classic song. They are scarcely known, except to our own people, and +they have not in general been exalted by praise above their real +merits. We read, both in prose and verse, the praises of the European +Lark, Linnet, and Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been +immortalized in song. But the American Robin, (_Turdus migratorius_,) +though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different +habits. Little has been written about him, and he enjoys but little +celebrity; he has never been puffed and overpraised, and, though +universally admired, the many who admire him are diffident all the +while, lest they are mistaken in their judgment and are wasting their +admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, and whose true merits +fall short of their own estimate. + +I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about +genius--and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he +cannot cry like a chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his +charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and +incongruous sounds--for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a +singing-bird. Let them say of him, in the cant of modern criticism, +that his performances cannot be great, because they are faultless; it +is enough for me, that his mellow notes, heard at the earliest flush of +morning, in the more busy hour of noon, or the quiet lull of evening, +come upon the ear in a stream of unqualified melody, as if he had +learned to sing under the direct instruction of that beautiful Dryad +who taught the Lark and the Nightingale. The Robin is surpassed by +certain birds in some particular qualities. The Mocking-bird has more +power, the Red Thrush more variety, the Vesper-bird more execution, and +the Bobolink more animation; but each of these birds has more faults +than the Robin, and would be less esteemed as a constant companion, a +vocalist for all hours, whose strains never tire and never offend. + +There are thousands who admire the Mocking-bird, because, after pouring +forth a continued stream of ridiculous and disagreeable sounds, or a +series of two or three notes repeated more than a hundred times in +uninterrupted and monotonous succession, he condescends to utter a +single delightfully modulated strain. He often brings his tiresome +_extravaganzas_ to a magnificent climax of melody, and just as often +concludes an inimitable chant with a most contemptible bathos. But the +notes of the Robin are all melodious, all delightful,--loud without +vociferation, mellow without monotony, fervent without ecstasy, and +combining more of mellowness of tone, plaintiveness, cheerfulness, and +propriety of execution, than those of any other bird. + +The Robin is the Philomel of our spring and summer mornings in New +England, and in all the country north and west of these States. Without +his sweet notes, the mornings would be like a vernal landscape without +flowers, or a summer-evening sky without tints. He is the chief +performer in the delightful anthem that welcomes the rising day. Of the +others, the best are but accompaniments of more or less importance. +Remove the Robin from this woodland orchestra, and it would be left +without a _soprano_. Over all the northern parts of this continent, +wherever there are any human settlements, these birds are numerous and +familiar. There is probably not an orchard in all New England that is +not supplied with several of these musicians. When we consider the +millions thus distributed over this broad country, we can imagine the +sublimity of that chorus which, from the middle of April until the last +of July, must daily ascend to heaven from the voices of these birds, +not one male of which is silent, on any pleasant morning, from the +earliest flush of dawn until sunrise. + +In my boyhood, an early morning-walk was one of my favorite +recreations, and never can I forget those delightful matins that +awaited me at every turn. Even then I wondered that so little +admiration was expressed for the song of the Robin, who seemed to me to +be worthy of the highest regard. The Robin, when reared in confinement, +is one of the most affectionate and interesting of birds. His powers of +song are likewise susceptible of great improvement. Though not prone to +imitation, he may be taught to sing tunes, and to imitate the notes of +other birds. I have heard one whistle "Over the water to Charlie" as +well as it could be played with a fife. Indeed, this bird is so +tractable, that I believe any well-directed efforts would never fail of +teaching him to sing any simple melody. + +But what do we care about his power of learning artificial music? Even +if he could be taught to perform like a _maestro_, this would not +enhance his value as a minstrel of the woods. We are concerned with the +birds only as they are in a state of nature. It is the simplicity of +the songs of birds, as I have before remarked, that constitutes their +principal charm; and were the Robins so changed in their nature as to +relinquish their native notes, and sing only tunes hereafter, we should +listen to them with as much indifference as to the whistling of boys in +the streets. + +In the elms on Boston Common, and in all the lofty trees in the suburbs +as well as in the country villages, are two little birds whose songs +are heard daily and hourly, from the middle of May until the latter +part of summer. These are the Warbling Fly-catchers (_Vireo gilvus and +V. olivaceus_). The first is commonly designated as the Warbling Vireo, +the second as the Red-eyed Vireo. The former arrives about a week or +ten days earlier than the other, and becomes silent likewise at a +somewhat earlier period. Both species are very similar in their habits, +frequenting the villages in preference to the woods, singing at all +hours of the day, particularly at noon, taking all their insect prey +from the leaves and branches of trees, or seizing it as it flits by +their perch, and amusing themselves, while thus employed, with +oft-repeated fragments of song. Each builds a pensile nest, or places +it in the fork of the slender branches of a tree. I have seen a nest of +the Warbling Vireo placed less than fifteen feet from the ground, on a +pear-tree, directly opposite the window of a chamber that was +constantly occupied; but the nests of both species are usually +suspended at a considerable height from the ground. + +The notes of the Warbling Vireo have been described by the words, +"Brigadier, Brigadier, Bridget." They are few, simple, and melodious, +and being often repeated, they form a very important part of the sylvan +music of cultivated and thickly-settled places. It is difficult to +obtain sight of this little warbler while he is singing, on account of +his small size, the olive color of his plumage, and his habit of +perching among the dense foliage of the trees. + +The Red-eyed Vireo is more generally known by his note, because he is +particularly vocal during the heat of the long summer-days, when other +birds are comparatively silent. The modulation of his notes is similar +to that of the common Robin, but his tones are sharper, and he sings in +a very desultory manner, leaving off very frequently in the middle of a +strain to seize a moth or a beetle. Singing, while he is engaged in +song, never seems to be his sole employment. This is the little bird +that warbles for us late in the summer, after almost all other birds +have become silent, uttering his moderate notes, as if for his own +amusement, during all the heat of the day, from the trees by the +roadsides and in our inclosures. We might then suppose him to be +repeating very moderately the words, "Do you hear me? Do you see me?" +with the rising inflection of the voice, and with a pause after each +sentence, as if he waited for an answer. + +As soon as the cherry-tree is in blossom, and when the oak and the +maple are beginning to unfold their plaited leaves, the loud and mellow +notes of the Golden Robin (_Icterus Baltimore_) are heard for the first +time in the year. I have never known the birds of this species to +arrive before this date, and they seem to be governed by the supply of +their insect food, which probably becomes abundant simultaneously with +the flowering of the orchards. These birds may from that time be +observed diligently hunting among the branches and foliage of the +trees, and they appear to make a particular examination of the +blossoms, from which they obtain a great variety of flies and beetles +that are lodged in them. While thus employed, the bird frequently +utters his brief, but loud and melodious notes; but he sings, like the +Vireo, only while attending to the wants of life. Almost all remarkable +singing-birds, when warbling, give themselves up entirely to song, and +pay no regard to other demands upon their time until they have +concluded. But the Golden Robin never relaxes from his industry, nor +remains stationed upon the branch of a tree for the sole purpose of +singing. He sings, like an industrious maid-of-all-work, only while +employed in the ordinary concerns of life. + +The Golden Robin is said to inhabit North America from Canada to +Mexico; but there is reason to believe that the species is most +abundant in the north-eastern parts of the continent, and that a +greater number breed in the New England States than either south or +west of this section. They are also more numerous in the suburbs of +cities and towns than in the ruder and more primitive parts of the +country. Their peculiar manner of protecting their pensile nests, by +hanging them from the extremities of the lofty branches of an elm or +other tall tree, enables the bird to rear its young with great +security, even in the heart of the city. The only animals that are able +to reach their nests are the smaller squirrels, which sometimes descend +the long, slender branches upon which they are suspended, and devour +the eggs. + +This depredation I have never witnessed; but I have seen the Red +Squirrel descend in this manner to devour the crysalis of a certain +insect, which was rolled up in a leaf. + +The ways and manners of the Golden Robin are very interesting. He is +remarkable for his vivacity, and his bright plumage renders all his +movements conspicuous. His plumage needs no description, since every +one is familiar with its colors, as they are seen like flashes of fire +among the trees. The bird derives its specific name (Baltimore) from +the resemblance of its colors to the livery of Lord Baltimore of +Maryland. The name of a bird ought to have either a sylvan or a poetic +origin. This has neither. I prefer, therefore, the common and +expressive name of Golden Robin. + +This bird is supposed to possess considerable power of musical +imitation. Still it may be observed that in all cases he gives the +notes of those birds only whose voice resembles his own. Thus, he often +repeats the song of the Red-bird, but in doing this he varies his own +notes no more than he might do without meaning any imitation. Though he +repeats but few notes, he utters them with great variety of modulation. +Sometimes for several days he confines himself to a single strain, and +afterwards for about an equal space of time he will adopt another +strain. Sometimes he lengthens his brief notes into an extended melody, +and sings in a sort of ecstasy, like the birds of the Finch tribe. Such +musical paroxysms are exceedingly rare in his case, and seem to be +occasioned by some momentary exultation. + +The Golden Robin rears but one brood of young in this part of the +country, and his cheerful notes are discontinued soon after the young +have left their nest. The song of the old bird seems after this period +hardly necessary to the offspring, who keep up an incessant chirping +from the moment of leaving their nest until they are able to accompany +the old ones to the woods, whither they retire in the latter part of +the season. It is remarkable, that, after a perfect silence of two or +three weeks after this time, the Golden Robins suddenly make their +appearance again for a few days, uttering the same merry notes with +which they hailed the arrival of summer. They soon disappear again, and +before autumn arrives they make their annual journey to the South, +where they pass the winter. + +There is no singing-bird in New England that enjoys the notoriety of +the Bobolink (_Icterus agripennis_). He is like a rare wit in our +social or political circles. Everybody is talking about him and quoting +his remarks, and all are delighted with his company. He is not without +great merits as a songster; but he is well known and admired, because +he is showy, noisy, and flippant, and sings only in the open field, and +frequently while poised on the wing, so that everybody who hears him +can see him, and know who is the author of the strains that afford him +so much delight. He sings also at broad noonday, when everybody is out, +and is seldom heard before sunrise, while other birds are pouring forth +their souls in a united concert of praise. He waits until the sun is +up, and when most of the early performers have become silent, as if +determined to secure a good audience before exhibiting his powers. + +The Bobolink, or Conquedle, has unquestionably great talents as a +musician. In the grand concert of Nature it is he who performs the +_recitative_ parts, which he delivers with the utmost fluency and +rapidity; and one must be a careful listener, not to lose many of his +words. He is plainly the merriest of all the feathered creation, almost +continually in motion, and singing upon the wing, apparently in the +greatest ecstasy of joy. + +There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound +is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him +without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his +companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon +him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his +spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. The object of his +love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a +modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel. It +is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her +costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces. +She must be entirely without vanity, unless we suppose that it is +gratified by observing the pomp and display which are made by her +partner, and by listening to his delightful eloquence of song: for if +we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed that he is unsurpassed +in fluency and rapidity of utterance; and if we regard him only as a +musician, he is unrivalled in brilliancy of execution. + +Vain are all attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly +original style. The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and +refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage. I cannot look +upon him as ever in a very serious humor. He seems to be a lively, +jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when +half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same +orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons +dramatized in some comic opera. These birds never remain stationary +upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary +amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often +commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an +apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part +while balancing themselves on the wing. The merriest part of the day +with these birds is the later afternoon, during the hour preceding +dewfall, and before the Robins and Thrushes commence their evening +hymn. Then, assembled in company, it would seem as if they were +practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own +movements, as he sallies forth and returns,--and nothing can exceed +their apparent merriment. + +The Bobolink usually commences his warbling just after sunrise, when +the Robin, having sung from the earliest dawn, brings his performance +to a close. Nature seems to have provided that the serious parts of her +musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, and that the +lively and comic strains shall follow them. In the evening this order +is reversed; and after the comedy is concluded, Nature lulls us to +meditation and repose by the mellow notes of the little Vesper-bird, +and the pensive and still more melodious strains of the solitary +Thrushes. + +In pleasant, sunshiny weather, the Bobolink seldom flies without +singing, often hovering on the wing over the place where his mate is +sitting upon her ground-built nest, and pouring forth his notes with +great loudness and fluency. The Bobolink is one of our social birds, +one of those species that follow in the footsteps of man, and multiply +with the progress of agriculture. He is not a frequenter of the woods; +he seems to have no taste for solitude. He loves the orchard and the +mowing-field, and many are the nests which are exposed by the scythe of +the haymaker, if the mowing be done early in the season. Previously to +the settlement of America, these birds must have been comparatively +rare in the New England States, and were probably confined to the open +prairies and savannas in the northwestern territory. + + +THE O'LINCON FAMILY. + + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there,--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week, and, ere you + marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and + wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + Oh, what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead! + How they sing, and how they play! See, they fly away, away! + Now they gambol o'er the clearing,--off again, and then appearing; + Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar, and now they sing:-- + "We must all be merry and moving; we must all be happy and loving; + For when the midsummer has come, and the grain has ripened its ear, + The haymakers scatter our young, and we mourn for the rest of the + year. + Then Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste, away!" + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE SONG-SPARROW, AND ITS VARIATIONS. Three +lines of music. Line one is labelled THEME. Line 2 is labelled Var. 1 +and line 3 is Var. 2.] + +[Illustration: (musical notation) NOTE.--The notes marked _guttural_ +seem to me to be performed by a rapid trilling of these notes with +their octave. It should be added, that no bird sings constantly in so +regular time as is represented above, and the intervals between the +high and low notes are very irregular. Both the time and the tune are +in great measure _ad libitum_] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE LINNET. (_Fringilla purpurea_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE WREN. (_Trogledytes fulvus_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE ROBIN. (_Turdus migratorius_.) (musical +notation)] + +Another--Flexibly modulated, as if pronouncing the words below. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Tu lu lu, tu lu lu, tu lu lu, too loo. + +NOTE.--The Robin is continually varying his notes; so that the two +specimens, as given above, may be considered but the theme upon which +he constructs his melody. + +SONG OF THE WARBLING VIREO. (_V. Gilvus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Brigadier Brigadier Brigadier Briget. + +SONG OF THE RED-EYED VIREO. (_V. olivaceus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] pauses to Take a fly. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] takes another, The same repeated without +conclusion. + +SONG OF THE GOLDEN ROBIN. (_Icterus Baltimore._) [Illustration: Musical +staff] + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles S. Paine, of East Randolph, who, I believe, +was the first to observe this habit of the Song-Sparrow.] + +[Footnote 2: Mr. Augustus Fowler of Danversport, who has made one of +the finest collections of the eggs of native birds. His drawings of the +same are beautifully executed, accompanied by representations of the +nests and of the foliage that surrounded them. This gentleman and his +brother, Mr. S.P. Fowler, have found leisure, during the intervals of +their occupation in a mechanical art, to acquire a knowledge of certain +branches of natural history which would do honor to a professor.] + + + +THE OLD WELL. + + +On a bright April morning many years ago, a stout, red-faced old +gentleman, Geoffrey Purcill, followed by several workmen bearing +shovels and pick-axes, took his way to a little knoll on which stood a +wide-spreading chestnut-tree. When they reached the top of the knoll, +the old man paused a moment and then struck his gold-headed cane upon +the ground at some little distance from the trunk of the tree, saying, +"Dig here." + +The workmen looked at each other and then at their master. + +"It would be useless to dig a well here, Sir," said one of the workmen, +very respectfully,--"no water would ever come into it." + +"Who asked for your opinion?" inquired Geoffrey, in an angry tone. "Do +as I bid you;--the well shall be digged here, and water _shall_ come +into it." + +The man ventured no further remonstrance; he took off his jacket, and +struck his pickaxe into the hard, dry soil near the point where the +cane rested. + +Geoffrey Purcill was a choleric old gentleman, who, having had his own +way all his life, was by no means inclined to forego that privilege now +that he was advanced in years. As he sat beneath the chestnut-tree, one +warm spring day, he felt very thirsty, and he suddenly thought what a +good thing it would be to have a well there, so that he might refresh +himself with a draught of clear, cool water, without the trouble of +returning to the house. The more thirsty he grew, the pleasanter seemed +the project to him,--a large, deep well, neatly stoned, with a sweep +and buckets,--it would be a pretty object to look at, as well as +comfort to man and beast. The well should be digged forthwith, and what +Geoffrey Purcill once resolved upon he was not slow to execute; and, +despite the remonstrances of those who knew better than he, the work +was commenced at once. + +A more unpromising place for a well could not have been selected in all +his extensive grounds; but he was not a man to be patiently baffled +even by Nature herself, and he stood looking with grim satisfaction at +the hole which rapidly widened and deepened under the vigorous efforts +of his sturdy workmen. + +Day after day old Geoffrey watched his workmen on the knoll. The well +increased in size till it was large enough to have watered a whole +caravan,--but the desert of Sahara itself was not drier. Geoffrey +fumed, raved, and swore; and when two of the men were killed by the +falling of the earth, and the rest absolutely refused to work any +longer, he bade them go, a pack of ungrateful scoundrels as they were, +and, procuring more laborers, declared "he would dig there till the +Devil came to fetch him." + +Geoffrey was as good as his word;--he labored with a pertinacity worthy +of a better object, and dug deeper into the bowels of the earth, and +partly stoned his well,--but no water, save that which fell from +heaven, ever appeared in it. + +And when old Geoffrey was gathered to his fathers, he left his house +and grounds to his only daughter, Eleanor Purcill, on the express +condition that the well was not to be filled up, but to remain open +till water did come into it. + + * * * * * + +One July day, when Geoffrey Purcill had been some twenty years with his +fathers, or with Satan, (which two destinies might have been one and +the same, after all, for he came of a turbulent, wicked race,) two +children, a boy and girl, sat on the brink of the well and looked down +into it. It was half filled with the rubbish of the fallen stones, but +it was still deep, and dark enough to tempt their curious eyes into +trying to discover what lay hidden in its shadowy depths. The great +chestnut-tree, rich with drooping, feathery blossoms, shaded them from +the burning sun,--a few stray beams only finding their way through the +glossy leaves, and resting on the golden curls of the girl. + +The boy leaned over the well, and peered into it;--the little girl bent +forward, as if to do the same, but drew back again. + +"Take hold of my hand, Mark," said she, "and let me lean over as you +do." + +"What do you want to look in for?" asked the boy,--"there is nothing to +see. Oh, yes," continued he, mischievously, "there is a horrid dragon, +just such as St. George fought with, lying all curled up in the bottom +of the well, with fire and smoke coming out of his mouth." + +Rosamond Purcill was too true a descendant of old Geoffrey to be +frightened at the thought of a dragon. She caught hold of Mark's arm to +steady herself, and leaned over the well. + +"Let me see! let me see!" cried she, eagerly. + +Mark made one or two feints of pushing her in, but at last held her +firmly by the waist, while she looked in vain for the fabulous monster +below. + +"Where is he, Mark? I don't see anything, and I don't believe you saw +him." + +"Oh, yes, I did," said Mark;--"there, don't you see the end of his tail +sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little +girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for +luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up in a +minute." + +"What stories, Mark! Aunt Eleanor says there are no dragons, nor ever +were." + +"Pooh!" retorted Mark, contemptuously,--"Aunt Eleanor has not seen +everything that there is to be seen in the world. Look again, Rosy." + +Again the little curly head was bent over the well, somewhat puzzled +which to believe, Aunt Eleanor or Mark, but half-inclined to credit +Mark's eyes rather than Aunt Eleanor's words. + +"Do you think that can be one of his scales?" asked she, pointing to a +small piece of tin which glittered in a stray sunbeam among the stones. + +Mark's eyes followed the direction of her finger, and he was about to +declare that it must be a scale that the dragon had scraped off his +back, wriggling among the stones, when both children were startled by a +loud voice calling out, "What are you doing, children? You will fall +into the well and break your good-for-nothing little necks!" + +Mark and Rosamond drew back, and saw a young man, their brother +Bradford, with a basket and a fishing-rod in his hand, coming up the +knoll. + +"Why are you here, Mark?" asked he. "Aunt Eleanor thinks it a dangerous +place, and has forbidden you to play here." + +Mark looked up at his brother. "I come," said he, sturdily, "for that +very reason,--because I am told not to. I won't mind Aunt Eleanor, nor +any other woman." + +Bradford shook his head and burst out into a laugh. "Ah, Mark, my boy," +said he, with a serious, comical air, "it will do very well for you to +talk,--you will find out, sooner or later, that all men have to do just +what women wish." + +Mark opened his incredulous eyes, and inwardly resolved that this +should never be the case with him; and considering that Bradford was +only eighteen it is somewhat remarkable that he should have gained so +much wisdom, either by observation or experience, at so early an age. + +"Mark says," chimed in Rosamond, "that there is a dragon at the bottom +of the well; and I want to see him." + +"A dragon?" cried Bradford,--"Mark is a story-teller, and you are a +goose;--but if there is one, I will catch him for you";--and he stood +on the brink of the well, and sportively threw his line into it. + +"You are a pretty fellow to talk about catching a dragon, Brad!" +retorted Mark, a little nettled at the tone in which Bradford spoke of +him,--"you can't even catch a shiner!"--and he glanced at Bradford's +empty basket. + +Bradford laughed louder than before. "And for that very reason I expect +to catch the dragon. One kind of a line will not catch all kinds of +fish; and this line may be good for nothing but dragons, after +all.--There! I've got a bite. Stand back, Rosy," cried he, "the dragon +will be on the grass in a minute." + +Bradford tried to pull up his line, but it was either entangled among +the stones, or had some heavy object attached to it, for the rod bent +beneath the weight as he with a strong pull endeavored to draw up his +prize. Rosamond's eyes opened to their widest extent, and, fully +expecting to see the dragon swinging wide-mouthed in the air over her +head, drew a little closer to Mark, who, on his part, wondered what +Bradford was at, and whether he was not playing some trick upon him. + +When the end of the line rose to the top of the well, they saw +suspended by the two hooks, not a winged, scaly monster, but a small +rusty box, in the fastenings of which the hooks had caught. + +Rosamond drew a long breath,--"Is that all, Bradford? I am so sorry! I +thought, to be sure, you had the dragon." + +"Never mind the dragon, Rosy," cried he; "let us see what I have +caught. + +"Who knows but the purse of Fortunatus or the slipper of Cinderella may +be in here?--they have been lost for many a day, and nobody knows where +they are." + +Bradford knelt down on the grass, and, unhooking his line, strove to +undo the rusty hasp; but it resisted all the efforts of his fingers, +and it was only by the aid of a knife and a stone that he opened the +box. In it was a morocco case, much discolored, but still in tolerable +preservation, from which he drew a small manuscript book. + +Rosamond's disappointment was greater than before. "It is nothing but a +writing-book, after all," said she. "I wish you had not said anything +about the purse or slipper, and then I should never have thought of +them. You never heard anybody say where they thought the purse and +slipper were hid,--did you?" + +"Come, Rosy," cried Mark, "come down to the meadow; there is nothing +more to be got out of the old well. Let us leave Brad alone with his +book and his fish." + +The children turned away towards the meadow,--Rosamond meditating upon +the probability of her ever finding the purse and slipper, if she +should ever set out in quest of them, and Mark thinking what a fool +such a big fellow as Bradford must be, to mind any woman that ever was +born. + +Bradford took the box and the book to the chestnut-tree, and, +stretching himself at full length in the shade, began to turn over the +leaves. It was a journal, written in a delicate, graceful hand; and +though the paper was somewhat yellow, and the ink faded, the writing +was perfectly legible. Bradford looked at it, carelessly reading here +and there a sentence, till his eye catching some familiar names, he +opened it at the commencement, and read as follows:-- + +"_December_ 31.--It is the last night of the old year. A few more +steps, and the old year will have vanished into the great hall of the +Past, where all the ages that ever have been are gathered. I have been +sitting the last hour by myself, and have fancied that time moved not +with its usual swiftness,--that the old year lingered with a sad +regret, as if loath to pass away and let the new come in. Even now the +midnight clock is striking,--eleven,--twelve;--the last flutter of the +old year's robe is out of sight, and the new year glides in with +noiseless feet, like one who enters the chamber of the dead. These are +but melancholy fancies;--because I am sad myself must I put all the +world in mourning? The old year did not linger;--it is only I that am +loath to go. I have been so happy here, that the prospect of spending +the coming year with Cousin Eleanor fills my mind with sad +forebodings;--and yet my childish remembrances of her have in them +nothing unpleasant. I think of her as a grave, quiet woman, who never +strove to attract and win the love of a child. How I shall miss the +life and gayety, the jests and laughter of Madge and Bertha! Madge the +more, because she is so full of whims and oddities. To-night she came +into my room, and brought this little book for me to write a journal of +all that befell me while I was gone, making me promise to write often +in it. Not that she ever wished to see it again. Heaven forbid that she +should ever be so cruelly punished as to be made to read anybody's +journal!--least of all such a stupid one as mine must be, shut up with +Cousin Eleanor!--but she thought that I could never draw the book from +the case (she had chosen one that fitted very tightly, and would give +me much trouble for that very reason) without thinking of her;--and to +be thought of often by her friends she confesses she is weak enough to +wish.--Dear Madge, I could not forget her, if I would. The book just +fits in a little japanned box that belonged to my grandmother, in which +she used to keep rouge and pearl-powder. I will keep it in that, and +remember my promise to Madge. + +"_February_ 21.--The journey is over, and I am at Cousin Eleanor's. How +the evils that we dread shrink into nothing when we fairly meet them! +Cousin Eleanor received me kindly, and looked neither so grave nor so +cold as my memory, assisted by my imagination, had pictured her; and +Ashcroft is a pretty place, even in midwinter. I am never tired of +sitting at the library-window, and looking at the bare branches of the +black ash-trees, as they spread out their network against the winter +sky. I have a little desk near the bay-window, where I have my drawing +and writing materials, and where I pretend to write and draw, while +Eleanor occupies a larger one at the opposite window. Eleanor is a +woman of business,--keeps all her accounts, looks after her farm and +servants, and manages all her own affairs, and, though a strict and +exacting mistress, is neither harsh nor unkind;--she evidently intends +to perform all her own duties punctually and faithfully, and expects +others to do the same. I often look at her with wonder, her nature is +so different from mine,--never impulsive, always cool and steady,--full +of ceaseless activity, yet never hurried, and seemingly never +perplexed. I sometimes think she sees the whole of her life mapped out +before her, and takes up every event in order. With the exception of +the servants, we are the only occupants of the house, Eleanor does not +seek nor desire the society of her neighbors; and so while she works I +dream, read, or answer Madge or Bertha's letters. + +"_February_ 28.--It has been snowing ceaselessly for two days. I have +read, drawn, and sewed till I am as weary as Marianna in the moated +grange. I have yawned aloud a dozen times, but Eleanor does not mind +it. She has been extremely busy with accounts, papers, and letters. For +the last four hours I do not think she has spoken a word. I hear +nothing but the scratch of her pen as it moves over the paper, and the +wind in the ash-trees. I have taken Madge's journal in despair. Ah, +Madge! I wish the bonnie girl were here;--how we would talk nonsense by +the hour together, just to keep our tongues in practice, and Madge +would hunt down an idea through all its turnings and windings, as if it +were a hare, and she a dog in chase of it! A ring at the door;--I hope +it may be some human body that will make Cousin Eleanor open her lips +at last. + +"_March_ 1.--The blots on the opposite page show with what haste I shut +up my journal yesterday. The ring at the door brought more than I +anticipated, and opened my eyes effectually for the rest of the day. +'Mr. Lee,' said the servant, throwing the library-door wide open, and +ushering in a man wrapped in a cloak, with a travelling-cap in his +hand. Cousin Eleanor rose instantly, and advanced to meet him. I +expected to see her extend her hand towards him, and welcome him in her +usual courteous manner. Instead of that, she gave him a hearty kiss, +which could be heard as well as felt, and which was returned, as I +thought, with interest. If the marble Widow Wadman in the library had +kissed the sympathizing face of Uncle Toby, I should not have been so +much surprised, and should have thought it much more likely to happen. + +"'I am very glad to see you, Thornton,' said she. 'I did not think you +could come till to-morrow.' + +"'I have made the best use of my time,' returned he, 'and had no wish +to spend my precious hours at a country inn. It seemed good to see +winter and snow again, after so many months of summer.' + +"Bending forward to catch a better view of him as he spoke, the +rustling of my dress reminded Eleanor of my presence. + +"'My cousin Elizabeth Purcill, Thornton Lee,' said she. 'My two good +friends I hope will also be friends to each other.' + +"Mr. Lee made me a gentlemanly bow, and said something about the +pleasure of seeing me; but more than suspecting that my presence in the +library was no pleasure to either of them, I shut up my journal, +crowded it into the box, and stole out of the room at the first +convenient opportunity. On the stairs I met Mrs. Bickford, the +housekeeper. + +"'Is any one in the library with Miss Purcill?' asked she. + +"'Yes,--a Mr. Lee.' + +"'Mr. Lee?' exclaimed she, in surprise. 'I did not know as he was +expected home now.' + +"'Who is Mr. Lee?' + +"'He is the gentleman whom Miss Purcill is to marry; but I thought he +was not coming till autumn. I wonder if she knew it.' + +"What Eleanor knows she always keeps to herself; none of her household +are any the wiser for it. I was more surprised than Mrs. Bickford. +Eleanor affianced! I never thought or dreamed of such a thing. Eleanor +in love must be a curious spectacle. I did not feel sleepy any longer. +What could a woman, so independent, so self-relying, so sufficient for +herself, want of a lover? She always seemed to be a whole, and did not +need another half to complete herself. I speculated much on the +subject, and, when the bell rang for tea, went down-stairs with +something of the same feeling of eager curiosity with which I open the +pages of a good novel. There is nothing so interesting to idle, +observant people as a pair of lovers, provided they are not silly, in +which stage they are perfectly unbearable, and never should suffer +themselves to be seen even by their intimate friends. Was it my fancy, +or not? I thought Eleanor had grown young since I left the library. A +soft light beamed in her eyes, and a clear crimson--the first trace of +color I had ever seen in her face--burned on her cheek. It was a very +different countenance from that at which I had been casting sidelong +glances half the day, and yet it seemed to me that she was ashamed of +these signs of joy, and thought it but a weakness to feel so glad. I +sat silent nearly all the evening;--words always come more readily to +my pen than to my lips, and, were it not so, there would have been no +occasion for any speech of mine. Their conversation flowed on +uninterruptedly, like a full, free river, whose current is strong and +deep. How much richer both their lives seemed than mine! He had +travelled, thought, seen, and felt so much, and had brought such wealth +home with him, fitly coined into aptly chosen words; and she had +gathered treasures as priceless from the literature of her own and +foreign lands. I had nothing to offer either of them but my ears, and +for those I doubt whether they felt grateful,--and when that doubt +became a certainty, I crept into the great window in the drawing-room, +and looked out upon the lawn. The moon, breaking through the clouds, +shone brightly on the new-fallen snow. I sat down on a low chair,--the +curtains fell about me,--their voices came to me with a low, dreamy +sound,--I leaned my head on my hand, and fell asleep. When I awoke, the +fire had died away, and the chairs were empty. + +"_March_ 20.--Mr. Lee comes every day. His father lives only a few +miles from us,--a distance so short as to be no obstacle to a lover +with a good horse; though I suspect, if the horse could speak, he would +wish the distance either less or greater. These midnight rides must be +detrimental to the constitution of any steady horse, and he often wakes +me up at night, pawing impatiently under the window while his master is +making his lingering adieux on the door-step. + +"_April_ 1.--I dislike Eleanor more every day. I know not why, unless +because I watch her so closely. When Mr. Lee is not here she works as +industriously as ever. If I were in love, I would give myself up to a +dream or reverie now and then, and build myself an air-castle, if it +were only to see it tumble down, and call myself a fool for my pains; +but she is too matter-of-fact to do that. Well, if there is not much +romance about her love, perhaps there is more reality; yet Thornton Lee +is just the man one could make an ideal of, if one only would. But this +is not what I especially dislike her for; people must love according to +their own nature and temperament, and not after another's pattern. The +thing that frets me most just now is the way that Eleanor has of +divining my thoughts before they are spoken, and even before they are +quite clear to myself. Sometimes, when we are talking together, some +subject comes up on which I do not care to express my opinion. Eleanor +fixes her clear, penetrating eyes upon me, and drags my thought out +into the light, just as a kingfisher pounces upon and pulls a fish out +of the water. Had I anything to conceal, any secret, I should be afraid +of her; and as it is, I do not like this invasion of my personal +kingdom,--though my thoughts often acquire new strength and beauty from +Eleanor's strong and vigorous language. Last evening, Mr. Lee, Eleanor, +and myself were turning over the prints in a large portfolio. We paused +at one, the Departure of Hagar into the Wilderness. The artist had +represented Hagar turning away from the door of the tent with Ishmael +and the bottle of water; Abraham was near her; while Sarah in the +background with a triumphant face exulted at the driving out of the +bondmaid. The picture had not much merit as a work of Art; but in +Hagar's face was such a look of despairing, wistful tenderness, as she +turned towards Abraham for the last time, that it moved me almost to +tears. I drew a long breath as the picture was turned over. Looking up, +I saw Eleanor's eyes fixed upon me. + +"'You pity Hagar, then? You think it was a harsh and cruel thing to +drive her out into the wilderness with her child?' + +"'Yes,' said I, shortly,--a little provoked that she should have seen +it in my face. + +"She went on: 'Sarah was right. Had I been she, I would have driven her +out as remorselessly and as pitilessly. Did she not, presuming upon her +youth, her beauty, and her child, despise her mistress? and why should +her mistress feel compassion for her? The love of a long life might +well thrust aside the passion of a few months, and Sarah, contemned by +her bondmaid, is more worthy of pity than Hagar, in my eyes.' + +"I was about to say that Sarah was more to blame for Hagar's conduct +than she was herself, when Mr. Lee observed 'that Abraham was more to +be pitied than either of them, for he was unable or unwilling to +protect either of the women whom he loved,--his wife from the contempt +of her bondmaid, or the bondmaid from the fury of his wife.' + +"I fancied Eleanor did not exactly like this remark, for she turned to +the next print hastily and began commenting upon it. + +"_May_ 6.--The groves and fields are beautiful with the fresh beauty of +the early spring. We have given up our winter occupations for long +rambles on the hills and in the woods. I sometimes decline being a +third in the lovers' walks; but Eleanor seems so dissatisfied, if I +refuse to accompany them, that I consent, lagging behind often, and +have learned to be both blind and deaf as occasion requires. I think, +too, that Mr. Lee is not sorry to have me with them. He and Eleanor +have been separated for three years, and I sometimes wonder if they +have not grown away from each other in that time. A long absence is a +dangerous experiment even for friends, much more for lovers. Besides, +no life is long enough to allow such great gaps in it. + +"_June_ 1.--We were sitting yesterday under the ash-trees on the +lawn,--Eleanor netting, Mr. Lee reading Dante aloud, and I making +myself rings and bracelets out of the shining blades of grass, and +pretending to listen, when a servant brought Eleanor a letter. It was +very short, for she did not turn the leaf. When she had read it she +drew out her watch. + +"'I have an hour before the express-train starts. Tell Mrs. Bickford to +pack my trunk for a journey. Harness the black horse to drive to the +station.' + +"She put the letter into Mr. Lee's hands. 'My brother is very ill, and +I shall go to him at once. Elizabeth, I am sorry to leave you here +alone, but while I am gone I hope Thornton will consider you under his +charge and protection.' + +"She rose, as she spoke, and went towards the house, followed by +Thornton. + +"In a few minutes she appeared again, dressed in a gray +travelling-dress,--kissed me lightly on the check, and bade me +good-bye. All her preparations for this long journey had been made +without any hurry or confusion, and she did not apparently feel so +agitated or nervous at the thought of travelling this distance alone as +I should to have gone by myself to the nearest town. Why Thornton did +not accompany her, whether he could not or she did not wish it, I do +not know; but he parted from her at the station, and soon returned for +his horse. + +"_July_ 1.--Eleanor has been gone a month; in that time we have +received but one letter from her. Her brother still lies in a very +critical state, and she will not leave him at present. His motherless +children, too, she thinks require her care. It seemed very lonesome at +first without her. I did not think I could have missed an uncongenial +person, one with whom I had so little sympathy, so much. I think I must +belong to the tribe of creeping plants, which cling to whatever is +nearest to them. Ashcroft grows daily more beautiful, and Thornton +comes often to see me. We read together books that I like, (not Dante,) +walk and sketch. We are on excellent terms, and call each other Cousin +in view of our future relationship. I can talk more freely to him, now +that Eleanor is not here,--and feel no disposition to hide my thoughts, +now that I can keep them to myself, if I choose. + +"_July_ 24.--A week ago, one fair midsummer afternoon, we strolled to +the knoll, and sat down under the blossoming boughs of the +chestnut-tree. + +"'I think,' said I, 'this is the pleasantest place in all the grounds; +but Eleanor never seemed willing to come here.' + +"'Eleanor has many unpleasant remembrances connected with the place,' +replied Thornton. 'Her father's obstinate persistence in digging the +well was a great annoyance to the whole household, and, unimaginative +as Eleanor is, I fancy sometimes, from her avoidance of the spot, that +she has some superstitious idea connected with the well,--that she +fears through it some great misfortune may happen to some of the +family.' + +"'I hardly see how that can be,' said I, rising and going to the brink +of the well; 'it is very deep, but there was never any water in it.' + +"Just then I caught sight of a little flower growing out of the cleft +of one of the stones. I knelt down and bent over to reach it. I +slipped, I know not how, and should have fallen, had not Thornton +sprung to my side and caught me. + +"'Ah, my foolish cousin!' said he, 'there needs not to be water in the +well to make it a dangerous place. Promise me that you will not attempt +such a thing again.' + +"'Not I,' said I, laughing gayly to conceal my fright,--for I did think +I was about to break my neck on the stones below. 'There is no harm +done, and I have got what I was after,'--and I held up the flower. + +"It was an ugly little thing, and looked not half so pretty in my hand +as it did in the shadow of the well. I would not have gathered it, had +I seen it growing by the roadside. 'Is it not pretty?' + +"'Humph!' said he, 'very!--worth breaking one's neck for!' + +"'I was about to offer it to you, but, since you despise it, I will +keep it myself,'--and I stuck it into my hair. + +"Some time after, I missed the flower. I did not see it on the grass, +but a leaf strangely similar peeped out of Thornton's waistcoat-pocket. +When we passed by the well, on leaving the knoll, 'Promise me,' said he +again, 'that you will not reach over the well for flowers any more.' + +"I was a little irritated at his pertinacity. 'I shall do no such +thing,' returned I; 'you are growing as superstitious as Eleanor. On +the contrary, I think I shall make a garden there and tend it every +day; and whenever I go away from Ashcroft, I will leave something on +the stone for you, to show how idle your fears are.' + +"Thornton did not answer. He was provoked, but showed his anger only by +his silence. We sauntered back to the house in a different mood from +that in which we had left it. + +"_August_ 4.--Thornton came into the library to-day with a letter from +Eleanor. She cannot leave her brother, and wrote to Thornton about some +papers that she wished sent to her without delay. They were in the +drawer of the desk at which I was sitting. Thornton said he was in +haste, as he wished to prepare the packet for the next mail. I rose at +once. In his hurry he knocked the little japanned box on to the floor. +Begging pardon for his awkwardness, he picked it up, and looked at it a +moment to assure himself that it had suffered no damage. + +"'It is a curious little thing,' said he, 'and looks as if it were a +hundred years old.' + +"'It belonged once to my grandmother, and held pearl-powder and rouge,' +said I. + +"'And is used for the same purpose now?' inquired he. + +"'Yes,' returned I, my cheek reddening a little. 'I was just putting +some on as you entered.' + +"'It must be very uncommon rouge,' remarked he, quietly fixing his eyes +on me; 'it grows red after it is put on, and must require much care in +the use of it.' + +"'I thought you were in a great hurry, Thornton, when you came in.' + +"'And so I am';--and he began undoing and separating papers, but every +few moments he would steal a glance--a glance that made me feel +uneasy--towards me, as I sat at the other window busying myself with my +needle. + +"_August_ 25.--I wish Eleanor would come home. I sometimes think I will +go away; but to leave Ashcroft now would imply a doubt of Thornton's +honor, and impute thoughts to him which perhaps have no existence but +in my vanity. + +"_October_ 3.--Ah, why was I so foolish? Why did I not go when I saw the +danger so clearly, instead of cheating myself into the belief that +there was none? Would that I had never come to Ashcroft, or had had the +courage to leave it! These last six weeks, I do not know, I cannot +tell, how they have been spent. Thornton was ever by my side, and +I--did not wish him away. We sat this afternoon on the lawn under the +great ash-tree,--the one under which he sat reading Dante to Eleanor +the last day she was with us. The love which had burned in his eyes all +day found utterance at last, and flamed out in fiery, passionate words. +He drew me towards him. His vehemence frightened me, and I muttered +something about Eleanor. It checked him for a moment, but, quickly +recovering, he spoke freely of himself and of her,--of the love which +had existed between them,--a feeling so feeble and so poor, compared to +that which he felt for me, as to be unworthy of the name. He entreated, +he implored my love. I was silent. He bent over me, gazing into my +face. There was a traitor lurking in my heart, which looked out of my +eyes, and spoke without my consent. He understood that language but too +well. I bent my eyes upon the ground,--his arm was around my waist, his +hand clasped mine, his lips approached my cheek. A shadow seemed +suddenly to come between me and the sun. I looked up and saw Eleanor, +clad in mourning, standing before us. I started at once to my feet, +and, like the coward that I am, fled and left them together. I ran down +to the old hawthorn-tree, against which I leaned, panting and +trembling. Yet, in a few moments, ashamed of my weakness, I stole back +to where I could see them unobserved. Eleanor stood upon the same spot, +calm and motionless. Thornton was speaking, but I was too far off to +hear more than the sound of his voice. When he had ended, he approached +her, as if to bid her adieu; but she passed him with a stately bow, and +entered the hall-door. Thornton took his way to the stables, and I soon +heard the clattering of his horse's hoofs on the hard gravelled road. +When the sound died away in the distance, I stole into the house and +crept up to my chamber. How long I was there I could not tell; but when +I heard the bell ring for tea, I washed my face and smoothed my hair. +I would not be so cowardly as to fear to see Eleanor again, and perhaps +it would be better for us both to meet in the presence of a third +person. + +"Mrs. Bickford was alone at the table. 'Miss Purcill would not come +down tonight,--she was fatigued with her journey.' + +"The good lady strove to entertain me with her conversation, but, +finding that I neither heard, answered, nor ate, our meal was soon +brought to a close. It is long past midnight. I have thought till I am +sick and giddy with thinking. I cannot sleep, and have been writing +here to control the wildness of my imaginings. I have been twice to +Eleanor's chamber. The door is half ground-glass, and I can see her +black shadow as she walks to and fro across the room. She has been +walking so ever since she entered it. + +"_October_ 4.--What shall I do? Where shall I go? All night and all day +Eleanor has walked her chamber-floor. I have been to the door. I have +knocked. I have called her by name. I have turned the handle,--the door +is locked. No answer comes to me,--nothing but the black shadow +flitting across the panes. I sat down by the threshold and burst into +tears. + +"Mrs. Bickford found me there. 'Do not grieve so, Miss Elizabeth,' said +she, kindly. 'It is dreadful, I know; but Miss Purcill walked the floor +all night after her father died, and would admit no one to her room. +She will be better to-morrow.' + +"I shook my head. Could I believe that grief for the dead, and not +sorrow for the conduct of the living, moved her thus, I should be +happy. Then I could offer consolation and sympathy; but now, if I saw +her, what could I say? Pity, sorrow for her grief, would be but idle +words, which she would spurn with contempt,--and she would be right. +There is but one thing left for me,--I must go from Ashcroft; then, +perhaps, she and Thornton--But no, it cannot be; so wide asunder, they +cannot come together again. And do I wish it? Is not his love as much +mine now as it ever was hers? Ah, how some words once spoken cannot be +forgotten! Before me now is the little picture of Hagar, which Eleanor +had framed and hung in the library. Did she place it before my eyes as +a warning to me? In Hagar's fate I see my own; for even now I hear +Eleanor asking if the passion of a few hours is to thrust aside the +love of long years. The bondmaid will go ere she is driven out. But +Thornton--I cannot, will not, see him again. He has written to me +to-day, saying that he cannot come here, and asking me to meet him at +the well to-morrow. By that time I shall be far on my way to Madge. He +will wait for me, and I shall not come. How can I leave him thus? He +will believe me heartless and cruel. I grieve even now for his pain and +grief. He will think that I did not love, but only sported with him. +How dearly I love him words cannot tell; and I go that his way may be +smoother, and that in my absence he may find--peace at last. A little +dried flower lies on the page that I turned. It is one of those that +grew in the well, that I wore on my bosom one day, that he might see +and know it, and chide me for having been there again. His chiding was +sweeter to me than others' praise. I will not be so unjust to myself. I +will not go without one word. I jestingly told him once I would leave a +token for him on the stone in the well when I went away from Ashcroft. +I will put my journal there. He will see the box and remember it. He +will learn that I have gone, and will know that I love, but that I +leave and renounce him." + + * * * * * + +The remaining pages of the book were blank. Elizabeth Purcill's journal +was ended. Bradford was busy with conjectures. Why had not Thornton +found and kept the journal intended for him? Had it fallen at once to +the bottom of the well, and lain there for years, while he waited in +vain for her coming or her token? Her departure had not brought Eleanor +Purcill and Thornton Lee together; for his aunt still remained +unwedded, and he came every Sunday to the village church, with a sweet +matronly-faced woman on his arm, and two children by his side. + +Bradford thrust the journal into his pocket, took up his fishing-rod +and basket, and sauntered towards the village. He thought he remembered +the name of Elizabeth Purcill on a head-stone in the church-yard. He +opened the little wicket and went in. The setting sun threw the long +shadows of the head-stones across the thick, rank grass. The sounds of +the village children at play on the green came to his ear softened and +mellowed by the distance. + +He turned towards the spot where, year after year, the Purcills had +been gathered,--those who had died in their beds in their native town, +and those who had perished in far-off climes, and whose bones had been +brought to moulder by the old church-wall. He found the stone, and, +bending down, read, "Elizabeth Purcill, died Oct. 5th, 18--, aged 19." +Bradford opened the journal and looked at the last date. She had died, +then, the day after the journal was ended. But how, and where? + +He sat down on the flat stone which covered his grandfather, and turned +over the pages again, as if they could tell him more than he already +knew. So absorbed was he, that he did not see a woman who a few minutes +afterwards knelt down before the same stone, and with a sickle began to +cut away the weeds and grass. + +Bradford looked up at last, and, as the woman raised her head for an +instant, saw that it was Mrs. Bickford. He approached her and called +her by name. She gave a little start, as she heard his voice. + +"Why, Master Bradford, who would have thought of seeing you here at +this time?" + +Bradford smiled. "Whose grave is this that you are taking such pains to +clear?" + +She pointed to the name with her sickle. + +"Yes, I know all that that can tell me. But who was Elizabeth +Purcill?--what relation was she to me?--and how came she to die so +young, and to be buried here?" + +"Why do you think I should know?" she replied. "People often die young; +and no matter where the Purcills die, they all wish to come here at +last;--that one died in Cuba,--that in France,--that in Greece,--and +that at sea." And she turned her hand towards them, as she spoke. + +"But you do not care for their graves; look, how the grass and weeds +nod over that tombstone; and you would not clear this, unless you knew +something about the girl that lies underneath it." + +"It is an old story," said she, with a sigh, "and I can tell you but +little of it." She laid her sickle down on the cut grass and sat down +by it. + +"Elizabeth Purcill was the daughter of your grandfather's brother, and +therefore your father's cousin. Long as I have lived in the family, I +never saw him; for he went to India, while a young man, to seek a +fortune, which was found too late to benefit either himself or his +children. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, was sent home for her +education, and lived first with one of her kinsfolk, and then another, +as her father's whims or their convenience dictated. You remember, +though so young, when your Aunt Eleanor came to your father's house on +her way to your Uncle Erasmus in his last illness?" + +Bradford nodded. + +"A little before that time Elizabeth Purcill came to Ashcroft. She was +a pretty, lively girl, and it was pleasant to see in our sober +household one who had time to be idle and could laugh. Your Aunt +Eleanor was always a busy woman,--busier then than she is now,--and had +no time for mirth. Every servant in the house liked Miss Elizabeth for +her sunny smile and her pleasant ways. Shortly afterwards, Thornton Lee +came home. He had been three years in Africa, and he and your aunt were +to be married in the autumn. + +"When Miss Purcill went away, Mr. Lee remained, and came often to see +Miss Elizabeth. She had a winsome face, that few men could look upon +and not love; and I sometimes thought, when I saw them together, how +much better she was suited to Mr. Lee than your Aunt Eleanor, and +wondered if he had not found it out himself. Your aunt was away a long +time, and, by some mistake, the letter, saying that she was coming +home, did not reach us till the day after her arrival. + +"It was a beautiful October afternoon. I had been gathering the grapes +that grew on the garden wall, and was carrying a basket of them to Miss +Elizabeth, whom I had seen, half an hour before, with Mr. Lee, on the +lawn. As I was crossing the hall, Miss Purcill, dressed in deep +mourning, looking ghastly pale, entered the front door. I started as if +I had seen a ghost, and dropped my basket. Miss Eleanor passed me +quickly and went up-stairs. I spoke to her. She did not answer, but, +entering her chamber, fastened the door behind her. + +"I looked out of the window. No one was on the lawn; but presently I +saw Mr. Lee coming out of the stable, leading his horse. He mounted and +was out of sight in an instant. Miss Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. +What had happened I could not tell. I could only guess. + +"Miss Elizabeth was the only one who came to tea, and her eyes were +heavy and dull, and she seemed like one in a dream. That night was a +wretched one to both. When I went to the library to see if the windows +were fastened for the night, Miss Elizabeth sat by the smouldering fire +with her face buried in her hands. I shut the door softly and left her, +and till I slept I heard Miss Eleanor's steps across her chamber-floor. + +"The day was no better than the night. Miss Purcill did not leave her +room, and her cousin wandered about the house, as if her thoughts would +not let her rest. Once I found her in tears at your aunt's door, and +tried to console her; but she shook her head impatiently, as if I could +not understand the cause of her grief. + +"The next morning, while I was dressing, my niece Sally came to me in +great haste, saying that Roger, the gardener, wished to see me at once. +I hurried on my clothes and went down. I knew by the man's face that +something dreadful had happened; but when he told me that he had been +to the old well, and had found Miss Elizabeth lying dead at the bottom +of it, I felt as if I was stunned. + +"I roused myself at last. I ran to Miss Purcill's door. I shook it +violently and called her by name. She came and opened the door in her +night-dress. Somehow, I know not and cared not how, for it seemed to me +that she had something to do with all this, I told her that her Cousin +Elizabeth was lying dead at the bottom of the old well. She staggered +and leaned against the door like one who had received a heavy blow. For +a moment I repented my roughness. But she was soon herself again. She +thrust her feet into her slippers, and, wrapping her dressing-gown +about her, went down-stairs, and gave directions, as calmly and +collectedly as if she were (Heaven help her!) ordering a dinner for the +men--to bring the body home. Ah, me! I never shall forget how the poor +thing looked when the four men who bore the litter set it down on the +library-floor. A bruise on the temple showed where she had struck on +the cruel stones. The hoarfrost, which had turned into drops of dew, +glittered among her soft brown curls." + +The tears which had been gathering in Mrs. Bickford's eyes fell in +large drops into her lap as she went on. + +"On the day of the funeral, she lay in the library, still and cold in +her coffin. I had gathered a few flowers, with which I was vainly +trying to cheat death into looking more like life, by placing them on +her bosom and in her stiffened fingers. Miss Eleanor sat at the foot of +the coffin, almost as motionless as the form within it. I had finished +my task and turned away, when the door opened and Mr. Lee came in +silently. A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin +and bent over it. What a change had three days made in the man! Ten +years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him +look so old and wan. He looked upon her as a man who looks his last +upon what he loved best in the world;--his whole soul was in his eyes. + +"I think he did not see Miss Eleanor till he was about to leave the +room. She had not spoken, and he was unconscious of her presence. He +turned towards her and held out his hand; his lips moved, but no words +escaped them. I heard Miss Purcill's low, unfaltering answer to his +unspoken thoughts. She did not take his proffered hand, but said, +'Nothing can unite us again, Thornton,--not even death.' + +"His hand dropped by his side;--he quickly left the room, and never +came to Ashcroft again. When I went to take a last look of Miss +Elizabeth, I saw that the white rose which I had placed in her hand was +gone;--he had taken it." + +Mrs. Bickford paused. Her story was ended. In a few minutes she took up +her sickle again, and Bradford stood leaning against the head-stone +till the grass was all cut on the grave. He had no more questions to +ask,--for the journal had told him more of the dead below, than Mrs. +Bickford, with all her love and sympathy, could do. She had fallen into +the well, then, while endeavoring to place the box on the stone. When +Mrs. Bickford's task was done, she walked silently back to Ashcroft +with Bradford. + +Late in the evening he was alone in the library with his Aunt Eleanor. +The picture of Hagar, now so full of interest to him, still hung on the +wall, and the little desk was at the window which looked out upon the +lawn. Should he show the journal to his aunt, or keep it to himself? +Would Elizabeth Purcill wish her Cousin Eleanor to read her written +words as she once read her untold thoughts? + +Wrapped up in his own musings, he started suddenly when Miss Purcill +said to him, "Rosamond tells me that you found a book to-day in the old +well; what was it?"--and answered promptly, "It was Elizabeth Purcill's +journal." + +It was the first time Eleanor had heard the name for years. She showed +no signs of emotion. "I should like to see it," said she; "give it to +me." + +Bradford had been brought up in such habits of obedience, that he never +thought of disputing his aunt's command. He drew the journal from his +pocket and handed it to her without speaking. + +"You have read it?" said she, fixing her keen eyes upon him. + +"Yes." + +She drew the lamp towards her and opened the book. The shade on the +lamp kept the light from her face; but had Bradford seen it, it would +have told him no more of the thoughts beneath it than the stone in the +churchyard had told him of Elizabeth Purcill. + +He watched her turning over the leaves slowly, and thought that her +hand trembled a little at the close. Those pages must have stirred many +a memory and many a grief, as the wind shakes the bare boughs of the +trees, though blossom, fruit, and leaves have long since fallen. + +She closed the book, and spoke at last:--"I think, Bradford, this book +belongs rightfully but to one person,--Mr. Thornton Lee. Shall I send +it to him?" + +Eleanor's question was uttered in a tone that seemed to admit of but +one reply. Bradford assented. If he might not keep the journal himself, +he would rather Thornton Lee should have it than his aunt. + +The next day, Thornton Lee received a small packet, accompanied by a +note which ran thus:-- + +"To do justice to the memory of one who, years ago, came between us, I +send you this little book, found in the old well yesterday. From it you +will learn how she came by her death, and--how much she loved you. +ELEANOR PURCILL." + +As Thornton Lee read the journal, his children climbed his knee and +twined his gray curls around their fingers, and his wife came and +leaned sportively over his shoulder and looked at the yellow leaves. + +In some lives, as in some years, there is an after-summer; but in +others, the hoar-frosts are succeeded by the winter snow. + + +THE DEAD HOUSE. + + Here once my step was quickened, + Here beckoned the opening door, + And welcome thrilled from the threshold + To the foot it had felt before. + + A glow came forth to meet me + From the flame that laughed in the grate, + And shadows a-dance on the ceiling + Danced blither with mine for a mate. + + "I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm-chair,-- + "This corner, you know, is your seat." + "Rest your slippers on me," beamed the fender,-- + "I brighten at touch of your feet." + + "We know the practised finger," + Said the books, "that seems like brain"; + And the shy page rustled the secret + It had kept till I came again. + + Sang the pillow, "My down once quivered + On nightingales' throats that flew + Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz + To gather quaint dreams for you." + + Ah, me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease, + The Present plucks rue for us men! + I come back: that scar unhealing + Was not in the churchyard then. + + But, I think, the house is unaltered; + I will go and beg to look + At the rooms that were once familiar + To my life as its bed to a brook. + + Unaltered! Alas for the sameness + That makes the change but more! + 'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors, + 'Tis his tread that chills the floor! + + To learn such a simple lesson + Need I go to Paris and Rome,-- + That the many make a household, + But only one the home? + + 'Twas just a womanly presence, + An influence unexprest,-- + But a rose she had worn on my grave-sod + Were more than long life with the rest! + + 'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle, + 'Twas nothing that I can phrase,-- + But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, + And put on her looks and ways. + + Were it mine, I would close the shutters, + Like lids when the life is fled, + And the funeral fire should wind it, + This corpse of a home that is dead. + + For it died that autumn morning + When she, its soul, was borne + To lie all dark on the hillside + That looks over woodland and corn. + + + * * * * * + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + +[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks +with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could +into every conversation. That is the reason why you will find some odd, +miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I +should not have a chance to tell them habitually, at our +breakfast-table.--We're very free and easy, you know; we don't read +what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one can't pretend to preach +to all the pews at once. Besides, one can't be all the time trying to +do the best of one's best; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the +firemen needn't be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top +of the flagstaff. Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a +little. Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will +find out when you get through this paper.] + +----Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to +the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am thinking of +travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy. +Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the +brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking. +I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two. There are +certain principles to be assumed,--such as these:--He who is carried by +horses must deal with rogues.--To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual +angle than yesterday's revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me +than the biggest of Dr. Gould's private planets.--Every traveller is a +self-taught entomologist.--Old jokes are dynamometers of mental +tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at +home,--which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, +rather than increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to +your pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows--on the road from +Milan to Venice.--_Coelum, non animum_,--travellers change their +guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating dates +under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans in Beacon +Street.--Parties of travellers have a morbid instinct for "establishing +raws" upon each other.--A man shall sit down with his friend at the +foot of the Great Pyramid and they will take up the question they had +been talking about under "the great elm," and forget all about Egypt. +When I was crossing the Po, we were all fighting about the propriety of +one fellow's telling another that his argument was _absurd_; one +maintaining it to be a perfectly admissible logical term, as proved by +the phrase, "reductio ad absurdum"; the rest badgering him as a +conversational bully. Mighty little we troubled ourselves for _Padus_, +the Po, "a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times +when Hannibal led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants +thrust their trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum +ferry-boat was swinging back and forward every ten minutes! + +----Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or +annexed, or implied. + +Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but +obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in _undress_ often affects +more than one in full costume. + + "Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" + +says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my soul +in the Coliseum did not come. But walking one day in the fields about +the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken masonry, and lo! the +World's Mistress in her stone girdle--_alta maenia Romae_--rose before +me and whitened my cheek with her pale shadow as never before or since. + +I used very often, when coming home from my morning's work at one of +the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of +St. Etienne du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve, surrounded by burning +candles and votive tablets, was there; the mural tablet of Jacobus +Benignus Winslow was there; there was a noble organ with carved +figures; the pulpit was borne on the oaken shoulders of a stooping +Samson; and there was a marvellous staircase like a coil of lace. These +things I mention from memory, but not all of them together impressed me +so much as an inscription on a small slab of marble fixed in one of the +walls. It told how this church of St. Stephen was repaired and +beautified in the year 16**, and how, during the celebration of its +reopening, two girls of the parish (_filles de la paroisse_) fell from +the gallery, carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the +pavement, but by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two young girls, +nameless, but real presences to my imagination, as much as when they +came fluttering down on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the +sharpest treble in the Te Deum! (Look at Carlyle's article on Boswell, +and see how he speaks of the poor young woman Johnson talked with in +the streets one evening.) All the crowd gone but these two "filles de +la paroisse,"--gone as utterly as the dresses they wore, as the shoes +that were on their feet, as the bread and meat that were in the market +on that day. + +Not the great historical events, but the personal incidents that call +up single sharp pictures of some human being in its pang or struggle, +reach us most nearly. I remember the platform at Berne, over the +parapet of which Theobald Weinzäpfli's restive horse sprung with him +and landed him more than a hundred feet beneath in the lower town, not +dead, but sorely broken, and no longer a wild youth, but God's servant +from that day forward. I have forgotten the famous bears, and all +else.--I remember the Percy lion on the bridge over the little river at +Alnwick,--the leaden lion with his tail stretched out straight like a +pump-handle,--and why? Because of the story of the village boy who must +fain bestride the leaden tail, standing out over the water,--which +breaking, he dropped into the stream far below, and was taken out an +idiot for the rest of his life. + +Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, and the guillotine-axe +must have a slanting edge. Something intensely human, narrow, and +definite pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily than +huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will pick a lock that defies +hatchet and hammer. "The Royal George" went down with all her crew, and +Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it; but the leaf that +holds it is smooth, while that which bears the lines on his mother's +portrait is blistered with tears. + +My telling these recollections sets me thinking of others of the same +kind that strike the imagination, especially when one is still young. +You remember the monument in Devizes market to the woman struck dead +with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but it is in the books. Here +is one I never heard mentioned;--if any of the "Note and Query" tribe +can tell the story, I hope they will. Where is this monument? I was +riding on an English stage-coach when we passed a handsome marble +column (as I remember it) of considerable size and pretensions.--What +is that?--I said.--That,--answered the coachman,--is _the hangman's +pillar_. Then he told me how a man went out one night, many years ago, +to steal sheep. He caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope +over his head, and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope +slipped, caught him by the neck, and strangled him. Next morning he was +found hanging dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on the other; +in memory whereof the lord of the manor caused this monument to be +erected as a warning to all who love mutton better than virtue. I will +send a copy of this record to him or her who shall first set me right +about this column and its locality. + +And telling over these old stories reminds me that I have something +that may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I once +ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I +think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully +open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from +falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having +climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. +While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense inane," a strong wind +was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire was rocking. It swayed back +and forward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a +bobolink on it. I mentioned it to the guide, and he said that the spire +did really swing back and forward,--I think he said some feet. + +Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will intersect +it. Long afterwards I was hunting out a paper of Dumeril's in an old +journal,--the "Magazin Encyclopédique" for _l'an troisičme_, (1795,) +when I stumbled upon a brief article on the vibrations of the spire of +Strasburg Cathedral. A man can shake it so that the movement shall be +shown in a vessel of water nearly seventy feet below the summit, and +higher up the vibration is like that of an earthquake. I have seen one +of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some +of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven +cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it) swinging like a reed, +in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a +stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like a +blade of grass? I suppose. + +You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap way;--perhaps we will +have some philosophy by and by;--let me work out this thin mechanical +vein.--I have something more to say about trees, I have brought down +this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in my woods (that +were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth;--nine feet, +where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, going to the +centre, of the general shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and not +opulent family. Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the +growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and +forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the +rings tells the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate +was slow,--then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550 +it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy years. +In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714; then for the most +part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew pretty well and +uniformly until within the last dozen years, when it seems to have got +on sluggishly. + +Look here. Here are some human lies laid down against the periods of +its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's. The tree +was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches when he died. +A little less than ten inches when Milton was born; seventeen when he +died. Then comes a long interval, and this thread marks out Johnson's +life, during which the tree increased from twenty-two to twenty-nine +inches in diameter. Here is the span of Napoleon's career;--the tree +doesn't seem to have minded it. + +I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this +section. I have seen many wooden preachers,--never one like this. How +much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings of one of +those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on earth, and +where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the stolid apathy of +vegetable being, which remembers all human history as a thing of +yesterday in its own dateless existence! + +I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there is +one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some recollections +of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder if the old Seminary +clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My room-mate thought, when he +first came, it was the bell tolling deaths, and people's ages, as they +do in the country. He swore--(ministers' sons get so familiar with good +words that they are apt to handle them carelessly)--that the children +were dying by the dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off +next day in recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught +before the clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down +in town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been hooped +with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (_Credat Hahnemannus_,) +and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in its wood. Of +course, this is not the tree my relative means. + +Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut, telling +me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town. One hundred and +twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end! What do you say to that? +And gentle ladies beneath it, that love it and celebrate its praises! +And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as +Norwich!--Only the dear people there must learn to call it Norridge, +and not be misled by the mere accident of spelling. + + Nor_wich_. + Por_ch_mouth. + Cincinnat_ah_. + +What a sad picture of our civilization! + +I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the Colman +farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for many years, +and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in memory, and +even noted down, as one of the finest trees in symmetry and beauty I +had ever seen. I have received a document, signed by two citizens of a +neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and a selectman, and +these again corroborated, reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that +extraordinary college-class to which it is the good fortune of my +friend the Professor to belong, who, though he has _formerly_ been a +member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree +"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a +real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we +don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm." + +And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows in +Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything +but thanks. + +[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many +communications, in prose and verse, since I began printing these notes. +The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem, +from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public, though sometimes +requested to do so. Some of them have given me great pleasure, and +encouraged me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen. If +you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell +him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who +perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr +very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things to me.] + +----Sometimes very young persons send communications, which they want +forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to +have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, and of +themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, but, +on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not fair to single out +one for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that are in need of +it. + +Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser than I +was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, for +I think, without committing myself to any opinion on my present state, +that I was not a Solomon at that stage of development. + +You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so +common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those +who are thinking about something else,--very rarely to those who say to +themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!" The +struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in notoriety;--that ladder is +easy to climb, but it leads to pillory which is crowded with fools who +could not hold their tongues and rogues who could not hide their +tricks. + +If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it. The +world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true +originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and +newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the +ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an +intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that any +article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame. Nothing +pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having from a new +hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles for a first-rate +journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety are at or below the +sea-level; some have water enough, but no head; some head enough, but +no water; only two or three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill +which is so hard to climb. + +You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is not +demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you want it. +It not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that +shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture +that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends and no +takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-mistake Osiris. + +_Qu'est ce qu'il a fait?_ What has he done? That was Napoleon's test. +What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy! +You need not make mouths at the public because it has not accepted you +at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest thing you can and wait +your time. + +For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I +dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I know +the standard of a some editors. You must not expect to "leap with a +single bound" into the society of those whom it is not flattery to call +your betters. When "The Paetolian" has paid you for a copy of +verses,--(I can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, +beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoė Zenith,)--when "The +Ragbag" has stolen your piece, after carefully scratching your name +out,--when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you worth shelling, and strung +the kernel of your cleverest poem,--then, and not till then, you may +consider the presumption against you, from the fact of your rhyming +tendency, as called in question, and let our friends hear from you, if +you think it worth while. You may possibly think me too candid, and +even accuse me of incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half +so plain-spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the +long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try +it like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is +shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes +always get to the bottom. + +Believe me, etc., etc. + + * * * * * + +I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these are +by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless, querulous, +unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with. Is a young man +in the habit of writing verses? Then the presumption is that he is an +inferior person. For, look you, there are at least nine chances in ten +that he writes _poor_ verses. Now the habit of chewing on rhymes +without sense and soul to match them is, like that of using any other +narcotic, at once a proof of feebleness and a debilitating agent. A +young man can get rid of the presumption against him afforded by his +writing verses only by convincing us that they are verses worth +writing. + +All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is not addressed to +any individual, and of course does not refer to any reader of these +pages. I would always treat any given young person passing through the +meteoric showers which rain down on the brief period of adolescence +with great tenderness. God forgive us, if we ever speak harshly to +young creatures on the strength of these ugly truths, and so, sooner or +later, smite some tender-souled poet or poetess on the lips who might +have sung the world into sweet trances, had we not silenced the +matin-song in its first low breathings! Just as my heart yearns over +the unloved, just so it sorrows for the ungifted who are doomed to the +pangs of an undeceived self-estimate. I have always tried to be gentle +with the most hopeless cases. My experience, however, has not been +encouraging. + +----X. Y., aet. 18, a cheaply-got-up youth, with narrow jaws, and +broad, bony, cold, red hands, having been laughed at by the girls in +his village, and "got the mitten" (pronounced mittin) two or three +times, falls to souling and controlling, and youthing and training, in +the newspapers. Sends me some strings of verses, candidates for the +Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, in which I learn for the millionth +time one of the following facts: either that something about a chime is +sublime, or that something about time is sublime, or that something +about a chime is concerned with time, or that something about a rhyme +is sublime or concerned with time or with a chime. Wishes my opinion of +the same, with advice as to his future course. + +What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole truth, and send him a +ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded +Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel,--and yet one hates to lie. +Therefore one softens down the ugly central fact of donkeyism, +--recommends study of good models,--that writing verse should +be an incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the +needle, the lapstone, or the ledger,--and, above all, that there should +be no hurry in printing what is written. Not the least use in all this. +The poetaster who has tasted type is done for. He is like the man who +has once been a candidate for the Presidency. He feeds on the madder of +his delusion all his days, and his very bones grow red with the glow of +his foolish fancy. One of these young brains is like a bunch of India +crackers; once touch fire to it and it is best to keep hands off until +it has done popping,--if it ever stops. I have two letters on file; one +is a pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence. My reply to the +first, containing the best advice I could give, conveyed in courteous +language, had brought out the second. There was some sport in this, but +Dulness is not commonly a game fish, and only sulks after he is struck. +You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that +those who ask your _opinion_ really want your _praise_, and will be +contented with nothing less. + +There is another kind of application to which editors, or those +supposed to have access to them, are liable, and which often proves +trying and painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some person in +needy circumstances who wishes to make a living by the pen. A +manuscript accompanying the letter is offered for publication. It is +not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably deficient. If Rachel's +saying is true, that "fortune is the measure of intelligence," then +poverty is evidence of limited capacity, which it too frequently proves +to be, notwithstanding a noble exception here and there. Now an editor +is a person under a contract with the public to furnish them with the +best things he can afford for his money. Charity shown by the +publication of an inferior article would be like the generosity of +Claude Duval and the other gentlemen highwaymen, who pitied the poor so +much they robbed the rich to have the means of relieving them. + +Though I am not and never was an editor, I know something of the trials +to which they are submitted. They have nothing to do but to develope +enormous calluses at every point of contact with authorship. Their +business is not a matter of sympathy, but of intellect. They must +reject the unfit productions of those whom they long to befriend, +because it would be a profligate charity to accept them. One cannot +burn his house down to warm the hands even of the fatherless and the +widow. + + + +THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. + + +--You haven't heard about my friend the Professor's first experiment in +the use of anaesthetics, have you? + +He was mightily pleased with the reception of that poem of his about +the chaise. He spoke to me once or twice about another poem of similar +character he wanted to read me, which I told him I would listen to and +criticize. + +One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied up, looking very +red in the cheeks and heavy about the eyes.--Hy'r'ye?--he said, and +made for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat and then his +person, going smack through the crown of the former as neatly as they +do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at the explosion as if +he had sat down on one of those small _calthrops_ our grandfathers used +to sow round in the grass when there were Indians about,--iron stars, +each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a half long,--stick through +moccasins into feet,--cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in +a day or two. + +The Professor let off one of those big words which lie at the bottom of +the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in his life,--just +as every man's hair _may_ stand on end, but in most men it never does. + +After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript, +together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just been +writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A certain +suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not quite right, +which was confirmed by the way he talked; but I let him begin. This is +the way he read it:-- + +_Prelude_. + + I'm the fellah that tole one day + The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. + + Wan' to hear another? Say. + --Funny, wasn'it? Made _me_ laugh,-- + I'm too modest, I am, by half,-- + Made me laugh 's _though I sh'd split_,-- + Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit? + --Fellahs keep sayin',--"Well, now that's nice; + Did it once, but cahn' do it twice."-- + Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat; + Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. + Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake,-- + Han' us the props for another shake;-- + Know I'll try, 'n' guess I'll win; + Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in! + +Here I thought it necessary to interpose.--Professor,--I said,--you are +inebriated. The style of what you call your "Prelude" shows that it was +written under cerebral excitement. Your articulation is confused. You +have told me three times in succession, in exactly the same words, that +I was the only true friend you had in the world that you would unbutton +your heart to. You smell distinctly and decidedly of spirits.--I spoke, +and paused; tender, but firm. + +Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Professor's lids,--in +obedience to the principle of gravitation celebrated in that delicious +bit of bladdery bathos, "The very law that moulds a tear," with which +the "Edinburgh Review" attempted to put down Master George Gordon when +that young man was foolishly trying to make himself conspicuous. One of +these tears peeped over the edge of the lid until it lost its +balance,--slid an inch and waited for reinforcements,--swelled +again,--rolled down a little further,--stopped,--moved on,--and at last +fell on the back of the Professor's hand. He held it up for me to look +at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine. + +I couldn't stand it,--I always break down when folks cry in my +face,--so I hugged him, and said he was a dear old boy, and asked him +kindly what was the matter with him, and what made him smell so +dreadfully strong of spirits. + +Upset his alcohol lamp,--he said,--and spilt the alcohol on his legs. +That was it.--But what had he been doing to get his head into such a +state?--had he really committed an excess? What was the matter?--Then +it came out that he had been taking chloroform to have a tooth out, +which had left him in a very queer state, in which he had written the +"Prelude" given above, and under the influence of which he evidently +was still. + +I took the manuscript from his hands and read the following +continuation of the lines he had begun to read me, while he made up for +two or three nights' lost sleep as he best might. + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY: + +OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. + + Facts respecting an old arm-chair. + At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. + Seems but little the worse for wear. + That's remarkable when I say + It was old in President Holyoke's day. + (One of his boys, perhaps you know, + Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.) + _He_ took lodging for rain or shine + Under green bed-clothes in '69. + + Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- + Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. + (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- + Standing still, if you must have proof.-- + "Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg + You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- + First great angle above the hoof,-- + That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) + --Nicest place that ever was seen,-- + Colleges red and Common green, + Sidewalks brownish with trees between. + Sweetest spot beneath the skies + When the canker-worms don't rise,-- + When the dust, that sometimes flies + Into your mouth and ears and eyes, + In a quiet slumber lies, + _Not_ in the shape of unbaked pies + Such as barefoot children prize. + + A kind of harbor it seems to be, + Facing the flow of a boundless sea. + Bows of gray old Tutors stand + Ranged like rocks above the sand; + Rolling beneath them, soft and green, + Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- + One wave, two waves, three waves, four, + Sliding up the sparkling floor; + Then it ebbs to flow no more, + Wandering off from shore to shore + With its freight of golden ore! + --Pleasant place for boys to play;-- + Better keep your girls away; + Hearts get rolled as pebbles do + Which countless fingering waves pursue, + And every classic beach is strown + With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + + But this is neither here nor there;-- + I'm talking about an old arm-chair. + You've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? + Over at Medford he used to dwell; + Married one of the Mather's folk; + Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- + Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, + Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- + One of the oddest of human things, + Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- + But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- + Fit for the worthies of the land,-- + Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, + Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in, + --Parson Turell bequeathed the same + To a certain student,--SMITH by name; + These were the terms, as we are told: + "Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; + When he doth graduate, then to passe + To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe, + On payment of"--(naming a certain sum)-- + "By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; + He to ye oldest Senior next, + And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- + "But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, + That being his Debte for use of same." + + _Smith_ transferred it to one of the BROWNS, + And took his money,--five silver crowns. + _Brown_ delivered it up to MOORE, + Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. + _Moore_ made over the chair to LEE, + Who gave him crowns of silver three. + _Lee_ conveyed it unto DREW, + And now the payment, of course, was two. + _Drew_ gave up the chair to DUNN,-- + All he got, as you see, was one. + _Dunn_ released the chair to HALL, + And got by the bargain no crown at all. + --And now it passed to a second BROWN, + Who took it, and likewise _claimed a crown_. + When _Brown_ conveyed it unto WARE, + Having had one crown, to make it fair, + He paid him two crowns to take the chair; + And _Ware_, being honest, (as all Wares be,) + He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. + Four got ROBINSON; five got DIX; + JOHNSON _primus_ demanded six; + And so the sum kept gathering still + Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. + --When paper money became so cheap, + Folks wouldn't count it, but said "a heap," + A certain RICHARDS, the books declare, + (A.M. in '90? I've looked with care + Through the Triennial,--_name not there_,) + This person, Richards, was offered then + Eight score pounds, but would have ten; + Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- + Not quite certain,--but see the book. + --By and by the wars were still, + But nothing had altered the Parson's will. + The old arm-chair was solid yet, + But saddled with such a monstrous debt! + Things grew quite too bad to bear, + Paying such sums to get rid of the chair! + But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, + And there was the will in black and white, + Plain enough for a child to spell. + What should be done no man could tell, + For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, + And every season but made it worse. + + As a last resort, to clear the doubt, + They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. + The Governor came with his Light-horse Troop + And his mounted trackmen, all cock-a-hoop; + Halberds glittered and colors flew, + French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, + The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth + And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; + So he rode with all his band, + Till the President met him, cap in hand. + --The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- + "A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." + The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- + "There is your p'int. And here's my fee. + These are the terms you must fulfil,-- + On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" + The Governor mentioned what these should be. + (Just wait a minute and then you'll see.) + The President prayed. Then all was still, + And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! + --"About those conditions?" Well, now you go + And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. + Once a year, on Commencement-day, + If you'll only take the pains to stay, + You'll see the President in the CHAIR, + Likewise the Governor sitting there. + The President rises; both old and young + May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, + The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, + Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? + And then his Excellency bows, + As much as to say that he allows. + The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; + He bows like t'other, which means the same. + And all the officers round 'em bow, + As much as to say that _they_ allow. + And a lot of parchments about the chair + Are handed to witnesses then and there, + And then the lawyers hold it clear + That the chair is safe for another year. + + God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give + Money to colleges while you live. + Don't be silly and think you'll try + To bother the colleges, when you die, + With codicil this, and codicil that, + That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; + For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, + And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + + * * * * * + +----Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect. The +shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut; his dwelling is all +door and no walls; everybody can come in. To make a morning call on an +Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through a long tunnel; his house +is all walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a +worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation +between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally +hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this +is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good +deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs +really to mean temperature. + +Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at noon, in a very hot +summer's day, one may realize, by a sudden extension in his sphere of +consciousness, how closely he is shut up for the most part.--Do you not +remember something like this? July, between 1 and 2, P.M. Fahrenheit +96ŗ, or thereabout. Windows all gaping, like the mouths of panting +dogs. Long, stinging cry of a locust comes in from a tree, half a mile +off; had forgotten there was such a tree. Baby's screams from a house +several blocks distant;--never knew of any babies in the neighborhood +before. Tinman pounding something that clatters dreadfully,--very +distinct, but don't know of any tinman's shop near by. Horses stamping +on pavement to get off flies. When you hear these four sounds, you may +set it down as a warm day. Then it is that one would like to imitate +the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has +described it: stroll into the market in natural costume,--buy a +watermelon for a halfpenny,--split it, and scoop out the middle,--sit +down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's head, and +feast upon the pulp. + +----I see some of the London journals have been attacking some of +their literary people for lecturing, on the ground of its being a +public exhibition of themselves for money. A popular author can print +his lecture; if he deliver it, it is a case of _quaestum corpore_, or +making profit of his person. None but "snobs" do that. _Ergo_, etc. To +this I reply,--_Negatur minor_. Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen, +exhibits herself to the public as a part of the service for which she +is paid. We do not consider it low-bred in her to pronounce her own +speech, and should prefer it so to hearing it from any other person or +reading it. His Grace and his Lordship exhibit themselves very often +for popularity, and their houses every day for money.--No, if a man +shows himself other than he is, if he belittles himself before an +audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from +the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight +dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an +outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity +to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too +popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of with +a rapier, as in France.--Poh! All England is one great menagerie, and, +all at once, the jackal, who admires the gilded cage of the royal +beast, must protest against the vulgarity of the talking-bird's and the +nightingale's being willing to become a part of the exhibition! + + +THE LONG PATH. + +(_Last of the Parentheses_.) + +Yes, that was my last walk with the _schoolmistress_. It happened to be +the end of a term; and before the next began, a very nice young woman, +who had been her assistant, was announced as her successor, and she was +provided for elsewhere. So it was no longer the school-mistress that I +walked with, but--Let us not be in unseemly haste. I shall call her the +schoolmistress still; some of you love her under that name. + +----When it became known among the boarders that two of their number +had joined hands to walk down the long path of life side by side, there +was, as you may suppose, no small sensation. I confess I pitied our +landlady. It took her all of a suddin,--she said. Had not known that we +was keepin' company, and never mistrusted anything partic'lar. Ma'am +was right to better herself. Didn't look very rugged to take care of a +family, but could get hired haälp, she calc'lated.--The great maternal +instinct came crowding up in her soul just then, and her eyes wandered +until they settled on her daughter. + +----No, poor, dear woman,--that could not have been. But I am dropping +one of my internal tears for you, with this pleasant smile on my face +all the time. + +The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out of +flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen +and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of scientific cruelties there +is hardly anything quite so painful to think of as that experiment of +putting an animal under the bell of an air-pump and exhausting the air +from it. [I never saw the accursed trick performed. _Laus Deo_] There +comes a time when the souls of human beings, women, perhaps, more even +than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they were +made to breathe. Then it is that Society places its transparent +bell-glass over the young woman who is to be the subject of one of its +fatal experiments. The element by which only the heart lives is sucked +out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through its transparent +walls;--her bosom is heaving; but it is in a vacuum. Death is no +riddle, compared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book +of Martyrs." The "dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the images that +frightened her most. How many have withered and wasted under as slow a +torment in the walls of that larger Inquisition which we call +Civilization! + +Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you foolish, plain, overdressed, +mincing, cheaply-organized, self-saturated young person, whoever you +may be, now reading this,--little thinking you are what I describe, and +in blissful unconsciousness that you are destined to the lingering +asphyxia of soul which is the lot of such multitudes worthier than +yourself. But it is only my surface-thought which laughs. For that +great procession of the UNLOVED, who not only wear the crown of thorns, +but must hide it under the locks of brown or gray,--under the snowy +cap, under the chilling turban,--hide it even from themselves,--perhaps +never know they wear it, though it kills them,--there is no depth of +tenderness in my nature that Pity has not sounded. + +Somewhere,--somewhere,--love is in store for them,--the universe must +not be allowed to fool them so cruelly. What infinite pathos in the +small, half-unconscious artifices by which unattractive young persons +seek to recommend themselves to the favor of those towards whom our +dear sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled by their +God-given instincts! + +Read what the singing-women--one to ten thousand of the suffering +women--tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in +earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the +next churchyard with very commonplace blue slate stones at their head +and feet, for whom it was just as true that "all sounds of life assumed +one tone of love," as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning +said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they could +not.--Will you hear a few stanzas of mine? + + +THE VOICELESS. + + + We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,-- + But o'er their silent sister's breast + The wild flowers who will stoop to number? + A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy Fame is proud to win them;-- + Alas for those that never sing, + But die with all their music in them! + + Nay, grieve not for the dead alone + Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- + Weep for the voiceless, who have known + The cross without the crown of glory! + Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, + But where the glistening night-dews weep + On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + O hearts that break and give no sign + Save whitening lip and fading tresses, + Till Death pours out his cordial wine + Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- + If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + +I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all. +That young man from another city, who made the remark which you +remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at our +table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive to this +young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her while she was +playing the accordion,--indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and +got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting +tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the +basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman +should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston +State-house. He can't be very particular. + +The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free in +his remarks, but very good-natured.--Sorry to have you go,--he +said.--Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't taken +anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of +it.--_Mourning fruit,_--said I,--what's that?--Huckleberries and +blackberries,--said he;--couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, currants, +and such, after a solemn thing like this happening.--The conceit seemed +to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, when we came down +to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it out as follows. You +know those odious little "saäs-plates" that figure so largely at +boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous +attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous +of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into +which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat +dipping her foot into a wash-tub,--(not that I mean to say anything +against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry +many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin +honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of +white silver, with the Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,--as +people in the green stage of millionism will have them,--I can dally +with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a +shiver,)--you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down +the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a +broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn +black huckleberries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was +covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was covered +with a white rose. There was a laugh at this at first, and then a short +silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the old gentleman +opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief. + +--"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for Switzerland, +that season, if we waited much longer."--The hand I held trembled in +mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself before the feet +of Ahasuerus.--She had been reading that chapter, for she looked +up,--if there was a film of moisture over her eyes, there was also the +faintest shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to +accent the dimples,--and said, in her pretty, still way,--"If it please +the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem +right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes"-- + +I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got just +to that point of her soft, humble words,--but I know what I did. That +quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came to a +compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for the last +day of summer. + +In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as you +may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a +certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first +excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters,--but +each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for +instance, when we had chickens, sent the _liver_ instead of the +_gizzard_, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an +accident: the two are _never_ mistaken, though some land-ladies +_appear_ as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the +company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. +There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that +lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally +interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be +considered relevant,--except when the least allusion was made to +matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with +both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun +at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all +behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of +leaving my boarding-house. + +I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's +plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly +fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not what _great +merchants_ call very rich, I was comfortable,--comfortable,--so that +most of those moderate luxuries I described in my verses on +_Contentment_--_most_ of them, I say--were within our reach, if we +chose to have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress had a vein +of charity about her, which had hitherto been worked on a small silver +and copper basis, which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries than +even I did,--modestly as I have expressed my wishes. + +It is rather a pleasant thing to tell a poor young woman, whom one has +contrived to win without showing his rent-roll, that she has found what +the world values so highly, in following the lead of her affections. +That was a luxury I was now ready for. + +I began abruptly:--Do you know that you are a rich young person? + +I know that I am very rich,--she said,--Heaven has given me more than I +ever asked; for I had not thought love was ever meant for me. + +It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell to a whisper as it +threaded the last words. + +I don't mean that,--I said,--you blessed little saint and seraph!--if +there's an angel missing in the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this +boarding-house!--I don't mean that; I mean that I--that is, +you--am--are--confound it!--I mean that you'll be what most people call +a lady of fortune.--And I looked full in her eyes for the effect of the +announcement. + +There wasn't any. She said she was thankful that I had what would save +me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her about +it.--I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce a +sensation. + +So the last day of summer came. It was our choice to go to the church, +but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house. The presents were +all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest +tributes of our fellow-boarders,--for there was not one, I believe, who +did not send something. The landlady would insist on making an elegant +bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin +wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,--namely, +a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags +with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure +you. The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's +Poems. On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate +and careful hand:-- + + Presented to... by... + On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. + May sunshine ever beam o'er her! + +Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy +of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive variegated +sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled. From the divinity-student came the +loveliest English edition of "Keble's Christian Tear." I opened it, +when it came, to the _Fourth Sunday in Lent_, and read that angelic +poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier's "My God, I +love thee."----I am not a Churchman,--I don't believe in planting oaks +in flower-pots,--but such a poem as "The Rose-bud" makes one's heart a +proselyte to the culture it grows from. Talk about it as much as you +like,--one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A +man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for +"scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that-- + + "God only and good angels look + Behind the blissful scene,"-- + +and that other,-- + + "He could not trust his melting soul + But in his Maker's sight,"-- + +that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and profit +by it. + +My laughing and winking young friend undertook to procure and arrange +the flowers for the table, and did it with immense zeal. I never saw +him look happier than when he came in, his hat saucily on one side, and +a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch of tea-roses, which he said +were for "Madam." + +One of the last things that came was an old square box, smelling of +camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, in faded ink, the marks, "Calcutta, +1805." On opening it, we found a white Cashmere shawl, with a very +brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, saying that he had +kept this some years, thinking he might want it, and many more, not +knowing what to do with it,--that he had never seen it unfolded since +he was a young super-cargo,--and now, if she would spread it on her +shoulders, it would make him feel young to look at it. + +Poor Bridget, or Biddy, our red-armed maid of all work! What must she +do but buy a small copper breast-pin and put it under "Schoolma'am's" +plate that morning, at breakfast? And Schoolma'am would wear +it,--though I made her cover it, as well as I could, with a tea-rose. + +It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I could not leave them in +utter silence. + +Good-bye,--I said,--my dear friends, one and all of you! I have been +long with you, and I find it hard parting. I have to thank you for a +thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience and indulgence with +which you have listened to me when I have tried to instruct or amuse +you. My friend the Professor (who, as well as my friend the Poet, is +unavoidably absent on this interesting occasion) has given me reason to +suppose that he would occupy my empty chair about the first of January +next. If he comes among you, be kind to him, as you have been to me. May +the Lord bless you all!--And we shook hands all round the table. + +Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the cloth were gone. I +looked up and down the length of the bare boards, over which I had so +often uttered my sentiments and experiences--and----Yes, I am a man, +like another. + +All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old friends of mine, +whom you know, and others a little more up in the world, perhaps, to +whom I have not introduced you, I took the schoolmistress before the +altar from the hands of the old gentleman who used to sit opposite, and +who would insist on giving her away. + +And now we two are walking the long path in peace together. The +"schoolmistress" finds her skill in teaching called for again, without +going abroad to seek little scholars. Those visions of mine have all +come true. + +I hope you all love me none the less for anything I have told you. +Farewell! + + * * * * * + + + +THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. + + +Just in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph which takes its name +from the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, I read in the September number of that +journal the revelations of an observer who was surprised to find that +he had the power of reading, as they run, the revelations of the wire. +I had the hope that he was about to explain to the public the more +general use of this instrument,--which, with a stupid fatuity, the +public has, as yet, failed to grasp. Because its signals have been +first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and afterwards by means of +the chemical power of electricity, the many-headed people refuses to +avail itself, as it might do very easily, of the same signals, for the +simpler transmission of intelligence,--whatever the power employed. + +The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and alphabet. He +himself eagerly disclaims any pretension to the original conception of +the use of electricity as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought +of that and suggested it; but Morse was the first to give the +errand-boy such a written message, that he could not lose it on the +way, nor mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, +as he deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he +probably cares very little. Nor do I care more. But the public does not +thank him for what he did originate,--this invaluable and simple +alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see +every hour how the public might use it, if it chose, I am really sorry +for this negligence,--both on the score of his fame, and of general +convenience. + +Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that this curious alphabet +reduces all the complex machinery of Cadmus and the rest of the +writing-masters to characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a +space, and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks [Morse code: +.-.] designate the letter A. The marks [Morse code: -...] designate the +letter B. All the other letters are designated in as simple a manner. + +Now I am stripping myself of one of the private comforts of my life, +(but what will one not do for mankind?) when I explain that this simple +alphabet need not be confined to electrical signals. _Long_ and _short_ +make it all,--and wherever long and short can be combined, be it in +marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-fits, canes, or children, ideas can be +conveyed by this arrangement of the long and short together. Only last +night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at a summer party at +the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The +Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she +could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." + +Mrs. Wilberforce had never heard that opera,--indeed, had never heard +of it. My angel-wife was surprised,--stood thrumming at the +piano,--wondered she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant +accord at all,--but checked herself in her effort, as soon as I +observed that her long notes and short notes, in their tum-tee, +tee,--tee-tee, tee-tum tum, meant, "He's her brother." The conversation +on her side turned from "The Butcher of Turin," and I had just time, on +the hint thus given me by Mrs. I., to pass a grateful eulogium on the +distinguished statesman whom Mrs. Wilberforce, with all a sister's +care, had rocked in his baby-cradle,--whom, but for my wife's long and +short notes, I should have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of +the day. + +You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the +business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know this Morse +alphabet, but your business, and that of every man and woman. If our +school-committees understood the times, it would be taught, even before +phonography or physiology, at school. I believe both these sciences now +precede the old English alphabet. + +As I write these words, the bell of the South Congregational strikes +dong, dong, dong;--dong, dong, dong, dong,--dong,--dong. Nobody has +unlocked the church-door. The old tin sign, "In case of fire, the key +will be found at the opposite house," has long since been taken down, +and made into the nose of a water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Two-Shoes +locked in. No! But, thanks to Dr. Channing's Fire-Alarm, the bell is +informing the South End that there is a fire in District +Dong-dong-dong,--that is to say, District No. 3. Before I have +explained to you so far, the "Eagle" engine, with a good deal of noise, +has passed the house on its way to that fated district. An immense +improvement this on the old system, when the engines radiated from +their houses in every possible direction, and the fire was extinguished +by the few machines whose lines of quest happened to cross each other +at the particular place where the child had been building cob-houses +out of lucifer-matches in a paper-warehouse. Yes, it is a very great +improvement. All those persons, like you and me, who have no property +in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit at home at ease,--and little +need we think upon the mud above the knees of those who have property +in that district and are running to look after it. But for them the +improvement only brings misery. You arrive wet, hot or cold, or both, +at the large District No. 3, to find that the lucifer-matches were half +a mile from your store,--and that your own private watchman, even, had +not been waked by the working of the distant engines. Wet +property-holder, as you walk home, consider this. When you are next in +the Common Council, vote an appropriation for applying Morse's alphabet +of long and short to the bells. Then they can be made to sound +intelligibly. Daung ding ding,--ding,--ding daung,--daung daung daung, +and so on, will tell you, as you wake in the night, that it is Mr. B.'s +store which is on fire, and not yours, or that it is yours, and not +his. This is not only a convenience to you and a relief to your wife +and family, who will thus be spared your excursions to unavailable and +unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated return,--it will be a +great relief to the Fire Department. How placid the operations of a +fire where none attend except on business! The various engines arrive, +but no throng of distant citizens, men and boys, fearful of the +destruction of their all. They have all roused on their pillows to +learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street which is in flames. All but the +owner of No. 530 Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He alone has +rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who stands in the uncrowded +street with the Chief Engineer, on the deck of No. 18, as she plays +away. His property destroyed, the engines retire,--he mentions the +amount of his insurance to those persons who represent the daily press, +they all retire to their homes,--and the whole is finished as simply, +almost, as was his private entry in his day-book the afternoon before. + +This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only struck _long_ and +_short_, and we had all learned Morse's alphabet. Indeed, there is +nothing the bells could not tell, if you would only give them time +enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But, +without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and +every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail +Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard +should report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town +for his country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to +speak articulately, in language regarding which the dullest imagination +need not be at loss, + + "Turn again, Higginbottom, + Lord Mayor of Boston!" + +I have suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the +primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own +children,--and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head, +against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it +does;--an alphabet of two characters matched against one of +twenty-six,--or of forty-odd, as the very odd one of the phono-typists +employs! On the Franklin-medal-day I went to the Johnson-School +examination. One of the committee asked a nice girl, what was the +capital of Brazil. The child looked tired and pale, and, for an +instant, hesitated. But, before she had time to commit herself, all +answering was rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-cough +which one of my own sons was seized with,--who had gone to the +examination with me. Hawm, hem hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem;--hawm, hem +hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem,--barked the poor child, who was at the +opposite extreme of the school-room. The spectators and the committee +looked to see him fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I confess that +I felt no alarm, after I observed that some of his gasps were long and +some very staccato;--nor did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered +her color,--and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, +answered, "_Rio_ is the capital of Brazil,"--as modestly and properly +as if she had been taught it in her cradle. They are nothing but +children, any of them,--but that afternoon, after they had done all the +singing the city needed for its annual entertainment of the singers, I +saw Bob and Mabel start for a long expedition into West Roxbury,--and +when he came back, I know it was a long featherfew, from her prize +school-bouquet, that he pressed in his Greene's "Analysis," with a +short frond of maiden's hair. + +I hope nobody will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these +are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is +never trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from +mortification on examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he +is not elected President. If, however, the reader is distressed, +because these illustrations do not seem to his more benighted +observation to belong to the big bow-wow strain of human life, let him +consider the arrangement which ought to have been made years since, for +lee shores, railroad collisions, and that curious class of maritime +accidents where one steamer runs into another under the impression that +she is a light-house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a +steam-whistle, which is often heard five miles. It needs only _long_ +and _short_ again. "_Stop Comet_," for instance, when you send it down +the railroad line, by the wire, is expressed thus: ... - .. .... .. . +.. -- . - Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph +station when it comes! But what if Comet has gone by? Much good will +your trumpery message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound +your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus:--Scre scre, scre; +screeee; scre scre; scre scre scre scre; scre scre--scre, scre scre, +screeeee scrceeee; scre; screeeee;--why, then the whole neighborhood, +for five miles round, will know that Comet must stop, if only they +understand spoken language,--and, among others, the engineman of Comet +will understand it; and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds +which gives the order,--with his nucleus of hot iron and his tail of +five hundred tons of coal.--So, of the signals which fog-bells +can give, attached to light-houses. How excellent to have them +proclaim through the darkness, "I am Wall"! Or of signals for +steamship-engineers. When our friends were on board the "Arabia" the +other day, and she and the "Europa" pitched into each other,--as if, on +that happy week, all the continents were to kiss and join hands all +round,--how great the relief to the passengers on each, if, through +every night of their passage, collision had been prevented by this +simple expedient! One boat would have screamed, "Europa, Europa, +Europa," from night to morning,--and the other, "Arabia, Arabia, +Arabia,"--and neither would have been mistaken, as one unfortunately +was, for a light-house. + +The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark distinctions of time +can use this alphabet of long-and-short, however he may mark them. It +is, therefore, within the compass of all intelligent beings, except +those who are no longer conscious of the passage of time, having +exchanged its limitations for the wider sweep of eternity. The +illimitable range of this alphabet, however, is not half disclosed when +this has been said. Most articulate language addresses itself to one +sense, or at most to two, sight and sound. I see, as I write, that the +particular illustrations I have given are all of them confined to +signals seen or signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the +few years of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted +to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, +of course, is heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the +sounds of its ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he +sees it. As he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing +message without striking a light to see it. But this is only what may +be said of any written language. You can read this article to your +wife, or she can read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether +it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of +Morse and his imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses +whichever of the five senses the listener chooses. This fact is +illustrated by a curious set of anecdotes--never yet put in print, I +think--of that critical dispatch which in one night announced General +Taylor's death to this whole land. Most of the readers of these lines +probably read that dispatch in the morning's paper. The compositors and +editors had read it. To them it was a dispatch to the eye. But half the +operators at the stations _heard_ it ticked out, by the register +stroke, and knew it before they wrote it down for the press. To them it +was a dispatch to the ear. My good friend Langenzunge had not that +resource. He had just been promised, by the General himself, (under +whom he served at Palo Alto,) the office of Superintendent of the +Rocky-Mountain Lines. He was returning from Washington over the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a freight-train, when he heard of the +President's danger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready,--and he felt +badly about his own office, too. But his extempore train chose to stop +at a forsaken shanty-village on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at +midnight. What does he do, but walk down the line into the darkness, +climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and apply the two ends to his +tongue, to _taste_, at the fatal moment, the words, "Died at half past +ten." Poor Langenzunge! he hardly had nerve to solder the wire again. +Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the Naguadavick stations with +Bain's chemical revolving disc. This disc is charged with a salt of +potash, which, when the electric spark passes through it, is changed to +Prussian blue. Your dispatch is noiselessly written in dark blue dots +and lines. + +Just as the disc started on that fatal dispatch, and Cogs bent over it +to read, his spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were +beside themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were +fumbling for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet +blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South +Boston, bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of +potash, as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. +Almost anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed +Morse messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all +the midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where +the companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of +acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where +the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So +universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same +principle as Morse's. + +The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can +be employed by any being who has command of any long and short +symbols,--be they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept +his accounts with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as +these which Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland Bay, so +prophetically and appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope +the reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent +being who has any one of the five senses left him,--by all rational +men, that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both +taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's +telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or +who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the +_Gymnotus electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales +in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only +note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can +listen, too. If they will only note the difference between long and +short, the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the +smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness, +look fearless on the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or +insect, which can discriminate between long and short, may use the +telegraphic alphabet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which can +hear, smell, taste, feel, or see, may take note of its signals, if he +can understand them. A tired listener at church, by properly varying +his long yawns and his short ones, may express his opinion of the +sermon to the opposite gallery before the sermon is done. A dumb +tobacconist may trade with his customers in an alphabet of short-sixes +and long-nines. A beleaguered Sebastopol may explain its wants to the +relieving army beyond the line of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its +short Paixhans and its long twenty-fours. + + + + * * * * * + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Études sur Pascal_. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN. Cinqičme Edition, revue et +augmentée. Paris: 1857. pp. 566. 8vo. + +We render hearty thanks to M. Cousin for this new edition of a favorite +work. No library which contains Pascal's "Provinciales" and "Pensées" +should be without it. + +"Of all the monuments of the French language," says M. Cousin, in the +_Avant-propos_ to this new edition, "none is more celebrated than the +work 'Les Pensées,' and French literature possesses no artist more +consummate than Pascal. Do not expect to find in this young +geometrician, so soon consumed by disease and passion, the breadth, +surface, and infinite variety of Bossuet, who, supported by vast and +uninterrupted study, rose and rose until he gained the loftiest reaches +of intellect and art, and commanded at pleasure every tone and every +style. Pascal did not fulfil all his destiny. Besides the mathematics +and natural philosophy he knew scarcely more than a little theology, +and he barely passed through good society. It is true, Pascal passed +away from earth quickly; but during his short life he discerned +glimpses of the _beau ideal_, he attached himself to it with all his +heart and soul and strength, and he never allowed anything to leave his +hands unless it bore its lively impress. So great was his passion for +perfection, that unchallenged tradition tells us he wrote the +seventeenth 'Provinciale' thirteen times over. 'Les Pensées' are merely +fragments of the great work on which he consumed the last years of his +life; but these fragments sometimes present so finished a beauty, that +we do not know which most to admire, the grandeur and vigor of the +sentiments and ideas, or the delicacy and depth of the art." + +This praise is unexaggerated. What a career was run by this genius! +Discovering the science of geometry at twelve years of age,--next +inventing the arithmetical machine,--discovering atmospheric pressure, +while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a +vacuum,"--inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains +of the toothache, and succeeding,--inventing the theory of +probabilities,--establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the +public,--then writing the "Provinciales,"--dying at thirty-three, +leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your +pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, +the favorite works of Gibbon, Voltaire, Macaulay, and Cousin! Where +else can so crowded and so short a career be found? + +It is scarcely possible to repress a smile in reading this work and +discovering the patient care with which M. Cousin avoids speaking of +the "Provinciales." And it is strange to say (no contemptible proof of +the influence exercised by the Church of Rome, even when checked as it +is in France) that no decent edition of the "Provinciales" can be found +in the French language. While we possess M. Cousin's "Études sur +Pascal," and M. Havet's edition of "Les Pensées," the only editions of +"Les Provinciales" of recent date are the miserable publications of +Charpentier and the Didots. Editions of Voltaire and Rousseau are +numerous, elaborate, and elegant; for atheism is pardoned much more +easily than abhorrence of the Jesuits. + +The volume named at the head of this article contains a great many +valuable documents relating to Pascal and his family: all of Pascal's +correspondence known to exist, including his celebrated letter on the +death of Étienne Pascal, his father, which is usually printed in "Les +Pensées," being cut up into short sentences to fit it for that work, a +large part of it being omitted; his singular essay on Love; curious +details concerning the De Roanner family; an essay on the true text of +the "Pensées"; a curious fac-simile of a page of that work; and a +discussion (perhaps M. Cousin would say a refutation) of Pascal's +philosophy. But we must protest against the easy manner in which M. +Cousin wears his honors. When a book has reached its fifth edition and +is evidently destined to a good many more during the author's lifetime, +he lies under an obligation to place the new information he may have +collected, and the additional thoughts which may have occurred to him, +during the intervals between the different editions, in a form more +convenient to the render than new prefaces and new notes. To master the +information contained in this work is no recreation, but a severe task, +and one not to be accomplished except upon repeated perusals of the +book. This is the more inexcusable because M. Cousin is now free from +all official and professional cares; and it would involve the less +labor to him, as he never writes, but dictates all his compositions. + + * * * * * + +_Belle Brittan on a Tour; at Newport, and Here and There._ New York: +Derby & Jackson. 1858. + +The compulsion of hunger, or the request of friends, was the excuse for +the printing of sorry books in Pope's time; and it has not become +obsolete yet. The writer of the book, the title of which we have given +above, pleads the latter alternative as the occasion of this +publication. He says it was "a few friends" that preferred this +request. It is unfortunate for him that he had any so void of judgment +and empty of taste. He thinks his Letters will "receive unjust +censure," as well as "undue praise." We think that he may relieve his +mind of any such apprehension. We cannot think his book at all likely +to receive more dispraise than it richly merits. A more discreditable +one, not absolutely indictable, we hope, has seldom issued from the +American press. + +What motive the author had in assuming a female character, we know not. +He certainly has been very unfortunate in his female acquaintance, if +he accurately imitates their tone of thought and style of talk, in his +letters. Should they happen to fall in the way of any foreigners, we +beg them to believe that this is not the way in which American women +converse. But we think that there can scarcely be a cockney so spoony +as not to "spy a great peard under her muffler," and know that it is a +man awkwardly masquerading in women's clothes. It is a libel on the +women of the country, to put such balderdash into the mouth of one who +may be supposed to have been finished at a fifth-rate boarding-school. + +The letters are in the worst style of the "Own Correspondents" of +third-rate papers. The "_deadhead_" perks itself in your face at every +turn, in flunkeyish gratitude for invitations, drinks, dinners, and +free passes,--from "the gentlemanly Lord Napier," down to "intelligent +and gentlemanly" railway-conductors, "gentlemanly and attentive" +hotel-clerks, "gracious, gentlemanly, and gallant" tavern-keepers, and +their "lovely and accomplished brides." The soul of a footman is +expressed by the pen of an abigail,--and the one not a Humphrey +Clinker, nor the other a Winifred Jenkins,--and we are expected to +admire the result as a good imitation of a lively, intelligent, +well-bred American young lady! We protest against the profanation. + +The letters take a wide range of subject, and treat of "Shakspeare, +taste, and the musical glasses," in a vein that would have done no +discredit to Lady Blarney and Miss Arabella Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs +themselves. We might divert our readers with some specimens of +criticism, or opinion, did our limits admit of such entertainment. We +can only inform them, on Belle Brittan's authority, that worthy Dr. +Charles Mackay, who suffers throughout the book from intermittent--nay, +chronic--attacks of puffery, is "one of the best living poets of +England"; Mademoiselle Lamoureux, the _danseuse_, is "better than +Ellsler"; and pretty Mrs. John Wood, the lively _soubrette_ of the +Boston Theatre, "possesses many of the rarest requisites of a great +actress"! But these are inanities which an inexperienced and +half-taught girl might possibly utter in a familiar letter. Not so, we +trust, as to the belief expressed by Belle Brittan, in puffing "Jim +Parton's, Fanny Fern's Jim's," Life of Burr,--"more charming than a +novel," because, as she implies, of the successful libertinism of its +hero,--when she says, speaking in the name of the maidens of America, +"We all, I suppose, must fall, like our first parents, when the hour of +_our_ temptation comes"! + +We should not have given the space we have bestowed on this worthless +book, had it not been made the occasion of newspaper puffs innumerable, +recommending it to the public as something worthy of their time and +money. It is one of the worst signs of our time that a false +good-nature or imperfect taste should lead respectable papers to give +currency to books destitute of all merit, by the application to them of +stereotyped phrases of commendation. These letters, without a grace of +style, without a flash of wit, without a genial ray of humor, deformed +by coarse breeding, vulgar self-conceit, and ignorant assumption, are +bepraised as if they were fresh from the mint of genius, and bore the +image and superscription of Madame de Sévigné or Lady Mary Wortley! +This evil must be cured, or the daily press may find that it will cure +itself. + +We know nothing of the author of this book, excepting what he has here +shown us of himself. He may be capable of better things, and when they +come before us, we shall rejoice to do them justice. But we advise him, +first of all, to discard his disguise, which becomes him as ill as the +gown of Mrs. Ford's "maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford," did Sir +John Falstaff. Or, if he will persist in playing the part of a woman, +let him bear in mind that to be unmanly is not necessarily to be +womanly, and that it does not follow that one writes like a lady +because he does _not_ write like a gentleman. + +_Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Drawing_. Designed as a Text-book for the +Mechanic, Architect, Engineer, and Surveyor. Comprising Geometrical +Projection, Mechanical, Architectural, and Topographical Drawing, +Perspective, and Isometry. Edited by W.E. WORTHEN. New York: D. +Appleton & Co. 1857. + +Mr. Worthen has given us in this book a most judicious and complete +compilation of the best works on the various branches of "practical" +drawing,--having, with real thoughtfulness and knowledge of what was +needed in a handbook, condensed all the most important rules and +directions to be found in the works of MM. Le Brun and Armengaud on +geometrical and mechanical drawing, Ferguson and Garbett on +architectural, and Williams, Gillespie, Smith, and Frome, on +topographical drawing. + +It includes a very full chapter of geometrical definitions, a complete +and minute description of all the implements of mechanical drawing, and +solutions of all the useful problems of geometrical drawing,--a part of +the work especially needed by practical mechanics, and hitherto to be +found, so far as we know, only in the form of results in the +pocket-books of tables, or in the lengthy and elaborate treatises of +the heavy cyclopaedias, or works specially devoted to the topic. + +There is an admirably condensed treatise on the mechanical powers, +containing all the problems of use in construction, with tables of the +mechanical properties of materials. In mechanical drawing there are +directions for the most complicated drawings, going up to the last +improvements in the steam-engine. The same completeness of elementary +instruction marks the section on architectural drawing, though in this +department we should have liked a fuller and better-chosen series of +examples, especially of domestic architecture,--an Italian villa +planned by Mr. Upjohn being the only really tasteful and appropriate +dwelling-house given. The designs by Downing, rarely much more than +commodious residences with great neatness rather than artistic beauty, +stand very well for that style of building which consults comfort and +attains it, but it is a misuse of words to call them artistic. +Picturesque they may be at times, but often the affectation of external +style puts Downing's designs into the category of Gothic follies and +Grecian villanies, in which the outside gives the lie to the +inside,--emulating in wood the forms of stone, giving to cottages on +whose roof snow will never lie three inches deep all the pitch a Swiss +_chālet_ would need. We are especially sorry to see a plate of Thomas's +house in Fifth Avenue, New York,--the most absurd and ludicrous pile of +building material which can be found on the avenue,--and to find such +evidence of taste as is shown by the editor's commendation of it as +"uniting richness and grandeur of effect," "admirably suited," etc. Mr. +Worthen, however, generally abstains from much expression of opinion as +to styles or the respective merits of works. + +His examples of the steam-engine are nearly all from American models, +and include the oscillating engines of the "Golden Gate," the last +important advance in the construction of the marine engine; for, +although the form of the oscillator has been known for years, it had +never been applied to marine uses until the success of the "Golden +Gate" proved its applicability to the heaviest engines. The examples of +architectural details and ornaments are copious, and represent all +styles with great fairness; but there is much confusion in the +numbering of the plates, so that it is a problem at times to find the +illustration desired. + +The tinted illustrations, though answering their proposed purpose, are +a disgrace to the art of lithotinting,--coarse, ineffective, and cheap. +The publishers, we think, would have profited by a little more +liberality in this respect. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, +ISSUE 12, OCTOBER, 1858*** + + +******* This file should be named 10435-8.txt or 10435-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/3/10435 + + +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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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10435-8.zip b/old/10435-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a592bd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10435-8.zip diff --git a/old/10435.txt b/old/10435.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bafd340 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10435.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8986 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, +October, 1858, 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 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 11, 2003 [eBook #10435] +[Date last updated: July 2, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, +ISSUE 12, OCTOBER, 1858*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Keith M. Eckrich, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. II.--OCTOBER, 1858.--NO. XII. + + + + + + +THE NEW WORLD AND THE NEW MAN. + +Half a dozen rivulets leap down the western declivity of the Rocky +Mountains, and unite; four thousand miles away the mighty Missouri +debouches into the Mexican Gulf as the result of that junction. Did the +rivulets propose or plan the river? Not at all; but they knew, each, +its private need to find a lower level; the universal law they obeyed +accomplished the rest. So is it with the great human streams. Mighty +beginnings do not lie in the minds of the beginners. History is a +perpetual surprise, ever developing results of which men were the +agents without being the expectants. Individual actors, with respect to +the master claim of humanity, are, for the most part, not unlike that +fleet hound which, enticed by a tempting prospect of meat, outran a +locomotive engine all the way from Lowell to Boston, and won a handsome +wager for his owner, while intent only on a dinner for himself. +Humanity is served out of all proportion to the intention of service. +Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait, +but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations +of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a +voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to +calculate consequences makes the preeminent grandeur of his position; +or he is urged by the high inevitable impulse to publish or verify an +idea: the Divine Destiny _works_ in their hearts, and _plans_ over +their heads. + +Socrates felt a sacred impulse to test his neighbors, what they knew +and were: this is such account of his life as he himself can give at +its close. His contemporaries generally saw in him an imperturbable and +troublesome questioner, fatally sure to come at the secret of every +man's character and credence, whom no subterfuge could elude, no +compliments flatter, no menaces appall,--suspected also of some +emancipation from the popular superstitions: this is the account of him +which _they_ are able to give. At twenty-three centuries' distance _we_ +see in him the source of a river of spiritual influence, that yet +streams on, more than a Missouri, in the minds of men,--more than a +Missouri, for it not only flows as an open current, but, percolating +beneath the surface, and coming up in distinct and distant fountains, +it becomes the hidden source of many a constant tide in the faiths and +philosophies of nations. + +The veil covers the eyes of spectators and agents alike. Columbus +returns, freighted with wondrous tidings, to the Spanish shore; the +nation rises and claps its hands; the nation kneels to bless its gods +at all its shrines, and chants its delight in many a choral Te Deum. +What, then, do they think is gained? Why, El Dorado! Have they not +gained a whole world of gold and silver mines to buy jewelled cloaks +and feathers and frippery with? Have they not gained a cornucopia of +savages, to support new brigades at home by their enslavement, and new +bishoprics abroad by their salvation? Touching, truly, is the childish +eagerness and _bonhommie_ with which those Spaniards in fancy assume, +as it were, between thumb and finger, this continent, deemed to be +nothing less than gold, and feed with it the leanness of hungry purses; +and the effect is not a little enhanced by the extreme pains they are +at to say a sufficient grace over the imagined meal. "Oh, wonderful, +Pomponius!" shouts the large-minded Peter Martyr. "Upon the surface of +that earth are found rude masses of gold, of a weight that one fears to +mention!... Spain is spreading her wings," etc. He is of the minority +there, who does not suppose this New World a Providential donation to +aid him to dinners, dances, and dawdling, or at best to promote his +"glory" and pride of social estimation. Even Columbus, more magnanimous +than most of his contemporaries, is not so greatly more wise. The +noblest use he can conceive for his discovery is to aid in the recovery +of the Holy Sepulchre. With the precious metals that should fall to his +share, says his biographer, he made haste to vow the raising of a force +of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the +Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even +the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, +and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of +the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not +individuals alone, but whole nations, may lawfully claim. + +The Old World, we say, seized upon this magnificent new force now +thrown into history, and harnessed it unsuspiciously to its own car, as +if it could have been designed for no other possible use. Happily, +however, the design was different, and Providence having a peculiar +faculty of protecting its own plans, the holding of the reins after +such a steed proved anything but a sinecure. Spain, indeed, rode in a +high chariot for a time, but at length, in that unlucky Armada drive, +crashed against English oak on the ocean highways, and came off +creaking and rickety,--grew thenceforth ever more unsteady,--finally, +came utterly to the ground, with contusions, fractures, and much +mishap,--and now the poor nation hobbles hypochondriacally upon +crutches, all its brave charioteering sadly ended. England drove more +considerately, but could not avoid fate; so in 1783 she, too, must let +go the rein with some mental disturbance. For the great Destiny was not +exclusively a European Providence,--had meditated the establishment of +a fresh and independent human centre on the western side of the sea. +The excellent citizens of London and Madrid found themselves incapable +of crediting this until it was duly placarded in gunpowder print.--It +is, indeed, an unaccountable foible men have, not to recognize a plain +fact till it has been published in this blazing hieroglyphic. What were +England and France doing at Sebastopol? Merely issuing a poster to this +effect,--"Turkey is not yours,"--in a type that Russia could feel free +to understand. Terribly costly editions these are, and in a type +utterly hideous; but while nations refuse to see the fact in a more +agreeable presentation, it may probably feel compelled to go into this +ugly, but indubitable shape.--Well, somewhat less than a century since, +England had committed herself to the proposition, that America was +really a part or dependency of Europe, a lower-caste Europe, having +about the same relation to the Cisatlantic continent that the farmer's +barn has to his house. Mild refutations of this modest doctrine having +been attempted without success, posters in the necessary red-letter +type were issued at Concord, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc., which might +be translated somewhat thus:--"America has its own independent root in +the world's centre, its own independent destiny in the Providential +thought." This important fact, having then and there exploded itself +into legibility, and come to be known and read of all men, admits now +of no dispute, and requires no confirmation. It is evidently so. The +New World is not merely a newly-discovered hay-loft and dairy-stall for +the Old, but is itself a proper household, of equal dignity with any. +To draw the due inferences from this, to see what is implied in it, is +all that we are here required to do. + +Be it, then, especially noted that the continent by itself can take no +such rank. A spirituality must appear to crown and complete this great +continental body; otherwise America is acephalous. Unless there be an +American Man, the continent is inevitably but an appendage, a kitchen +and laundry for the European parlor. American Man,--and the word Man is +to receive a large emphasis. Observe, that it does not refer to mere +population. The fact required will hardly be reported in the census. +Indeed, there is quite too much talk about population, about +prospective increase of numbers. We are to have thirty millions of +inhabitants, they say, in 1860; soon forty, fifty, one hundred +millions. Doubtless; and if that be all, one yawns over the statement. +Could any prophet assure us of _one_ million of men who would stand for +the broadest justice as Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans stood +for Lacedaemon! But Hebrew David was thought to be punished for taking +a census; nor is the story without significance. To reckon numbers +alone a success _is_ a sin, and a blunder beside. Russia has sixty +millions of people: who would not gladly swap her out of the world for +glorious little Greece back again, and Plato and Aeschylus and +Epaminondas still there? Who would exchange Concord or Cambridge in +Massachusetts for any hundred thousand square miles of slave-breeding +dead-level? Who Massachusetts in whole for as many South American (or +Southern) republics as would cover Saturn and all his moons? Make sure +of depth and breadth of soul as the national characteristic; then roll +up the census columns; and roll out a hallelujah for each additional +thousand. + +Thus had the great Genoese been destined merely to make a new highway +on the ocean and new lines on the map,--to add the potato, maize, and +tapioca to the known list of edibles, and tobacco to that of +narcotics,--to explode Spain, give England a cotton-field, Ireland a +hospital, and Africa a hell. This could by no means seem sufficient. +The crew of the Pinta shouted, "Land! Land!"--peering through the dark +at the new shores; the Spanish nation chanted, "Gold! Gold!"--gazing +out through murky desires toward the wondrous West; but it is only with +the cry of "Man! Man!" as at the sight of new cerebral shores and +wealth of more than golden humanities, that the true America is +discovered and announced. So whatever reason we have to assert for +America a really independent existence and destiny, the same have we +for predicting an opulence of heart and brain, to which Western +prairies and Californian gold shall seem the natural appurtenance. + +And this noble man must be likewise a _new_ man,--not merely a migrated +European. Western Europe pushed a little farther west does not meet our +demand. Why should Europe go three thousand miles off to be Europe +still? Besides, can we afford to England, France, Spain, a larger room +in the world? Are we more than satisfied with their occupancy of that +they already possess? The Englishman is undeniably a wholesome picture +to the mental eye; but will not twenty million copies of him do, for +the present? It would seem like a poverty in Nature, were she unable to +vary, but must go helplessly on to reproduce that selfsame British +likeness over all North America. But history fully warrants the +expectation of a new form of man for the new continent. German and +Scandinavian Teutons peopled England; but the Englishman is _sui +generis_, not merely an exported Teuton. Egypt, says Bunsen, was +peopled by a colony from Western Asia; but the genius and physiognomy +of Egypt are peculiar and its own. Mr. Pococke will have it that Greece +was a migrated India: it was, of course, a migration from some place +that first planted the Hellenic stock in Europe; but if the man who +carved the Zeus, and built the Parthenon, and wrote the "Prometheus" +and the "Phaedrus," were a copy, where shall we find the original? +Indeed, there has never been a great migration that did not result in a +new form of national genius. And it is the thoroughness of the +transformations thus induced which makes the chief difficulty in +tracing the affinities of peoples. + +So it is that the world is enriched. Every new form of man establishes +another current in those reciprocations of thought, in those electrical +streams of sympathy,--of wholesome attraction and wholesome +repulsion,--by which the intellectual life is kindled and quickened. +Thought begins not until two men meet. Col. Hamilton Smith makes it +quite clear that civilization has found its first centres there where +two highways of national movement crossed, and dissimilar men looked +each other in the face. They have met, it may be, with the rudest kind +of greetings; but have obtained good thoughts from hard blows, and +beaten ideas _out_ of each other's heads, if not _into_ them, according +to the ancient pedagogic tradition. Higher culture brings higher terms +of meeting; traffic succeeds war, conversation follows upon traffic; +ever the necessity of various men to each other remains. There is no +pure white light until seven colors blend; so to the mental +illumination of humanity many hues of national genius must consent: and +the value of life to all men is greater so soon as a new man has made +his advent. + +All this is matter of daily experience with us. We do not, indeed, tire +of old friends. A soul whose wealth we have once recognized must be +ever rich to us. Gold turns not to copper by keeping; and perhaps old +friends are rather like old wine, and can never be too old. Yet who +does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a _new_ +rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly +its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our +conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the +spectacle of drunken Helots;--though he who makes habitual _talk_ about +his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there be +sermons in stones, no less is there blessing in bores and in bullies. +We found one day in the face of a black bear what could not be so well +found in libraries. The creature regarded us attentively, and with +affection rather than malice,--saw simply certain amounts of savory +flesh, useful for the satisfaction of ursine hungers,--and saw nothing +more. It was an incomparable lesson to teach that the world is an +endless series of levels, and that each eye sees what its own altitude +commands; the rest to it is non-extant. _That_ bear was in his natural +covering of hair; his brothers we frequently meet in broadcloth. + +Now, as Nature keeps up this inexhaustible variety of individual genius +which individual quickening requires, so on the larger scale is she +ever working and compounding to produce varieties of national genius. +Her aim is the same in both cases,--to enrich the whole by this +electrical and enlivening relation between its parts. And thus an +American man, no copy, but an original, formed in unprecedented moulds, +with his own unborrowed grandeur, his own piquancy and charm, is to be +looked for,--is, indeed, even now to be seen,--on this shore. + +Yes, the man we seek is already found, his features rapidly becoming +distinct. He is the offspring of Northern Europe; he occupies Central +North-America. Other fresh forms are doubtless to appear, but, though +dimly shaping themselves, are as yet inchoate. But the Anglo-American +is an existing fact, to be spoken of without prognostication, save as +this is implied in the recognition of tendencies established and +unfolding into results. The Anglo-American may be considered the latest +new-comer into this planet. Let us, then, a little celebrate his +advent. Let us make all lawful and gentle inquiry about the +distinguished stranger. + +First, what is his pedigree? He need not be ashamed to tell; for he +comes of a noble family, the Teutonic,--a family more opulent of human +abilities, and those, for the most part, the deeper kind of abilities, +than any other on the earth at present. He reckons among his +progenitors and relatives such names as Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, the +two Bacons, Lessing, Richter, Schiller, Carlyle, Hegel, Luther, Behmen, +Swedenborg, Gustavus Adolphus, William of Orange, Cromwell, Frederick +II., Wellington, Newton, Leibnitz, Humboldt, Beethoven, Handel, Turner; +and nations might be enriched out of the names that remain when the +supreme ones in each class have been mentioned. Consider what +incomparable range and variety, as well as depth, of genius are here +affirmed. Greece and India possessed powers not equally represented +here; but otherwise these might stand for the full abilities of +mankind, each in its handsomest illustration.--It is remarkable, too, +that our Anglo-American has no "poor relations." Not a scurvy nation +comes of this stock. They are the Protestant nations, giving religion a +moral expression, and reconciling it with freedom of thought. They are +the constitutional nations, exacting terms of government that +acknowledge private right. _Resource_ may also be emphasized as a +characteristic of these nations. Hitherto they have honored every draft +that has been made upon them. The Dutch first fished their country out +from under the sea, and afterwards defended it in a war of eighty +years' duration against the first military power on the globe: two +feats, perhaps, equally without parallel. + +Being thus satisfied upon the point of pedigree, we may proceed to +inquire about estate. To what inheritance of land has Nature invited +our New Man? He comes to the country of highest organization, perhaps, +upon either hemisphere. Brazil and China suggest, but probably do not +sustain, a rivalry. What is implied in superior organization will +appear from the items to be mentioned. + + 1. Elaboration. Central North-America is to an extraordinary degree +worked out everywhere in careful detail, in moderate hill and valley, +in undulating prairie and fertile plain,--not tossed into barren +mountain-masses and table-lands, like that vast desert _plateau_ which +stretches through Central Asia,--not struck out in blank, like the +Russian _steppes_ and the South American _llanos_, as if Nature had +wanted leisure to elaborate and finish. Indeed, these primary +conditions of fertility and large habitability appertain to America, as +a whole, to such degree, that, with less than half the extent of the +Old World, it actually numbers more acres of fertile soil, and can, of +course, sustain a larger population. + + 2. Unity. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast, and +between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern wheat-limit, a larger space +of fertile territory, embracing a wider variety of climate and +production, is thrown into one mass, broken by no barrier, than can, +perhaps, elsewhere be found. + + 3. Communication. No mass of land equal in other advantages is to the +same extent thrown open and enriched by natural highways. The first +item under this head is access to the ocean, which is the great +road-space and highway of the world. Not mentioning the Pacific, as +that coast is not here considered, we have the open sea upon two sides, +while upon the northern boundary is an inclosed sea, the string of +lakes, occupying a space larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and of +a form to afford the greatest amount of coast-line and accommodation in +proportion to space. But coast-_line_ is not enough; land and sea must +be wedded as well as approximated. The Doge of Venice went annually +forth to wed the Adriatic in behalf of its queen, and to cast into its +bosom the symbolic ring; but Nature alone can really join the hands of +ocean and main. By bays, estuaries, ports, spaces of sea lovingly +inclosed by arms of sheltering shore, are conversation and union +established between them. + +"The sea doth wash out all the ills of life," sings Euripides; and it +is, indeed, with some penetration of wonder that one observes how deep +and productive a relation to man the ocean has sustained. Some share in +the greatest enterprises, in the finest results, it seldom fails to +have. Not capriciously did the subtile Greek imagination derive the +birth of Venus from the foam of the sea; for social love,--that vast +reticulation of wedlock which society is--has commonly arisen not far +from the ocean-shore. The Persian is the only superior civilization, +now occurring to our recollection, which has no intimate relation +either with river or sea; and that pushed inevitably toward the Tigris +and Euphrates. Now to Europe must be conceded the supremacy in this +single respect, that of representing the most intimate coast relation +with the sea; North America follows next in order. Africa, washed, but +not wedded, by the wave, represents the greatest seclusion,--and has +gone into a sable suit in her sorrow. After the ocean, rivers, which +are interior highways, claim regard. The United States have on this +side the Rocky Mountains more than forty thousand miles of river-flow, +that is, eighty thousand miles of river-bank,--counting no stream of +less than one hundred miles in length. Europe, in a larger space, has +but seventeen thousand miles. The American rivers are nearly all +accessible from the ocean, and, owing to the gentle elevation of the +continent, flow at easy declivities, and accordingly are largely +navigable. The Mississippi descends at an average of only eight inches +_per_ mile from source to mouth; the Missouri is said to be navigable +to the very base of the Rocky Mountains; and these monarch streams +represent the rivers of the continent. Thus here do these highways of +God's own making run, as it were, past every man's door, and connect +each man with the world he lives in. + +Rivers await their due celebration. We easily see that Nile, Ganges, +Euphrates, Jordan, Tiber, Thames, are rivers of influence in human +history, no less than water-currents on the earth's surface. They have +borne barks and barges that the eye never saw. They have brought on +their soft bosoms freight to the cities of the brain, as well as to +Memphis, Rome, London. Some experience of their spiritual influence +must have fallen to the lot of most men. The loved and lovely Merrimac +no longer accedes to the writer's eye, but, as of old, glides securely +seaward in his thought,--like a strain of masterly music long ago +heard, and, when heard, identical in its suggestions with the total +significance and vital progress of one's experience, that, intertwining +itself as a twin thread with the shuttled fibre of life, it was woven +into the same fabric, and became an inseparable part of the +consciousness; so, hearken when one will, after the changes and +accessions of many peopled years, and amid the thousand-footed trample +of the mob of immediate impressions, still secure and predominant it is +heard subtly sounding. Deep conversation with any river readily +interprets to us that venerable mythus which connects Eden with the +four rivers of the world; as if water must flow where man is chiefly +blest. + +But the point here to be emphasized is, that rivers are the progressive +and public element in its geographical expression. They throw the +continent open; they are doors and windows, through which the nations +look forth upon the world, and leave and enter their own household. +They are the hospitality of the continent,--every river-mouth chanting +out over the sea a perpetual, "Walk in," to all the world. Or again, +they are geographical senses,--eyes, ears, and speech; for of these +supreme mediators in the body, voice, vision, and hearing, it is the +office, as of rivers, to open communication between the interior and +exterior world; they are rivers of access to the outlying universe of +men and things, which enters them, and approaches the soul through the +freighted suggestions of sight and sound. Rivers, lastly, are the +geographical symbol of public spirit, the flowing and connecting +element, suggesting common interests and large systems of action. + +Thus in these characteristics of Various Productiveness, Unity, and +Openness or Publicity, the continent indicates the description of man +who may be its fit habitant. It suggests a nation vast in numbers and +in power, existing not as an aggregate of fragments, but as an organic +unit, the vital spirit of the whole prevailing in each of its parts; +and consequently predicts a man suitable for wide and yet intimate +societies. Let us not, however, thoughtlessly jump to accept these easy +prognostics; first let it be fully understood what an enormous demand +they imply. Americans speak complacently of their prospective one +hundred millions of inhabitants; but do they bear well in mind that the +requisition upon the individual is augmented by every multiplication +and extension of the mass? It is not without significance, that great +empires have uniformly been, or become, despotisms. Liberty lives only +in the life of just principle; and as the weight of an elephant could +not be sustained by the skeleton of a gazelle,--as, moreover, the bones +must be made stouter as well as longer,--so must a vast body politic be +permeated by a sturdier element of justice than is required for a +diminutive state. It is, indeed, the chief recommendation of our +federative form of government, that this, so far as may be, localizes +legislation, and thus, by lessening the number of interests that demand +a national consent, lessens equally the strain upon the conscience and +judgment of the whole. Near at hand, the mere good feeling of +neighbors, the companionable sentiment of cities and clans, proves a +valuable succedaneum for that deeper principle which is good for all +places and times. But this sentiment, like gravitation, diminishes in +the ratio of the square of the distance, and at any considerable remove +can no longer be reckoned upon as a counter-balance to the lawlessness +of egotism. Athenians could be passably just, or at least not +disastrously unjust, to Athenians; Spartans to Spartans; but Sparta +must needs oppress the other cities of Laconia, while Athens was at +best a fickle ally; and when Grecian liberty could be strong only in +Grecian union, the common sentiment was bankrupted by too great a draft +upon its resources. How far beyond the range of egotism of neighborhood +a _free_ state may go is determined chiefly by limits in the souls of +its constituents. At that point where equal justice begins to halt, +fatigued by too long a journey, the inevitable boundaries of the state +are fixed. Nor is it the mere sentiment of justice alone that suffices; +but this must be sustained in its applications by a certain breadth of +nature, a certain freedom and flexibility, akin to the dramatic +faculty, which enables us to enter into the feelings and wants of +others. Nothing, perhaps, in the world can be so unjust as a narrow and +frigid conscience beyond its proper range. The bounds of the state may, +indeed, not pause where the sustenance of its integral life fails. But +then its extension will be purchased with its freedom,--the quality be +debased as the quantity increases. Jelly-fish, and creatures of the +lowest animation, may sustain magnitude of body, not only with a slight +skeleton, but with none at all; and society of a cold-blooded or +bloodless kind follows the analogy. But these low grades of social +organization, having some show of congruity with the blank levels of +Russia, can pretend to none with the continent we inhabit. Yet some +species of arbitrament between man and man is sure to establish itself; +if it live not, as a part of freedom, in the bosom of each, then does +it inevitably build itself into a Fate over their heads; and despotism, +war, or similar brutal and violent instrumentalities of adjustment, +supply in their way the demand that love and reason failed to meet. + +Accordingly, in our American Man must be found, first, social largeness +and susceptibility,--whatsoever, in the breadth of a flexile and +sympathetic nature, may contribute to the keeping of the Golden Rule. +But the broadest good-feeling will not alone suffice. The great pledge +of peace, fellowship, and profitable co-working among such a population +as we anticipate must be sought in the deeper unity of moral principle. +For Right is one, and is every man's interest. Right is better than +Charity; for Right meets, or even anticipates, normal wants, while +Charity only mends failures. Nothing, therefore, that we could discover +in the New Man would be such a security for his future, nothing so fit +him for his place, as a tendency to simple and universal principles of +action. In the absence of this, he will infallibly be compelled one day +to enter Providence's court of chancery, and come forth bankrupt. But +let him be, even by promise, a seer of those primary truths in which +the interests of all are comprehended and made identical, and the +virtue of his vision will become the assurance of his welfare. +Doubtless, sad men will say that our own eyes are clouded with some +glittering dust of optimism, when we declare that this Man for the +Continent is the very one whose advent we celebrate. This might, +indeed, seem a fatuitously dulcet song to sing just now, when a din of +defection and recreancy is loud through all the land,--now, when we +have immediately in view, and on the largest scale, an open patronage +of infamous wrong-doing, so brazen-fronted and blush-proof that only +the spectacle itself makes its credibility;--the prior possibility of +it we should one and all hasten, for the honor of human nature, to +deny. Yet in the midst of all this are visible the victorious +influences that mould the imported Teuton to the spiritual form which +his appointed tasks imply. These we now hasten to indicate. + +And first, every breath of American air helps to make him the American +Man. The atmosphere of America was early noted as a wonder-worker. Ten +years subsequent to the landing at Plymouth, the Rev. Francis +Higginson, an acute observer, wrote to the mother country,--"A sup of +New England air is better than a whole flagon of old English ale." Jean +Paul says that the roots of humankind are the lungs, and that, being +rooted in air,--we are properly children of the aether. Truly, children +of the aether,--and so, children of fire. For the oxygen, upon which +the lungs chiefly feed, is _the_ fiery principle in Nature,--all that +we denominate fire and flame being but the manifestation of its action. +We are severe upon fire-eaters, Southern and other; yet here are we, +cool Northerns, quaffing this very principle and essence of fire in +large lung-draughts every moment, each of us carrying a perpetual +furnace in his bosom. Now it is doubtless true that we inhale more +oxygen, or at least inhale it less drenched with damp, than the people +of Europe, and are, therefore, more emphatically children of fire than +they. Be this, or be some other, the true theory of the fact, the fact +itself unquestionably is, that our climate produces the highest nervous +intensity. As there are conditions of atmosphere in which the magnetic +telegraph works well, and others in which it works ill, so some +conditions stimulate, while others repress nervous action. The air of +England seems favorable to richness and abundance of blood; there the +life-vessels sit deep, and bring opulent cargoes to the flesh-shores; +and the rotund figure, the ruddy solid cheek, and the leisurely +complacent movement, all show how well supported and stored with vital +resources the Englishman is. But to the American's lip the great +foster-mother has proffered a more pungent and rousing draught,--not an +old Saxon sleeping-cup for the night, but a waking-cup for the bright +morning and busy day. It is forenoon with him. He is up and dressed, +and at work by the job. Bring an Englishman here, and nothing short of +Egyptian modes of preservation will keep him an Englishman long. Soon +he cannot digest so much food, cannot dispose of so much stimulant; his +step becomes quicker, his eye keener, his voice rises a note on the +scale, and grows a trifle sharper. In fine, the effects observed in our +autumn foliage may be traced in the people themselves, a heightening of +colors; and while this accounts for much that is prurient and bizarre, +it infolds also the best promise of America. + +The effect of this upon American physiology and physiognomy is already +quite visible. Of course we must guard against hasty generalizations, +since the interfusing of various elements in our Western States is +producing new types of manhood. But the respective _physiques_ of Old +and New England can easily be compared, and the difference strikes +every eye. The American is lean, he has a paler complexion, a sharper +face, a slighter build than his ancestors brought from the Old World. +Mr. Emerson is reported as saying (though the precise words escape us) +that the Englishman speaks from his chest, the American more from the +mouth or throat,--that is, the one associates his voice more with the +stomach and viscera, the other with the head; and, indeed, the pectoral +quality of the prevailing tones catches the ear immediately upon +setting foot on British soil. Every man instinctively apprehends where +he is strongest, and will tend to associate voice and movement with the +centre of his strengths. The American, since in him the nervous force +predominates, instinctively lifts his voice into connection with the +great household of that force, which is the brain; for an equally good +reason the Englishman speaks from the visceral and sanguineous centres. +The American (we are still dwelling chiefly on the New England type) is +also apt to throw the head forward in walking,--thereby indicating, +first, his chief reliance upon the forces which that part harbors, and, +secondly, his impulse to progress; so that our national motto, "Go +ahead," may have a twofold significance, as if it were in some sort the +antipodes of going a-foot, and suggested not only the direction of +movement, but also the active agent therein! + +Mr. Robert Knox, of England, somewhat known as an ethnological lecturer +and author,--a thinker in a sort, though of the "slam-bang" school, of +far more force than faculty, and of a singular avidity for ugly +news,--dogmatically proclaims that all Americans are undergoing a +physical degeneration, involving, as he thinks, an equal lapse of +mental power, proceeding with swift fated steps, and sure ere long to +land them in sheer impotence and imbecility; and he appeals to the +common loss of adipose tissue and avoirdupois as proof. This author +belongs to a class of well-meaning gentlemen, so unfortunately +constituted that the distractions of their time induce in them an +acetous fermentation (as milk sometimes sours during thunder); and from +acid becoming acrid, they at length fall fairly in love with the +Erinnyes, and henceforth dote upon destruction and ugliness as happier +lovers do upon cosmical health and beauty. Concluding that the universe +is a shabby affair, they like to make it out shabbier still,--and so, +seldom brighten up till they have an ill thing to say. They are not +persons toward whom it is easy to feel amiable. Dogmatism is ever +unlovely, though it be in behalf of the sweetest hopes; but chronic +doubt and disbelief erected into a dogmatism are intolerable. Yet Mr. +Knox's misinterpretations of the facts are taking root in many minds +that do not share his fierce hypochondria and hunger for bitter herbs. +That the American has lost somewhat in animal resources is +incontestable; but Mr. Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the +man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial +paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and +silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical +constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; but +as a china vase is not necessarily less sound than a stone jug or iron +kettle, so delicacy and fragility in man are no proof of disease. The +ominous prognosis of this doctor, therefore, seems no occasion for +despair, perhaps not even for alarm. But to perceive what different +harping can be performed on this string, hear Carus:--"Leanness, as +such," says the master, "is the symbol of a certain lightness, +activity, rapidity, and mental power." Thus the adipose impoverishment, +which to the yellow-eyed Englishman seems utter bankruptcy, is at once +recognized by a superior man as denoting an augmentation, rather than +diminution, of proper human wealth. + +But while the typical American organization is of this admitted +delicacy and lightness, it is still capable, under high and powerful +impulse of extraordinary feats of endurance. This has of late been +admirably illustrated. Not long since, there returned to our shores a +hero who--as Dante was believed by the people of Italy to have entered +the Inferno of Fire--had actually descended into the opposite Inferno +of Frost, and done unprecedented battle with the demons of that realm. +Dr. Kane was slight, delicately framed, lean, with sharp, clear-cut +features, of quivering mobility and fineness of texture, having the +aspect rather of an artist than an explorer,--not at all the personage +to whom most judges would assign great power of endurance. And as one +follows him through those thrice Herculean toils,--sees him not only +bearing cheerfully the great burden of his own cares and ills, but +lifting up, as it were, from his companions, and assuming upon his own +shoulders, the awful oppression of the polar night, as Atlas of old was +fabled to support the heavens,--not even one's admiration at such force +of soul can wholly exclude wonder at such fortitude of body. Whence, we +ask, this power of endurance? We can trace it to no ordinary physical +resource. It _comes_ from no ordinary physical resource. It is pure +brain-power. It streams down upon the body, in rivers of invigoration, +from the cerebral hemispheres. A conversational philosopher, +discoursing to a circle of intelligent New England mechanics, +said,--"It is commonly supposed that the earth supports man. Not so; +man upholds the earth!" "How!" exclaimed a wide-eyed auditor; "upholds +the earth? How do you make that out?" "How?" answered the philosopher, +with superb innocence,--"don't you see that it sticks to his heels?" +When the question is asked, How the slight frame of this Arctic hero +could support such tests, the answer must be analogous,--It clung to +his brain. The usual order of support is reversed; and here is that +truer Mercury, in whom the winged head, possessing as function what its +prototype only exhibited as ornament and symbol, really soars in its +own might, bearing the pendent feet. + +Dr. Kane was one of the purest examples of the American organization; +and as he issued victorious from that region where "the ground burns +frore, and cold performs the effect of fire," the Man of the New World +was represented, and in him came forth with proven strength. The same +significance would not attach to all feats of endurance, even where +equally representative. Here are Hercules and Orpheus in one,--the +organization of a poet, and the physical stamina of a gladiator. + +Now this peculiar organization offers the physical inducement for two +great tendencies,--one relating to the perception of truth, the other +to the feeling of social claims,--while these tendencies are supported +on the spiritual side by the great disciplines of our position; and the +genius which these foreshow is precisely that which ought to be the +genius of the New Man. + +This organization is that of the seer, the poet, the spiritualist, of +all such as have an eye for the deeper essences and first principles of +things. Concede intellectual power, or the spiritual element, then add +this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, +radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. +And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as +well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable +to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,--How +far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like +the winds. Near the earth's surface winds blow in variable directions, +and the weathercock becomes the type of fickleness. So there is a class +of little truths, dependent upon ever-variable relations, with which it +is the function of cunning, shrewdness, tact, to deal, and numbers of +men seldom or never lift their heads above this weathercock region. Yet +the upper air, alike of the spiritual and the physical atmosphere, has +its perpetual currents, unvarying as the revolution of the globe or the +sailing of constellations; and these fail not to represent themselves +by eternal tradewinds upon the surface of our planet and of our life. +Now the grand inquiry about any man is,--Does he belong to the great +current, or to the lesser ones? He appertains to the great in +proportion to his access to principles. Or we may illustrate by another +analogy a distinction, of importance so emphatic. The Arctic voyagers +find two descriptions of ice. The field-ice spreads over vast spaces, +and moves with immense power; but goes with the wind and the +surface-flow. The bergs, on the contrary, sit deep, are bedded in the +mighty under-currents; and when the field-ice was crashing down with +tide and storm, Dr. Kane found these heroes holding their steady +inevitable way in the teeth of both. Thus may one discover men who are +very massive, very powerful, engrossing such enormous spaces that there +hardly seems room in the world for anybody else; but they are Field-ice +Men; they represent with gigantic force the impulse of the hour. But +there is another class, making, perhaps, little show upon the surface, +or making it by altitude alone, who represent the grand circulations of +law, the orbital courses of truth. It is a question of depth, of +penetration. And depth, be it observed, secures unity; diversity, +contrariety, contention are of the surface. Numbers need not concern +us, whether one hundred, or one hundred millions, provided all are +imbedded in the central, commanding truths of the human consciousness. +And if the Man of the New World be characteristically one who will +attach himself to the eternal master-tides, that fact alone fits him +for his place. + +Of course no sane man would intimate that organization alone can bring +about such results. The Arabian horse will hardly manufacture a Saladin +for his back. But let the Saladin be given, and this marvel of nerve +and muscle will multiply his presence,--will, as it were, give two +selves. So, if the Teutonic man who comes to our shores were innately +empty or mean, this nervous intensity would only ripen his meanness, or +make his inanity obstreperous. But in so far as he has real depth of +nature, this radical organization will aid him, quickening by its heat +what is deepest within him; and when he turns his face toward +principles, this flying brain-steed will swiftly bring him to his goal. +Nay, it is best that even meanness should ripen. The slaveholder of +South Carolina must avouch a false principle to cover his false +practice,--must affirm that slavery is a Divine institution. It is +well. A Quaker, hearing a fellow blaspheme, said,--"That is right, +friend; get such bad stuff out of thee!" A lie is dangerous, till it is +told,--like scarlatina, before it is brought to the surface: when +either breaks out, it is more than half conquered. The only falsehoods +of appalling efficacy for evil are those which circulate subtly in the +vital unconsciousness of powerful but obscure or undemonstrative +natures,--deadly from the intimacy which also makes them secret and +secure, and silently perverting to their own purposes the normal vigors +of the system. A Mephistopheles is not dangerous; he is too +clear-headed; he knows his own deserts: some muddiness is required to +harbor self-deceptions, in order that badness may reach real working +power. To all perversion iron limits are, indeed, set; but obscure +falsehood works in the largest spaces and with the longest +tether.--Thus the expressive intensity which appertains to this +organization is serviceable every way, even in what might, at first +blush, seem wholly evil effects. + +While thus the brain-hand of the American is formed for grasping +principles, for apprehending the simple, subtile, universal truths +which slip through coarser and more sluggish fingers, there is also an +influence on the moral and intellectual faculties, coming in to accept +and use these cerebral ones. We are more in conversation with the heart +and pure spiritual fact of humanity than any other people of equal +power and culture. We necessarily deal more with each other on a bond +and basis of common persuasion, of open unenacted truth, than others. +This matter is of moment enough to justify somewhat formal elucidation. + +Nations, like individual men, birds, and many quadrupeds and fishes, +are house-builders. They wall and roof themselves in with symbols, +creeds, codes, customs, etiquettes, and the like; they stigmatize by +the terms heresy, high-treason, and names of milder import, any attempt +to quit this edifice; and send such offenders into purgatory, +penitentiary, coventry, as the case may be. Some nations omit to insert +either door or window; they make penal even the desire to look out of +doors, even the assertion that a sky exists other than the roof of +their building, or that there is any other than a very unblessed +out-of-doors beyond its walls. Such are countries where free speech is +forbidden, where free thought is racked and thumb-screwed, and where +not only a man's overt actions, but his very hopes, his faith, his +prayers, are prescribed. Here man is put into his own institutions, as +into a box; and a very bad box it proves. Now these blank walls not +only encompass society as a mass, but also run between individuals, +cutting off bosom from bosom, and rendering impossible that streaming +of heart-fires, that mounting flame from meeting brands, out of whose +wondrous baptism come the consecrate deeds of mankind. Go to China, and +to any living soul you obtain no access, or next to none,--such +disastrous roods of etiquette are interposed between. It is as if one +very cordially shook hands with you by means of a pair of tongs or a +ten-foot pole. Indeed, it is hardly a man that you meet; it is a piece +of automatic ceremony. Nor is it in China alone that men may be found +who can hardly be accredited with proper personality. As one dying may +distribute his property in legacies to various institutions and +organizations,--so much, for example, to the Tract Society, so much to +the Colonization Society, and the like,--in the same manner do many +make wills at the outset of life for the disposal of their own personal +powers, and do nothing afterward but execute this testament,--executing +themselves in another sense at the same time. They parcel out +themselves, their judgment, their conscience, and whatsoever pertains +to their spiritual being, among the customs, traditions, institutions, +etiquettes of their time, and renounce all claim to a free existence. +After such a piece of spiritual _felo-de-se_, the man is nothing but +one wheel in a machine, or even but one cog upon a wheel. Thenceforth +he merely hangs together;--simple cohesion is the utmost approximation +to action which can be truly attributed to him. + +And as nothing is so ridiculous, so, few things are so mischievous, as +the sincere insincerity, the estrangement from fact, of those who have +thus parted with themselves. It is worse, if anything can be worse, +than hypocrisy itself. The hypocrite sees two things,--the fact and the +fiction, the gold and its counterfeit; he has virtue enough to know +that he is a hypocrite. But the _post-mortem_ man, the walking legacy, +does not recognize the existence of eternal Fact; it has never occurred +to his mind that anything could be more serious than "spiritual +taking-on" and make-belief. An innocent old gentleman, being at a play +where the heroine is represented as destroyed in attempting to +cross a broken bridge, rose, upon seeing her approach it, and in tones +of the deepest concern offered his opinion that said bridge was unsafe! +The _post-mortem_ man reverses this harmless blunder, and makes it +anything but harmless by the change; as that one took theatricals to be +earnest fact, so this conceives virtue itself to consist in posturing; +he thinks gold a clever imitation of brass, and the azure of the sky to +be a kind of celestial cosmetic; in fine, formalities are the realest +things he knows. It is said, that, in the later days of Rome, the +augurs and inspectors of entrails could not look each other in the face +during their ceremonies, for fear of bursting into a laugh. But still +worse off than these pitiful peddlers of fraud is he who feigns without +knowing that he feigns,--feigns unfeignedly, and calls God to witness +that he is faithful in the performance of his part. This is ape's +earnest, and is, perhaps, the largest piece of waste that ever takes +place upon this earth. _Ape's earnest_,--it is a pit that swallows +whole nations, whole ages; and the extent to which it may be carried is +wellnigh incredible, even with the fact before our eyes. A Chinese +gentleman spends an hour in imploring a relative to dine with +him,--utterly refusing, so urgent is his desire of company, to accept +No for an answer,--and then flies into a rage because the cousin +commits the _faux pas_ of yielding to his importunity, and agreeing to +dine. Louis Napoleon perpetrates the king-joke of the century by +solemnly presenting the Russian Czar with a copy of Thomas a Kempis's +"Imitation of Christ,"--a book whose great inculcation is to renounce +the world! + +Now no sooner do men lose hold upon fact than they inevitably begin to +wither. They resemble a tree drawn with all its roots from the earth; +the juices already imbibed may sustain it awhile, but with every +passing day will sustain it less. If Louis Napoleon is so removed from +conversation with reality as not to perceive the colossal satire +implied in his gift, it will soon require more vigor than he possesses +to keep astride the Gallic steed. That Chinese etiquette explains the +condition of the Chinese nation. Indeed, it is easy to give a recipe +for mummying men alive. Take one into keeping, prescribe everything, +thoughts, actions, manners, so that he never shall find either +permission or opportunity to ask his own intellect, What is true? nor +his own heart, What is right? nor to consider within himself what is +intrinsically good and worthy of a man; and if he does not rebel, you +will make him as good a mummy as Egyptian catacombs can boast. + +The capital art of life is to renew and augment your power by its +expenditure. It was intimated some eighteen centuries since that the +highest are obtained only by loss of the same; and the transmutation of +loss into gain is the essence and perfection of all spiritual +economies. Now of this art of arts he is already master who steadily +draws upon his own spiritual resources. The soul is an extraordinary +well; the way to replenish is to draw from it. It is more miraculous +than the widow's cruse;--that simply continued unexhausted,--never +less, indeed, but also never more; while from this the more you take, +the more remains in it. Were it, therefore, desired to arrange with +forethought a scheme of life that should afford the highest +invigoration, in such scheme there should be the minimum of +prescription, and nothing be so sedulously avoided as the superseding +of inward and active _principles_ by outward and passive _rules_;--that +is, life would be made as much moral and spontaneous, as little +political and mechanical, as possible. + +And this does not ill describe our own case. No civilized nation is so +little imprisoned in precedents and traditions. Our national maxim is, +"The world is too much governed." In the degree of this release we are, +of course, thrown back upon underlying principles and universal +persuasions,--since these of necessity become, in the absence of more +artificial ties, the chief bond of such peace and cooeperation as +obtain. Leave two men to deal with each other, not merely as subjects +or citizens, but as men, and they must recur to that which is at once +native and common to both, to the universal elements in their +consciousness, that is, to principles; and thus the most ordinary +mutual dealing becomes, in some degree, a spiritual discipline. Harness +these men in precedents, and whip them through the same action with +penalties, and they will gain only such discipline as the ox obtains in +the furrow and the horse between the thills. Statutes serve men, but +lame them. They render morality mechanical. Men learn to say not, "It +is right," but, "It is enacted." And the difference is immense. "Right" +sends one to his own soul, and requires him to produce the living law +out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the +Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the +former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are +not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;--they pilfer power +from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they +incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not +only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations +which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency toward a +fresh life daily gains impetus. That repeal of the Missouri Compromise, +however blamable, has several happy features, and prominent among these +must be reckoned the illustration it affords of a growing disposition +to say, "No putting To-day into Yesterday's coffin; let the Present +_live_ and be its own lord." + +We need be at no loss to discover the effects of the combined +influences here stated. The ordinary phrases of our country-people +denote an alert judgment,--as, "I reckon," "I calculate," "I guess." +The inventiveness which characterizes Americans, the multiplicity of +patents, comes from the tendency to go behind the actual, to test +possibilities, to bring everything to the standard of thought. Emerson +dissolves England in the alembic of his brain, and makes a thought of +that. Our politics are yearly becoming more and more questions of +principle, questions of right and wrong. There is almost infinite +promise and significance in this gradual victory of the moral over the +political, of life over mechanism. Mr. Benton complains of the +"speculative philanthropy" of New England, because it suggests +questions upon which he could not meet his constituents, and interferes +with his domestic arrangements. It is much as if one should pray God to +abolish the sun because his own eyes are sore! + + * * * * * + +We now pass to the second great tendency which, as is here affirmed, +organization and moral discipline are unitedly tending to establish on +this shore. An inevitable consequence of the nervous intensity and +susceptibility characteristic of Americans is an access of personal +magnetism, or influence; we keenly feel each other, have social +impressibility. The nervous is the public element in the body, the +mediating and communicating power. It is the agent of every sense,--of +sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell,--and of the power of speech. It is +the vehicle of all fellow-feeling, of all social sympathy. It +introduces man to man, and makes strangers acquainted. And a most +unceremonious master of these ceremonies it is;--running +indiscriminately across ranks; introducing beggar and baron; forcing +the haughtiest master, spite of his theories, to feel that the slave +_is_ a man and a fellow; compelling the prince to acknowledge the +peasant,--not with a shake of the hand, perhaps, but, it may be, with +knee-shakings and heart-shakings. A terrible leveller and democrat is +this master element in the human frame; yet king and kaiser must +entertain him in courts and on thrones. Now the high development of +this in the American Man renders him communicative, gives him a quick +interest in men; he cannot let them pass without giving and taking. +Hence the much-blamed inquisitiveness,--"What is your name? Where do +you live? Where are you going? What is your business? Do you eat baked +beans on Sunday?" Mrs. Trollope is horrified; it is a bore; but one +likes the man the better for it. He is interested in you;--that is the +simple secret of all. King Carlyle calls us "eighteen millions of +bores." To be sure; is that so bad? The primitive English element was +pirate; let the primitive American _be_ bore. The fathers of the +Britain that is took men by the throat; let the fathers of the America +that is to be take them by the--button;--that is amelioration enough +for one thousand years! In truth, this intense personal interest which +characterizes the American, though often awkwardly manifested and +troublesome, is an admirable feature in his constitution, and few +traits should awaken our pride or expectation more. It is this keen +fellow-feeling that fits him for the broadest and most beneficent +public interest. This makes him a philanthropist. And his philanthropy +is peculiar. It is not merely of the neighborhood sort, such as sends a +Thanksgiving turkey to poor Robert and a hat that does not fit well to +poor Peter. For here the predilection for principles and +generalizations comes in, and leads him to translate his fellow-feeling +into social axioms. Thus it occurs that the American is that man who is +grappling most earnestly and intelligently with the problem of man's +relation to man. In every village is some knot of active minds that +brood over questions of this kind. The monarch newspaper of America is +deeply tinged with the same hue; nor could one with a contrary +complexion attain its position. This great current of human interest +floats our politics; it feeds the springs of enthusiasm, coming forth +in doctrines of non-resistance, of government by love, and the like; +and our literature contains essays upon love and friendship which, in +our judgment, are not equalled in the literature of the world. + +Nor is a moral discipline wanting to second this tendency. A terrible +social anomaly has been forced upon us,--has had time to intertwine +itself with trade, with creeds, with partisan prejudice and patriotic +pride, and, having become next to unconquerable, now shows that it can +keep no terms and must kill or be killed. And through this the question +of man's duties to man, on the broadest scale, is incessantly kept in +agitation. It is like a lurid handwriting across the sky,--"Learn what +man should be and do to his fellow." And the companion sentence is +this,--"Thy justice to the strangers shall be the best security to +thine own household." + + * * * * * + +By the co-working of these two grand tendencies we obtain at once the +largest speculative breadth and the closest practical and personal +interest. What sweeter promise could any one ask than that of this rare +and admirable combination? Thought and action have been more than +sufficiently separated. The philosopher has discoursed to a few, and in +the dialect of the few, in Academic shades; sanctity has hidden itself +away, lost in the joy of its secret contemplations; the great world has +rolled by, unhearing, unheeding,--like London roaring with cataract +thunder around St. Paul's, while within the choral service is performed +to an audience of one. Thinking and doing have hardly recognized each +other. Now we are not of those vague, enthusiastic persons who fancy +that all truths are for all ears,--that the highest spiritual fact can +be communicated, where there is no spiritual apprehension to lay hold +upon it. _He that hath ears_, let him hear. Nor would we attempt to +confuse the functions of sayer and doer. But let there be a sympathy +and understanding between them, that, when achieved, will mark an epoch +in the world's history. Nowhere, at least in modern times, have thought +and action approached so nearly and intimately as in America; nowhere +is speculative intellect so colored with the hues of practical interest +without limiting its own flight; nowhere are labor and executive power +so receptive of pure intellectual suggestion. The union of what is +deepest and most recondite in thought with clear-sighted sagacity has +been well hit by Lowell in his description of the typical American +scholar,-- + + "Sits in a mystery calm and intense, + And looks round about him with sharp common-sense." + +That is, the New Man has two things that seldom make each other's +acquaintance,--Sight and Insight. Accordingly, our subtilest thinker, +whom the scholarly Mr. Vaughan classes with the mystics and accuses of +going beyond the legitimate range even of mystics, has written such an +estimate of the most practical nation in the world as has never been +written of that or any other before. The American knows what is about +him, has tact, sagacity, conversance with surfaces and circumstances, +is the shrewdest guesser in the world; and seeing him on this side +alone, one might say,--This is the man of to-day, a quick worker, good +to sail ships, bore mountains, buy and sell, but belonging to the +surface, knowing only that. The medal turns, and lo! here is this 'cute +Yankee a thinker, a mystic, fellow of the antique, Oriental in his +subtilest contemplations, a rider of the sunbeam, dwelling upon Truth's +sweetness with such pure devotion and delight that vigorous Mr. +Kingsley must shriek, "Windrush!" "Intellectual Epicurism!" and disturb +himself in a somewhat diverting manner. Pollok declaimed against the +attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the +other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is +born,--to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice, +eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes. +True, but to _both_ extremes; he belongs to the two antipodes. To the +one he appertains by intellectual emancipation and penetrative power; +to the other by his pungent element of sympathy with persons. Speaking +of the older Northern States, and of the people as a whole, we affirm +that their inhabitants are more speculative _and_ more practical, the +scholars know more of immediate common interests and speak more the +dialect of the people, while the mechanics know more of speculative +truth and understand better the necessary vocabulary of thought, than +any other people. + +Lyell says, that the New World is really the Old World,--that there, +preeminently, the antique geological formations are found, and nearer +the surface than elsewhere. Thus the physical peculiarity of our +continent is, that here an elaborate and highly finished surface is +immediately superimposed upon the oldest rock, rock wrought in fire and +kneaded with earthquake knuckles. We discover in this a symbol of the +American Man. He likewise brings into near association the most ancient +and the most modern. By insight he dwells in the old thoughts, the +eternal truths, the meditations that rapt away the early seers into +trance and dream; but he brings these into sharp contact with life, +associates them with the newest work, the toil and interests of this +year and day. + +We shall find space to mention but one peril which besets the New Man. +It is danger of physical exhaustion. Dr. Kane, the hero of two Arctic +nights, came forth to the day only to die. That which makes the +preeminence of our organization makes also its peril. Denmark is said +to be impoverished by the disproportion of the learned to the +industrial class; production is insufficient, and too much of a good +thing cripples the country. The nervous system is a learned class in +the body; it contributes dignity and superior uses, but makes no corn +grow in the physiological fields. A brain of great animation and power +is a perilous freight for the stanchest body; in a weak and shattered +body it is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket,--the richer it would +make him on dry land, the less chance it gives him of arriving there. +That this danger is not imaginary too many are able to testify.--Few +scenes in Rabelais are more exquisitely ludicrous than that in which he +pictures the monk Panurge in a storm at sea. The oily ecclesiastic is +terrified as only a combination of hypocrite and coward can be; and, in +the extremity of his craven distress, he fancies that any situation on +shore, no matter how despicable, would be paradise. So at length he +whines, "Oh that I were on dry land, and somebody kicking me!" In a +similar manner--similar, save that farce deepens to tragedy--many a man +in America of opulent mental outfit, but with only a poor wreck of a +body to bear the precious cargo, must often have been tempted to cry, +"Oh that I had a sound digestion, and were some part of a dunce!" In +truth, we are a nation of health-hunters, betraying the want by the +search. It were to be wished that an accurate computation could be made +how much money has been paid in the United States, within a score of +years, for patent medicines. It would buy up a kingdom of respectable +dimensions. So eager is this health-hunger, that it bites at bare +hooks. The "advertising man" of Arnold's Globules offers his services +as nostrum-puffer-general, and appeals to past success as proof of his +abilities in this line. But Arnold's Globules will sell no whit the +worse. Is the amiable Mr. Knox right, after all? Doubtless, we answer, +the American organization is more easily disordered than the +English,--just as a railway-train running at forty miles an hour is +more liable to accident than one proceeding at twenty. Besides, +Americans have not learned to live as these new circumstances require. +The New Man is a clipper-ship, that can run out of sight of land while +one of the old bluff-bowed, round-ribbed craft is creeping out of port; +but, from the very nature of his superiorities, he is apt to be +shorter-lived, and more likely to spring a leak in the strain of a +storm. He demands nicer navigation. It will not do for him to beat over +sand-bars. Yet dinner-pilotage in this country is reckless and +unscientific to a degree. The land is full of wrecks hopelessly snagged +upon indigestible diet. As yet, it is difficult to obtain a hearing for +precaution. Men answer you out of their past experience,--much like a +headstrong personage who was about to attempt crossing a river in a +boat sure to sink. "You will drown, if you go in that thing," said a +bystander. "Never was drowned yet," was the prompt retort; and pushing +off, he soon lost the opportunity to repeat that boast! But this +resistance is constantly becoming less. Meantime, numbers of foreseeing +men are waking up, or are already awakened, to the importance of +recreation and physical culture,--members of the clerical profession, +to the credit of the craft be it said, taking the lead. Messrs. +Beecher, Bellows, and Hale plead the cause of amusements; the author of +"Saints and their Bodies" celebrates the uses and urges the need of +athletic sports; gymnasia are becoming matters of course in the cities +and larger towns; "The New York Tribune" attends to the matter of +cookery; and it is safe to predict that the habits of the people will +undergo in time the necessary changes. That health is possible to +Americans ought not to be questioned. Of despair we will not listen to +a word. In crossing the ocean, in the backwoods-experience which +everywhere precedes cultivation, in the excitement which has followed +the obliteration of social monopolies and the throwing open of the +wealth of a continent to free competition, the old traditional +precautions have been lost, the old household wisdoms, the old +economies of health; and these we have now to reproduce for ourselves. +It will be done. And when this is done, though ancient English brawn +will not reappear, there will be health, and its great blessing of +cheerful spirits. The special means by which this shall be accomplished +we leave to the care of the gentlemen abovenamed, and their +compeers--merely putting in one word for _gentle_ exercise, and two +words for the cherishing of mental health, the expulsion of morbid +excitements, assume what guise they may. We should take extreme care +not to admit decay at the summit. A healthy soul is a better +prophylactic than belladonna. Refusing to despond respecting American +health, we cheerfully trust that the genius of the New Man will find +all required physical support, and due length of time for demonstrating +its quality. + +And now we may notice a doubt which some readers will cherish. Is not +all this, they may say, over-sanguine and enthusiastic? Is it not a +self-complacent dream? Are the tendencies adverted to so productive? Is +any such genius really forming as is here claimed? Is it not, on the +contrary, now fully understood that the Americans are a commonplace +people, meagre-minded money-makers, destitute of originality? What have +they done to demonstrate genius yet?--These skepticisms are somewhat +prevalent nowadays, and are a natural enough reaction from +Fourth-of-July flatulencies. Let them have their day. The fact will +vindicate itself. Meanwhile we may remark, that the appeal to attained +performance, in justification of the view taken in this paper of +American abilities and prospects, would obviously place us at undue +disadvantage. We speak here, and are plainly entitled to speak, rather +of tendencies than of attainments, of powers forming themselves in man, +and not of results produced without him. Nevertheless, results there +are,--admirable, satisfactory results. + +As first of these may be mentioned American Reform. In depth, in +breadth, in vigor, in practical quality, this may challenge comparison +with anything of a similar kind elsewhere. This is the direct outburst +of a new life, arising and wrestling with the old forms, habitudes, +institutions, with whatsoever is imported and traditional, on the one +hand, and with the crude or barbarous improvisations of native energy, +on the other. It is a force springing out of the summit of the brain, +the angel of its noblest sentiment, going forth with no less an aim +than to construct a whole new social status from ideas. And the token +of its superiority is this, that it builds its new outward life only +from the most ancient incorruptible material, out of the eternal +granite of Moral Law. Sweeping social _schemes_ prevail in France. But +American Reform is not a scheme; it is the service of an _idea_. It is +made conservative by that which also makes it radical, by working in +the interest of the moral sentiment. + +The Literature of the New World is also worthy of the New Man. We are +quite aware that a large portion of this literature is trash. So was a +large part in Shakspeare's, in Cervantes's, in Plato's age and place. +But we admit even that the comparison does not hold,--that an especial +accusation may be brought against the issues of the press in this +country. Wise men should have anticipated this, and, instead of +reasoning from the size of our lakes, prairies, and mountains, and +demanding epics and philosophies of us before we are fairly out of our +primitive woods, the critics should have hastened to say,--A colony +must have time to strike root, and to draw up therefrom a new life, +before it can arrive at valuable and genuine literary expression. The +Life must come before the Thought. Nothing could be more absurd than +the expectation that American literature should spring away into the +air from the top of European performance. Our first literature was +colonial,--that is, imitative, written for the approbation of European +critics,--of course, having somewhat the empty correctness of good +school-boy composition. Next followed what we may call fire-weed +literature,--the first rank, raw product of new lands. Under these two +heads a vast number of books must of course be reckoned. But beyond +these American literature has already passed, and now can point to +books that spring out of the pure genius of the New Man. And having +only these in mind, we hesitate not to say that there is now sounding +upon these shores a deeper, subtler, and more universal note than is +heard in any other land touched by the Atlantic Sea. We have now +writings in several departments of literature, and in both prose and +verse, which are characterized by a breadth and largeness of +suggestion, by a spirituality and a prophetic adherence to the moral +sentiment, which justify all that has here been affirmed or reasoned. +And our deepest thought finds a popular reception which proves it not +foreign or exceptional. Wilkinson's "Human Body," the largest piece of +speculative construction which England has produced in two centuries, +has not yet, after some eight years, we believe, exhausted its first +edition. Emerson's Poems, still less adapted, one would say, than the +work just mentioned, to the taste of populaces, had reached its fourth +edition in about the same period. Learned works have, of course, a +superior reception in the mother-country; works of pure thought in the +daughter. Said to us, during the past season, the subtilest thinker of +Great Britain,--"I must send to America whatever I wish to put in +print, unless I pay for its publication from my own pocket." + +And beyond this, there is a hush in the nation's heart, an expectancy, +a waiting and longing for some unspoken word, which sometimes seems +awful in the bounty of its promise. I know men educated to speak, with +the burden of a speaker's vocation on their hearts, but now these many +years remaining heroically silent; the fountains of a fresh +consciousness sweet within them, but not yet flowing into speech, and +they too earnest, too expectant, too sure of the future to say aught +beneath the strain. "Why do you not speak?" was inquired of one. +"Because I can keep silent," he said, "and the word I am to utter will +command me." No man assumes that attitude until he is already a party +to the deepest truth, is the silent side of a seer; and in a nation +where any numbers are passing this more than Pythagorean lustrum, a +speech is surely coming that will no more need to apologize for itself +than the speech of the forest or the ocean-shore. The region of the +trade-winds is skirted with calm. Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, that +his talk, to render it charming, "needed only a few brilliant flashes +of silence." We are talkative, but the flashes of silence are not +wanting, and there is prophecy in them as well as charm. Said one, of a +speaker,--"He was so rarely eloquent, that what he did not say was even +better than what he did." And here, not only are some wholly silent, +but in our best writings the impressive not-saying lends its higher +suggestion than that expressly put forth. What spaces between Emerson's +sentences! Each seems to float like a solitary summer-cloud in a whole +sky of silence. + +Yes, the fact is already indubitable, a rich life, sure in due time of +its rich expression, is forming here. As out of the deeps of Destiny, +the Man for the Continent, head-craftsman, hand-craftsman, already puts +his foot to this shore. All hail, new-comer! Welcome to great tasks, +great toils, to mighty disciplines, to victories that shall not be too +cheaply purchased, to defeats that shall be better than victories! We +give thee joy of new powers, new work, unprecedented futures! We give +the world joy of a new and mighty artist to plan, a new strong artisan +to quarry and to build in the great architectures of humanity! + + + +THE POET KEATS. + + His was the soul, once pent in English clay, + Whereby ungrateful England seemed to hold + The sweet Narcissus, parted from his stream,-- + Endymion, not unmindful of his dream, + Like a weak bird the flock has left behind. + + Untimely notes the poet sung alone, + Checked by the chilling frosts of words unkind; + And his grieved soul, some thousand years astray, + Paled like the moon in most unwelcome day. + + His speech betrayed him ere his heart grew cold; + With morning freshness to the world he told + Of man's first love, and fearless creed of youth, + When Beauty he believed the type of Truth. + + In the vexed glories of unquiet Troy, + So might to Helen's jealous ear discourse + The flute, first tuned on Ida's haunted hill, + Against OEnone's coming, to betray + In what sweet solitude her shepherd lay. + + Yet, Poet-Priest! the world shall ever thrill + To thy loved theme, its charm undying still! + Hearts in their youth are Greek as Homer's song, + And all Olympus half contents the boy, + Who from the quarries of abounding joy + Brings his white idols without thought of wrong. + + With reverent hand he sets each votive stone, + And last, the altar "To the God Unknown." + + As in our dreams the face that we love best + Blooms as at first, while we ourselves grow old,-- + As the returning Spring in sunlight throws + Through prison-bars, on graves, its ardent gold,-- + And as the splendors of a Syrian rose + Lie unreproved upon the saddest breast,-- + So mythic story fits a changing world: + Still the bark drifts with sails forever furled. + An unschooled Fancy deemed the work her own, + While mystic meaning through each fable shone. + + + +HER GRACE, THE DRUMMER'S DAUGHTER. + + +Foray, a mass of crags embellished by some greenness, looked up to +heaven a hundred miles from shore. It was a fortified position, and a +place of banishment. In the course of a long war, waged on sea and land +between two great nations, this, "least of all," became a point of some +importance to the authority investing it; the fort was well supplied +with the machinery of death, and the prison filled with prisoners. But +peace had now been of long continuance; and though a nation's banner +floated from the tower of the fort, and was seen afar by +mariners,--though the cannon occupied their ancient places, ordered for +instant use,--though all within the fort was managed and conducted day +by day with careful regard to orders,--the operations indicated, in the +spirit of their conduct, no fear of warlike surprises. No man gave or +obeyed an order as if his life depended on his expedition. Neither was +the prison the very place it had been; for, once, every cell had its +occupant,--an exile, or a prisoner of war. + +The officials of the island led an easy life, therefore. Active was the +brain that resisted the influences of so much leisure as most of these +people had. But, under provocation even, Nature must be true. So true +is she, indeed, that every violation of her dignities illustrates the +meaning of that sovereign utterance, VENGEANCE IS MINE. She will not +bring a thorn-tree from an acorn. Pray, day and night, and see if she +will let you gather figs of thistles. Prayer has its conditions, and +faith is not the sum of them. + +But Nature's buoyant spirits must needs conquer the weight of +influences whose business is to depress. And they, seeking, find their +centre among things celestial, in spite of all opposing. Much leisure, +light labor, was not the worst thing that could befall some of the men +whose lot was cast on Foray. + +Adolphus Montier was a member of the military band. He was drummer to +the regiment by the grace of his capacity. Besides, he played on the +French horn, to the admiration of his wife, and others; and he could +fill, at need, the place of any missing member of the company, leaving +nothing to be desired in the performance. + +Adolphus came to Foray in the first vessel that brought soldiers +hither. He saw the first stone laid in the building of the fort. Here +he had lived since. He was growing gray in the years of peace. He had +some scars from the years of strife, he was a brave fellow, and +idleness, a devil's bland disguise, found no favor with him. + +His daughter Elizabeth was the first child born on the island. Bronzed +warriors smiled on her fair infancy; sometimes they called her, with +affectionate intonation, "The Daughter of the Regiment." She deserved +the notice they bestowed,--as infancy in general deserves all it +receives,--but Elizabeth for other reasons than that she had come +whence none could tell, and was going whither no man could +predict,--for other reason than that she was the first discovered +native of the island. She was a beautiful child; and I state this fact +not specially in deference to the universal expectation that a +character brought forward for anybody's notice should be personally +capable of fascinating such. Indeed, it seems inevitable that we find +our heroines and heroes in life beautiful. Miss Nightingale must needs +remain our type of pure charity in person, as in character. Elisha Kent +Kane among his icebergs must stand manifestly efficient for his +"princely purpose," his eye and brow magnificent with beauty. Rachel, +to every woman's memory, must live the unparalleled Camille. + +Little Elizabeth--I smile to write her name upon the page with +these--it were a shame to cheat of beauty by any bungle of description. +Is not a fair spirit predestined conqueror of flesh and blood? Have we +not read of the noble lady whose loveliness a painter's eye was the +very first to discover? Where the likeness? The soul saw it, not the +eye; and he understood, who, seeing it, exclaimed, "Our friend--in +heaven!" While Adolphus Montier cleaned and polished his French horn, +an occupation which was his unfailing resource, if he could find +nothing else to do, or when he practised his music, business in which +he especially delighted when off duty, it was his pleasure to have wife +and child with him. + +Imagination was an active power in the Drummer's sphere. He, away off +in Foray, used to talk about the forms and colors of sounds, as if he +knew about them; and he had not learned the talk in any school. He +would have done no injury to transcendentalism. And he was a happy man, +in that the persons before whom he indulged in this manner of speech +rather encouraged it. Never had his Pauline's pride and fondness failed +Adolphus the Drummer. Life in Foray was little less than banishment, +though it had its wages and--renown; but Pauline made out of this +single man her country, friends, and home. Never woman endeavored with +truer single-heartedness to understand her spouse. In her life's aim +was no failure. Let him expatiate on sound to the bounds of fancy's +extravagance, she could confidently follow, and would have volunteered +her testimony to a doubter, as if all were a question of tangible fact, +to be definitely proved. So in every matter. For all the comfort she +was to the man she loved, for her confidence in him who deserved it, +for her patient endurance of whatsoever ill she met or bore, for +choosing to walk in so peaceful a manner, with a heart so light and a +face so fair, praise to the Drummer's wife! + +Elizabeth, the companion of her parents in all their happy rambling and +unambitious home-life, was their joy and pride. If she frolicked in the +grass while her father played his airs, she lost not a strain of the +music. She hearkened also to his deep discourse, and gave good heed, +when he illustrated the meaning of the tunes he loved to play. And +these were rarely the stirring strains with which the Governor's policy +kept the band chiefly busy when the soldiers gathered on summer nights +in knots of listeners, and the ladies of the fort, the Governor's wife, +and the wives of the officers, came out to enjoy the evening, or when a +vessel touched the rocky shore. + +Elizabeth's vision was clearer than even love could make her +mother's,--clearer than music made her father's; since a distinct +conception of images seems not to be inevitable among the image-makers. +The prophets are not always to be called upon for an interpretation. No +white angel ever floats more clearly before the eyes of those who look +on the sculptor's finished work than before the eyes of Elizabeth +appeared the shapes and hues of sounds which swept in gay or solemn +procession through the windings of her father's horn, floating over the +blue water, dissolving as the mist. No bright-winged bird, fair flower, +or gorgeous sunset or sea-wave, was more distinct to the child's eyes +than the hues of the same notes, stately as palm or pine,--red as +crimson, white as wool, rich and full as violet, softly compelling as +amethyst. + +Pauline Montier was by nature as active and diligent as Adolphus. She +was a seamstress before the days of Foray and the Drummer, and still +continued to ply her needle, though no longer urged by necessity. She +sewed for the officers' wives, she knit stockings and mufflers for the +soldiers. The income thus derived independently of Montier's public +service was very considerable. + +Born of such parents, Elizabeth would have had some difficulty in +persuading herself that her business was to idle through this life. + +Her early experiences were not as peaceful as those which followed her +tenth year. The noise of battle, the cries of defeat, the shouts of +victory, the sight of agonized faces, the vision of death, the +struggles of pain and anguish, the sorrow of bereavement,--she had seen +all with those young eyes. She had heard the whispered command in +hushed moments of mortal danger, and the shout of triumph--in the +tumult of victory,--had watched blazing ships, seen prisoners carried +to their cells, attended the burial of brave men slain in battle, had +marched with soldiers keeping time to funeral strains. Her courage and +her pity had been stirred in years when she could do no more than see +and hear. Once standing, through the heat of a bloody engagement, by +the side of a lad, a corporal's son, who was stationed to receive and +communicate an order, a random shot struck the boy down at her side. +She saw that he was dead,--waited for the order, transmitted it, and +then carried away the lifeless body of her fellow-sentinel, staggering +under the weighty burden, never resting till she had laid him in the +shelter of his father's quarters. After the engagement, this story was +told through the victorious ranks by the witnesses of her valor, and a +medal was awarded the child by acclamation. She always wore it, and was +as proud of it as a veteran of his ribbons and stars. + +But now, in times of peace, the fair flower of her womanhood was +forming. Like a white hyacinth she grew,--a lady to look upon, with +whom, for loveliness, not a lady of the fort could be compared. Not one +of them in courage or unselfishness exceeded her. + +The family lived in a little house adjoining the barracks. It was a +home that could boast of nothing beyond comfort and cleanliness;--the +word comfort I use as the poor man understands it. Neither Adolphus nor +Pauline had any worldly goods to bring with them when they came to +Foray. They lived at first, and for a long time, in the barracks; the +little house they now occupied had once been used for the storage of +provisions; but when the war ended, Adolphus succeeded in obtaining +permission to turn it into a dwelling-house. Here the child was +sheltered, and taught the use of a needle; and here she learned to read +and write. + +In the great vegetable garden which covered the space between the +prison and the fort was a corner that reflected no great credit on the +authorities. The persons who might reasonably have been expected to +take that neglected bit of ground under their loving care did no such +thing. The beds were weeded by Sandy, the gardener, and now and then a +blossom rewarded that attention; but the flower-patch waited for +Elizabeth. + +The gardener knew very well how she prized the pretty flowers;--they +appealed to his own rude nature in a very tender way. He loved to see +the young girl flying down the narrow paths as swiftly as a bird, if +she but spied a bloom from afar. There was a tree whose branches hung +over the wall, every one of them growing, with dreadful perversity, +away from the cold, hard prison-ground which held the roots so fast. +Time was never long enough when she sat in the shade of those branches, +watching Sandy at his work. + +By-and-by it happened that the flower-garden was given over to the +charge of the girl. It was natural that she, who had never seen other +flower-beds than these, should, aided by the home-recollections of her +mother, imagine far prettier,--that she should dare suggest to Sandy, +until his patience and his skill were exhausted,--that the final good +result should have come about in a moment when no one looked for +it,--he giving up his task with vexation, she accepting it with +humility, and both working together thereafter, the most helpful of +friends. + +It required not many seasons for Elizabeth to prove her skill and +diligence in the culture of this garden-ground,--not many for the +transformation of square, awkward beds into a mass of bloom. How did +those flowers delight the generous heart! With what particular splendor +shone the house of Montier through all the summer season! The ladies +now began to think about bouquets, and knew where they could find them. +From this same blessed nook the Governor's table was daily supplied +with its most beautiful ornament. Men tenderly disposed smiled on the +young face that from under the broad-brimmed garden-hat smiled back on +them. Some deemed her fairer than the flowers she cared for. + +One day in the spring of the year that brought her thirteenth birthday, +Elizabeth ran down through the morning mist, and plucked the first +spring flower. She stayed but to gather the beauty whose budding she +had long watched; no one must rob her mother of this gift. + +She carried off the prize before the gaze of one who had also hailed it +in the bleak, drear dawn. This was not the gardener;--and there was +neither man, woman, nor child in sight, during the swift run;--no +freeman; but a prisoner in an upper room of the prison. Through its +grated window, the only one on that side of the building, he had that +morning for the first time looked upon the island which had held him +long a prisoner. + +Since daybreak he had stood before the window. The evening before, the +stone had been rolled away from the door of his sepulchre,--not by an +angel, neither by force of the resistless Life-spirit within, shall it +be said? Who knows that it was _not_ by an angel? who shall aver it was +_not_ by the resistless Life? At least, he was here,--brought from the +cell he had occupied these five years,--brought from the arms of Death. +His window below had looked on a dead stone-wall; this break in the +massive masonry gave heaven and earth to him. + +The first ray of daylight saw him dragging his feeble body to the +window. He did not remove from that post till the rain was over,--nor +then, except for a moment. As the clouds rose from the sea, he watched +them. How strange was the aspect of all things! Thus, while he had +lived and not beheld, these trees had waved, these waters rolled, these +clouds gathered,--grass had grown, and flowers unfolded; for he saw the +scarlet bloom before Elizabeth plucked it. And all this while he had +lived like a dead man, unaware! Not so; but now he remembered not the +days, when, conscious of all this life, he had deathly despair in his +heart, and stones alone for friends. + +Imprisonment and solitude had told upon the man. He was still young, +and one whom Nature and culture had fitted for no obscure station in +the world. He could, by every evidence he gave, perform no mere +commonplaces of virtue or of vice. The world's ways would not assign +his limitation. He was capable of devising and of executing great +things,--and had proved the power; and to this his presence testified, +even in dilapidation and listlessness. + +His repose was the repose of helplessness,--not that of grace or +nature. The opening of this prospect with the daylight had not the +effect to increase his tranquillity. His dejection in the past months +had been that of a strong man who yields to necessity; his present mood +was not inspired with hope. The waves that leaped in the morning's +gloomy light were not so aimless as his life seemed to him. He had +heard a bird sing in the branches of a tree whose roots were in the +prison-yard,--now he could see her nest; he had heard the dismal +pattering of the rain,--and now beheld it, and the clouds from which it +fell; he saw the glimpses of the blue beyond, where the clouds were +breaking; he saw the fort, the cannon mounted on the walls, the flag +that fluttered from the tower, the barracks, the parade-ground, and the +surrounding sea, whose boundaries he knew not; he saw the trees, he saw +the garden-ground. Slowly his eyes scanned all,--and the soul that was +lodged in the emaciated figure grew faint and sick with seeing. But no +tears, no sighs, no indications of grief or despair or desperate +submission. He had little to learn of suffering;--that he knew. How +could he greet the day, hail the light, bless Nature for her beauty, +thank God for his life? Oh, the weariness with which he leaned his head +against those window-bars, faint and almost dying under the weight of +thoughts that rushed upon him, fierce enough to slay, if he showed any +resistance! But he manifested none. The day of struggle was over with +him. He believed that they had brought him to this room to die. If any +thought could give him joy, surely it was this. He was right. Yesterday +the Governor of the island, hearing the condition of the prisoner, this +one remaining man of all whose sentence had been endured within these +walls, had ordered a change of scene for him. His sentence was +imprisonment for life. Did they fear his release by the hands of one +who hears the sighing of the prisoner, and gives to every bondman the +Year of Jubilee? Were they jealous and suspicious of the approach of +Death? + +Though he had been so long a prisoner, he showed in his person +self-respect and dignity of nature. His hair and beard were grown long; +many a gray thread shone in his chestnut locks; his mouth was a firm +feature; his eyes quiet, but not the mildest; his forehead very ample; +he was lofty in stature;--outside the prison, a freeman, his presence +would have been commanding. But he needed the free air for his lungs, +and the light to surround him,--the light to set him in relief, the +sense of life to compel him to stand out in his own powerful +individuality, distinct from every other living man. + +By-and-by, while he stood at the window, looking forth upon the strange +scenes before him, this new heaven and new earth, the landscape became +alive. The first human creature he had seen outside his cell since he +became an inmate of this prison appeared before his eyes,--the young +girl skipping through the garden till she came to the flower-bed and +plucked the scarlet blossom. If she had been a spirit or an angel, he +could hardly have beheld her with greater surprise. + +She was singing when she came. He thought he recognized that +voice,--that it was the same he had often heard from the cell below. +Many a time the horrible stillness of that cell had been broken by the +sound of a child's voice, which, like a spirit, swept unhindered +through the walls,--an essence of life, and a power. + +It was but a moment that she paused before the flower; she plucked it, +and was gone. But his eyes could follow her. She did not really, with +her disappearing, vanish. And yet this vision had not to him the +significance of the bow seen in the cloud, whose interpreter, and whose +interpretation, was the Almighty Love. + +All day he stood before that window. The keeper hailed the symptom. The +Governor was satisfied with the report. Towards sunset the rain was +over, and with the sun came forth abundant indications of the island +life. The gardener walked among the garden-beds and measured his +morrow's work, calculating time and means within his reach,--and +vouchsafing some attention to the flower-garden, as was evident when he +paused before it and made his thoughtful survey. The prisoner saw him +smile when he took hold of the broken stalk which had been +flower-crowned. And Sandy saw the prisoner. + +The next day Elizabeth came out with the gardener, and they began their +day's work together. They seemed to be in the best spirits. The smell +of the fresh-turned earth, the sight of the fresh shoots of tender +green springing from bulb and root and branch, acted upon them like an +inspiration. The warm sun also held them to their task. Sandy was +generous in bestowing aid and counsel,--and also in the matter of his +land,--trenching farther on the ground allotted to the vegetables than +he had ever done before. + +"The land must pay for it," said he. "We'll make a foot give us a +yard's worth. Cram a bushel into a peck, though 'The Doctor' said you +never could do that! I know how to coax." + +"Yes, and you know how to order, if you have not forgotten, Sandy. You +frightened me once for taking an inch over my share." + +"That was a long while back," answered honest Sandy,--"before I knew +what the little girl could do. I've seen young folk work at gardening +afore, but you do beat 'em all. How could I tell you would, though? You +don't look it. Yes,--may-be you do, though. But you've changed since +_I_ first knew you." + +"Why, I was nothing but a baby then, Sandy." + +"Yes, yes,--I know; but you're changed since then!" + +So they all spoke to Elizabeth, praising her, confiding in her with +loving willingness,--the Daughter of the Regiment. + +The gardener was proud of his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part +she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly +a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his +window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new +perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while +before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual low +and rather mysterious tone,-- + +"There's some one will enjoy it when all's done." + +"Who is that?" asked she, thinking he meant herself, perhaps. + +"One up above," was the answer. + +But though Sandy spoke thus plainly, he did not look toward the +prison,--and the prison was the last place of which Elizabeth was +thinking. It was so long a time since the cell with the window had an +occupant, that she was almost unconscious of that gloomy neighborhood. +So, when the gardener explained that it was one up above who would +enjoy her work, her eyes instantly sought the celestial heights. She +was thinking of sun, or star, or angel, may-be, and smiling at Sandy's +speech, for sympathy. + +He saw her new mistake, and made haste to correct this also. + +"Not so high," said he, cautiously. + +Then, but as it seemed of chance, and not of purpose, the eyes of +Elizabeth Montier turned toward the prison-wall, and fixed upon that +window, the solitary one visible from the garden, and her face flushed +in a manner that told her surprise--when she saw a man behind the iron +bars. + +"Oh," said she, looking away quickly, as if conscious of a wrong done, +"what made you tell me?" + +"I guess you will like to think one shut up like him will take a little +pleasure looking at what he can't get at," said Sandy, almost +sharply,--replying to something he did not quite understand, the pain +and the reproof of Elizabeth's speech. + +"Oh, yes!" she answered, and went on with her work. + +But though she might be pleased to think that her labor would answer +another and more serious purpose than her own gratification, or that of +the pretty flowers, it was something new and strange for the girl to +work under this mysterious sense of oversight. + +"You have only got to speak the word," said the gardener, who had +perceived her perplexity, and was desirous of bringing her speedily to +his view of the case, "just speak, and he will be carried back to his +old cell below, t'other side." + +"Will he?" + +"Yes,--sure's you live, if he troubles you, Miss Elizabeth. Nobody will +think of letting him trouble you." + +"Oh, me!" she exclaimed, quickly, "I should die quicker than have him +moved where he couldn't see the garden." + +"I thought so," said Sandy, satisfied. + +"Did you think I would complain of his standing by his window, Sandy?" + +"How did I know you would like to be stared at?" asked he, with a +laugh. + +Elizabeth blushed and looked grave; to her the matter seemed too +terrible. + +"I might have said something," she mused, sadly. + +"And if it had been to the wrong person," suggested Sandy;--"for they +a'n't very fond of him, I guess." + +"Who is he, then? I never heard." + +"He has been shut up in that building now a'most five year, Elizabeth," +said Sandy, leaning on the handle of the spade he had struck into the +ground with emphasis. + +"Five years!" + +"Summer heat, and winter cold. All the same to him. No wonder he +sticks, as if he was glued, to the window, now he's got one worth the +glass." + +"Oh, let him!" + +"If he could walk about the garden, it would be better yet." + +"Won't he, Sandy?" + +"I can't say. He's here for some terrible piece of work, they say. And +nobody knows what his name is, I guess,--hereabouts, I mean. I never +heard it. He won't be out very quick. But let him _look_ out, any way." + +"Oh, Sandy! I might have said something that would have hindered!" + +"Didn't I know you wouldn't for the world? That's why I told you." + +The gardener now went on with his spading. But Elizabeth's work seemed +finished for this day. Above them stood the prisoner. He guessed not +what gentle hearts were pitiful with thinking of his sorrow. + +The next day the prisoner was not at the window, nor the next day, nor +the next. Sandy was bold enough to ask the keeper, Mr. Laval, what was +the meaning of it, and learned that the man was ill, and not likely to +recover. Sandy told Elizabeth, and they agreed in thinking that for the +poor creature death was probably the least of evils. + +But the day following that on which they came to this conclusion, the +sick man appeared before Sandy's astonished eyes. He was under the +keeper's care. The physician had ordered this change of air, and they +came to the garden at an hour when there was least danger of meeting +other persons in the walks. + +Sandy had much to tell Elizabeth when he saw her next. She trembled +while he told her how he thought that he had seen a ghost when the +keeper came leading the prisoner, whose pale face, tall figure, feeble +step, appeared to have so little to do with human nature and affairs. + +"Did he seem to care for the flowers? did he take any?" she asked. + +"No,--he would not touch them. The keeper offered him whatever he would +choose. He desired nothing. But he looked at all, he saw +everything,--even the beds of vegetables," Sandy said. + +"Did he seem pleased?" Elizabeth again asked. + +"Pleased!" exclaimed Sandy. "That's for you and me,--not a man that's +been shut up these five years. No,--he didn't look pleased. I don't +know how he looked; don't ask me; 'tisn't pleasant to think of." + +"I would have made him take the flowers, if I had been here," said +Elizabeth, in a manner that seemed very positive, in comparison with +Sandy's uncertain speech. + +"May-be,--I dare say," Sandy acquiesced; but he evidently had his +doubts even of her power in this business. + +She must take no notice of the prisoner, she was given to understand +one day, if she was to remain in the garden while he walked there. So +she took no notice. + +He came and went. Manuel, the keeper called him; and she was busy with +her weeding, and neither saw nor heard. Ah, she did not!--did _not_ see +the figure that came moving like a spectre through the gates!--did not +hear the slow dragging step of one who is weary almost to +helplessness,--the listless step that has lost the spring of hope, the +exultation of life, the expectation of spirit, the strength of +manhood!--She did hear, did see the man. We feel the nearness of our +friend who is a thousand miles away. Something beside the sunshine is +upon us, and receives our answering smile. That sudden shadow is not of +the passing cloud. That voice at midnight is not the disturbance of a +dream.--He walked about the garden; he retired to his cell. It might +have been an hour, or a minute, or a day. It does not take time to +dream a life's events. How is the drowning man whirled round the circle +of experiences which were so slow in their development! + +Compassion without limit, courageous purpose impatient of inaction, +troubled this young girl. + +"You behaved like a lady," said Sandy,--"you never looked up. You +needn't run now, I'm sure, when he thinks of taking a turn. All we've +got to do is to mind our own business, Mr. Laval says. I guess we can. +But I did want to let off those chains." + +"What chains?" asked Elizabeth, as with a shudder she looked up at +Sandy. + +"His wrists, you know,--locked," he explained. + +"Oh!" groaned the gentle soul, and she walked off, forgetful of the +flowers, tools, Sandy, everything. But Sandy followed her; she heard +him calling to her, and before the garden-gate she waited for him; he +was following on a run. + +"I can tell you what it's for," said he, for he had no idea of keeping +the secret to himself, and he dared not trust it to any other friend. + +"What is it?" she asked,--and she trembled when she asked, and while +she waited for his answer. + +"For lighting the Church. Would you think that? He did such damage, it +wasn't safe for him to be at liberty. That's how it was. I think he +must be a Lutheran;--you know they don't believe in the Holy Ghost! Of +course,--poor fellow!--it's right he should be shut up for warring with +the Church that came down through the holy Apostles, when you know all +the rest only started up with Luther and Calvin. He ought to have +knowed better." + +"Who told you, Sandy?" asked Elizabeth, as if her next words might +undertake to extenuate and justify. + +"It came straight enough, I understand. But--remember--you don't know +anything about it. His name is Manuel, though;--don't dare to mention +it;--that's what Mr. Laval calls him. Are you going? I wouldn't have +told you a word, but you took his trouble so to heart. You see, now, +it's right he should be shut up. But let on that you know anything, all +the worse for me,--I mean, him!" + +"Yes," said Elizabeth, "you're safe, Sandy. Thank you for telling me." + +Sandy walked off with a mind relieved, for he believed in Elizabeth, +and had found the facts communicated too great a burden to bear alone. + +She passed through the garden-gate most remote from the fort; it opened +into a lonely road which ran inland from the coast, between the woods +and the prison, and to the woods she went. The shadows were gloomy +to-day, for she went among them lamenting the fate of the +stranger;--the mystery surrounding him had increased, not lessened, +with Sandy's explanation. + +Fighting against _the Church_ was an unimagined crime. Of the great +conflict in which he had taken part, to the ruin of his fortunes, she +knew nothing. The disputes of Christendom, had they been explained, +would have seemed almost incredible to her. For, whatever was known and +discussed in the circle of the Governor of the island, Drummer Montier, +and such as he, kept the peace with all mankind. The Church took care +of itself, and appeared neither the oppressor nor the Saviour of the +world. What they had fought about in the first years of the possession +of Foray, Montier could hardly have told,--and yet he was no fool. He +could have given, of course, a partisan version of the struggle; but as +to its real cause, or true result, he knew as little as the other five +hundred men belonging to the regiment. + +While Elizabeth wandered through those gloomy woods, she saw no +flowers, gathered no wild fruits,--though flowers and berries were +perfect and abundant. Now and then she paused in her walk to look +towards the prison, glimpses of whose strong walls were to be had +through the trees. At length the sound of her father's horn came loud +and clear from the cliffs beyond the wood. It fell upon her sombre +meditation and slightly changed the current. She hurried forward to +join him, and, as she went, a gracious purpose was shining in her face. + +When she returned home, it was by the unfrequented prison-way, her +father playing the liveliest tunes he knew. For the first time in their +lives they sat down by the side of the lonely road where they had +emerged from the wood; Elizabeth's memory served her to recall every +air that was sweet to her, and she listened while her father played, +endeavoring to understand the sound those notes would have to "Manuel." + +Montier could think of no worthier employment than the practice of his +music. Especially it pleased him that his daughter should ask so much +as she was now asking: he could not discern all that was passing in her +heart, nor see how many shadows moved before those sweet, serious eyes. + +They went home at night-fall together; and the young girl's step was +not more light, now that her heart was troubled by what she must not +reveal, even to him. + +The next morning Sandy was very busy with Elizabeth, tying up some +flowers which had been tossed about, and broken, many of them, in the +night gale, when the keeper came through the gate, leading this Manuel, +who, grim as a spectral shadow, that had been fearful but for its +exceeding pitifulness, stood now between her and all that she rejoiced +in. "There!" exclaimed Sandy. Looking up, she saw them approaching +straight along the path that led past the flowerbeds. + +"Your flowers had a pretty rough time of it in the storm," said Jailer +Laval, as he drew near. He addressed the drummer's daughter,--but his +eyes were on Sandy, with the suspicious and stern inquiry common to men +who have betrayed a secret. But Sandy was busy with his delving. + +"Yes," answered Elizabeth, and she looked from the ground up to the +faces of these men. + +"Is that a rose-bush? That was roughly handled," said Laval, pointing +with his stick to the twisted rose-stalk covered with buds, over whose +blighted promise she had been lamenting. + +"Yes," said Elizabeth again; but she hardly knew what she said, still +less was she aware of the expression her face wore when she looked at +the prisoner. Yes,--even as Sandy said, big wrists were chained +together; he was more like a ghost than a man; his face was pale and +hopeless, and woful beyond her understanding was the majesty of his +mien. + +At such a price he paid for fights against _the Church!_ But in truth +he had not the look of an evil, warring man. His gravity, indeed, was +such as it seemed impossible to dispel. But only pity stirred the heart +of Elizabeth Montier as she looked on him. Surely it was a face that +never, in any excess of passion, could have looked malignance. Ah! and +at such a price he purchased his sunshine, the fresh air, and a near +vision of this flower-garden!--in chains! + +When she looked at him, his gaze was on her,--not upon the roses. She +smiled, for pity's sake; but the smile met no return. His countenance +had not the habit of responding to such glances. Sombre as death was +that face. Then Elizabeth turned hastily away; but as the keeper also +moved on a step, she detained him with a hurried "Wait a minute," and +went on plucking the finest flowers in bloom. Like an iron statue stood +the prisoner while she plucked the roses,--it was but a minute's +work,--then she tied the flowers together and laid them on his fettered +hands; whether he would refuse them, whether the gift pained or pleased +him, whether the keeper approved, she seemed afraid to know,--for, +having given the flowers, she went away in haste. + +It was not long after this first act of friendly courtesy, which had +many a repetition,--for the keeper was at bottom a humane man, and not +disposed to persecute his charge, while he was equally far from any +carelessness in guarding or leniency of treatment that would have +excited suspicion as to his purpose, in the minds of the authorities of +the island,--not long after this day, when the fine sympathy betrayed +for him by Elizabeth fell on Manuel's heart like dew, that the wife of +the jailer died. + +Her death was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the +woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced. +Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that +when he called her there was no resistance. + +Jailer Laval took the bereavement in a remorseful mood. The first thing +to be done now was the very last he would have owned to purposing +during her life-time. Release from that prison had been the woman's +prayer, year in and year out, these ten years, and Death was the bearer +of the answer to that prayer,--not her husband. + +But now, from the day of her sudden decease, the prison had become to +him dreary beyond endurance. The mantle of her discontent fell on him, +and, having no other confidant beside honest, stupid Sandy, he talked +to him like a man who seriously thought of abandoning his labor, and +retiring to that land across the sea for which his wife had pined +during ten homesick years. + +Sandy, who might have regarded himself in the light of an "humble +instrument," had he been capable of a particle of vanity or +presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a +conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk +along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the +prison-wall. What was her answer? It came instantly, without +premeditation or precaution,-- + +"Then we must take his place, Sandy." + +"We, Miss?" said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise. + +"Yes," she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind +him and his blunders,--"papa must take the prison." + +"Oh!"--and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake. Then he +laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it. Then he looked grave, +and wondering, and doubtful. The idea of Adolphus Montier's pretty wife +and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark +prison startled him. He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange. +But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he +glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily, +before her. At what she was looking he could not divine. He saw +nothing. + +"I wouldn't be overly quick about that," said he, cautiously. + +"No danger!" was the prompt reply. + +"For I tell _you_, of all the places I ever see, that prison makes me +feel the queerest. I believe it's one reason I let the flower-garden go +so long," owned Sandy. He did not speak these words without an effort; +and never had Elizabeth seen him so solemn. She also was grave,--but +not after his manner of gravity. + +"You see what I did with the poor flower-beds, Sandy," said she. "Wait +now till you see what happens to the prison." + +But it is one thing to purpose, and another to execute. Far easier for +Elizabeth to declare than to conduct an heroic design. One thing +prevented rest day and night,--the knowledge that Laval's intended +resignation must be followed by a new application and appointment. With +such a degree of sympathy had the condition of the captive inspired +her, that the idea of the bare possibility of cruelty or neglect or +brutality assuming the jailer's authority seemed to lay upon her all +the responsibility of his future. She must act, for she dared not +hesitate. + +One evening Adolphus took his horn, and, attended by wife and child, +went out to walk. He meant to send a strain from the highest of the +accessible coast-rocks. But Elizabeth changed his plan. The time was +good for what she had to say. Instead of expending his enthusiasm on a +flourish of notes, he was called upon to manifest it in a noble +resolution. + +When Elizabeth invited her father to a prospect sylvan rather than +marine, to the shady path on the border of the wood between it and the +prison, Montier, easily drawn from any plan that concerned his own +inclination merely, let his daughter lead, and she was responsible for +all that followed in the history of that little family. So love defers +to love, with divine courtesy, through all celestial movements. + +After playing a few airs, Montier's anticipated evening ended, and +another set in. The sympathies of a condition, the opposite to that of +which he had been so happily conscious, pressed too closely against +him. The musician could not, for the life of him, have played with +becoming spirit through any one of all the strains of victory he knew. + +Near him, under a tulip-tree, sat Pauline, with her knitting in her +hand, the image of peace. Not so Elizabeth. She was doubting, troubled. +But when the bird her father's music moved to sing was still, she +spoke, as she had promised herself she would, asking a question, of +whose answer she had not the slightest doubt. + +"Papa, do you know that Mr. Laval is going away?" + +"Why, yes, that's the talk, I believe." + +"Will they get somebody to take his place?" + +"Of course. There's a prisoner on hand yet, you know,--and the house to +look after." + +"A big house, too, and dreadful dreary," remarked the mother of +Elizabeth. "Laval's wife used to say, when she came up to see me +sometimes, it was like being a prisoner to live in that building. And +now she's dead and gone, he begins to think the same." + +"Suppose we take Laval's place," suggested Montier, looking very +seriously at his wife; but the suggestion did not alarm her. Adolphus +often expressed his satisfaction with existing arrangements by making +propositions of exchange for other states of life, propositions which +never disturbed his wife or daughter. They understood these +demonstrations of his deep content. Therefore, at these words of his, +Pauline smiled, and for the reason that the words could draw forth such +a smile Elizabeth looked grave. + +"I wish we could, papa," said she. + +"You wish we could, you child?" exclaimed her mother, wondering. "It +looks so pleasant, eh?" and the fair face of Pauline turned to the +prison, and surveyed it, shuddering. + +"For the prisoner's sake," said Elizabeth. "Who knows but a cruel +keeper may be put in Laval's place? He is almost dead with grief, that +prisoner is,--I know by his face. After he is gone, there won't be any +prisoner there,--and we could make it very pleasant." + +"Pleasant! What do you mean by pleasant?" asked Pauline, inwardly vexed +that her child had suggested the question,--and yet too just, too +kindly disposed, to put the subject away with imperative refusal to +consider it. "I never was in a place so horrid." + +"But if it was our home, and all our things were there," urged +Elizabeth, "it would be different. It depends on who lives in a house, +you know." + +"Yes, that is so; it depends a little, but not entirely. It would be +more than your mother could do to make a pleasant-looking place out of +that prison. You see it is different in the situation, to begin with. +Up where we live the sun is around us all day, if it is anywhere; and +then the little rooms are so light! If you put a flower into them, you +think you have a whole garden. Besides, it's Home up there, and down +here it isn't."--Saying this, Adolphus rose up quickly, as though he +had a mind to quit the spot. + +"When they select a man to fill Laval's place, of course they will be +careful to choose one as good and kind," said Pauline, with mild +confidence. + +"The jailer before him was not good and kind," remarked her daughter. + +"They dismissed him for it," said Adolphus, quickly. + +"But they said the prisoners were half-starved, and abused every way. +It was a good while before it was found out. That might happen again, +and less chance of any one knowing it. He is so near dead now, it +wouldn't take much to kill him." + +No one replied to this argument. Pauline and Adolphus talked of other +things, and the musician returned to his music. But all in good time. +Elizabeth was capable of patience, and at last her father said, looking +around him to make sure that his remark would have only two +listeners,-- + +"That prisoner isn't a man to be talked of about here. You never heard +_me_ mention him. Laval used to give a--a--bad account of him. He had +to be kept alive." + +"Till he heard your music, papa, and was moved up to the room with a +window. Did he tell you that?" asked Elizabeth. + +"He said he thought the music did him good," acknowledged Adolphus. + +"May-be it was the same as with Saul when David played for him. But he +does not look like a bad man, papa. He looks grander than any of our +officers. And he has fought battles, they say. He is very brave." + +Both Adolphus and Pauline Montier looked at their daughter with the +most profound surprise when she spoke thus. Not merely her words, but +her manner of speaking, caused this not agreeable perplexity. Her +emotion was not only too obvious, it was too deep for their +understanding. The mother was the first to speak. + +"How did you hear all this, child? _I_ never heard him talked of in +this way. They don't talk about him at all,--do they, Adolphus?" + +"No," he answered; but he spoke the word very mildly. The tone did not +indicate a want of sympathy in the compassion of his daughter. + +Elizabeth looked from her mother to her father. What friends had she, +if these were not her friends? + +"The jailer told Sandy, and Sandy told me," she said. "But they never +talk to any other person. Oh! I was afraid to hear about it; but now I +have heard, I was afraid not to speak. Would it be so dreadful for you +to live here, when we could always have music and the garden? And these +woods seem pleasant, when you get acquainted. Day or night I can't get +him out of my mind. It is just as if you were shut up that way, papa. I +am afraid to be happy when any one is so wretched." + +The result was, that Elizabeth's words, and not so much her words as +the state of things she contrived to make apparent by them, brought +Adolphus Montier to a clear, resistless sense of the prisoner's fate. +Over the features of that fate he was for days brooding. Now and then a +word that indicated the direction of his thinking would escape him in +his wife's hearing. Silently Pauline followed Adolphus to the end of +all this thinking. Once she walked alone along the unfrequented road +that ran between the prison and the wood, down to the sea; and she +looked at the gloomy fortress, and tried to think about it as she +should, if certain that within its walls her lot would soon be cast. + +And more than once Montier walked home that way; and if it chanced that +he had his horn or his drum with him, he marched at quickstep, and +played the liveliest tunes, and emerged from the shadows of the wood +with a spirit undaunted. He had played for the prisoner, whom he had +never yet seen,--but not more for him than for himself. + +One Sunday, when the little family walked out together, Adolphus and +his wife fell into a pleasant train of thought,--and when they were +together, thought and speech were generally simultaneous. As they +passed the prison,--for Adolphus had led the way to this path,--Laval +was standing in the door. They stopped to speak with him; whereat he +invited them into his quarters. + +In this walk, Elizabeth had fallen behind her parents. When she saw +them going into the prison, she quickened her pace, for her father +beckoned to her. But she was in no earnest haste to follow, as became +sufficiently manifest when she was left alone. + +They had not gone far in their talk, however, when she came to the +doorway. Laval, in all his speech, was a deliberate man, and neither +Adolphus nor his wife showed any eagerness in the conduct of the +conversation now begun. The contrast between the gloom of the apartment +and the light and cheerfulness of their own home was apparent to all of +them. Elizabeth felt the oppression under which each of the little +party seemed to labor, the instant she joined her parents. Susceptible +as they all were to the influences of Nature, her sunshine and her +shadow, this gloom which fell upon them was nothing more than might +have been anticipated. + +Jailer Laval was homesick, and innocent of a suspicion of what was +passing in the minds of his guests; he was therefore free in making his +complaints, and acknowledged that he was not fit to keep the +prison,--it required a man of more nerve than he had. The dread of the +place which his poor wife had entertained seemed to have taken +possession of him since her death. All the arguments which he once +used, in the endeavor to bolster her courage, he had now forgotten. He +was very cautious when he began to speak of the prisoner, and tried to +divert Adolphus from the point by saying that he would much prefer a +house full of convicts to one so empty as this. There was at least +something like society in that, and something to do. + +Adolphus, in spite of his discontent at hearing merely these deductions +of experience, when his desire was to know something of Manuel, heard +nothing of importance. The speech of the jailer on this subject was not +to be had. His mind seemed to be wandering, except when his wife, or +his native land, was referred to; then he brightened into speech, but +never once into cheerfulness. As he sat there in the middle of his +chamber, he seemed to represent the genius of the place,--and anything +less enlivening or desirable in the way of human life could hardly be +imagined. Pauline looked at him and sighed. She looked at Adolphus;--a +pang shot through her heart; the shadow of the man seemed to overshadow +him. Out of this place, where all appeared to be fast changing into +"goblins damned"! + +It was she who led the way; but, pausing in the court-yard, Elizabeth +evinced still greater haste to be gone, for she ran on with fleet step, +and a heart heavy with foreboding as to the result of this interview. +She was also impatient to get into the open sunlight, and did not rest +in this progress she was making outward till she had come to the +sea-shore. Elizabeth Montier was in a state of dire perplexity just +then, and if she had been asked whether she would really choose to +effect the change proposed in their way of living, it would have been +no easy matter for her to discover her mind. + +By the sea-shore she sat down, and her father and mother followed +slowly on. They were not talking as they came. But as they approached +the beach, Adolphus could not resist the prospect before them. Loud was +the blast he blew upon his horn, nor did he cease playing until his +music had restored him to a more natural mood than that in which the +interview with Laval left him. The prison was becoming a less startling +image of desolate dreariness to him. And Adolphus was the master-spirit +in his family. If he was gay, it was barely possible for his wife and +child to be sad. Of the prison not one word was spoken by either. They +had not revealed to each other their inmost mind when they went into +Laval's quarters; they did not reveal it when they came thence. But as +they strolled along the rocky shore, or returned homeward, they thought +of little beside the prison and the prisoner. As to Elizabeth, nothing +required of her that she should urge the matter further. She had +neither heart nor courage for such urging. + +It was Adolphus himself who spoke to Pauline the next day, after he had +deliberately thrown himself in the way of the prisoner, that he might +with his own eyes see what manner of man he was; for seeing was +believing. + +"Pauline," said he, almost persuaded of the truth of his own words, +"you and Elizabeth would make a different place of that prison from +what it is now. I should like to see it tried." + +Pauline Montier made no haste to answer; she was afraid that she knew +what he expected of her. + +"Do you see," continued Adolphus, "Elizabeth won't speak of it again? +But what must she think of us? He is a man. They say we are all +brothers." + +"I know it," said, almost sighed, his wife. + +"Looking out for our own comfort!" exclaimed Adolphus. "So mighty +afraid of doing what we'd have done for us! Besides, I believe we could +make it pretty pleasant. Cool in summer, and warm in winter. I'd +whitewash pretty thorough. And if the windows were rubbed up, your way, +the light might get through." + +"Poor Joan Laval!" said Pauline. "Body and mind gave out. She was +different at first." + +"Do you think it was the prison?" asked Adolphus, quickly, like a man +halting between two opinions,--there was no knowing which way he would +jump. + +"Something broke her down," replied his wife. She was looking from one +window,--he from another. + +"Joan Laval was Joan Laval," said Adolphus, with an effort. "Always +was. Frightened at her own shadow, I suppose. But--there! we won't +think of it. I know how it looks to you, Pauline. Very well,--I don't +see why we should make ourselves miserable for the sake of somebody who +has got to be miserable anyhow,--and deserves it, I suppose, or he +wouldn't be where he is." + +"Poor fellow!" sighed Pauline,--as if it were now her turn on the rack. + +Here Adolphus let the matter rest. He had overcome his own scruples so +far as honestly to make this proposal to his wife. But he would do no +more than propose,--not for an instant urge the point. Surely, that +could not be required of him. Charity, he remembered, begins at home. + +But Pauline could not let the matter rest here. Her struggle was yet to +come. It was she, then, who alone was unwilling to sacrifice her +present home for the sake of a stranger and prisoner! + +Now Pauline Montier was a good Christian woman, and various words of +holy utterance began herewith to trouble her. And from a by no means +tranquil musing over them, she began to ask herself, What, after all, +was home? Was happiness indeed dependent on locality when the heart of +love was hers? Could she not give up so little as a house, in order to +secure the comfort of a son of misfortune,--a solitary man,--a dying +prisoner? What she would not give up freely might any day be taken from +her. If fire did not destroy it, the government, which took delight in +interference, might see fit to order that the house they occupied +should be used again for the original purpose of storage. + +And then the discomforts of the prison began to appear very +questionable. She remembered that Joan Laval was, as Adolphus hinted, +weakly, nervous, 'frightened at her own shadow,'--a woman who had +never, for any single day of her life, lived with a lofty purpose,--a +cumberer of the ground, who could only cast a shadow. + +She perceived that they would be close to the flower-garden; a minute's +walk would lead them to the pleasant woods,--and Pauline Montier always +loved the woods. + +Indeed, when she began to take this ground, the first steps of +occupation alone could be timid or doubtful. After that, her humanity, +her sympathy, her confidence in her husband and daughter, drew the +woman on, till she forgot how difficult the first steps had been. + +She surprised both husband and daughter by saying to Adolphus, the +moment she came to her conclusion, that he had better make inquiry of +Laval whether he had signified his intention to resign, and forthwith +seek the appointment from the Governor of the island. + +When Pauline said this, she attested her sincerity by making ready to +accompany Adolphus at once to the prison, that they might run no risk +of losing the situation by delay. Seeing that they were of one mind, +and entirely confiding in each other, they all went together to the +prison to consult with Laval. Thus it came to pass, that, before the +week ended, the charge of the prison had been transferred to Adolphus +Montier. + +The family made great efforts in order to impart an air of cheerfulness +and home-comfort to their new dwelling-place. Adolphus whitewashed, +according to promise; Pauline scrubbed, according to nature; they +arranged and rearranged their little stock of furniture,--set the +loud-ticking day-clock on the mantel-shelf, and displayed around it the +china cups, the flower-vase, and the little picture of their native +town which Adolphus cut from a sheet of letter-paper some old friend +had sent him, and framed with more tender feeling than skill. They did +their best, each one, and said to one another, that, when they got used +to the place, to the large rooms and high ceilings and narrow windows, +it would of course seem like home, to them, because--it _was_ their +HOME. Were they not all together? were not these their own household +goods, around them? Still, they needed all this mutual encouragement +and heartiness of cooeperation which was so nobly, so generously +manifested; and it was sincere enough to insure the very result of +contentment and satisfaction which they were so wise as to anticipate. +But the Governor thought,--_The Drummer is getting ambitious; he wants +a big house, and authority!_ + +Ex-jailer Laval was exceedingly active in assisting his own outgoing +and the incoming of Montier. He helped Adolphus in the heavy labors of +removal, and laughed more during the conduct of these operations than +he had been known to do in years. He said nothing to Prisoner Manuel of +the intended change in jail-administration until the afternoon when for +the last time he walked out with him. + +The information was received with apparent indifference, without +question or comment, until Laval, half vexed, and wholly sorrowful for +the sad state of the prisoner, said,-- + +"I am sorry for you, Sir. I can say that, now I'm going off. I've been +as much a prisoner as you have, I believe. And I wish you were going to +be set free to-night, as I am. I am going home! But I leave you in good +care,--better than mine. I never have gone ahead of my instructions in +taking care of you. I never took advantage of your case, to be cruel or +neglectful. If anything has ever passed that made you think hard of me, +I hope you will forgive it, for I can say I have done the best I could +or dared." + +Thus called upon to speak, the prisoner said merely, "I believe +you." + +Whereat the jailer spoke again, and with a lighter heart. + +"I am glad you're in luck this time,--for you are. You don't know who +is coming to take the charge,--come, I mean, for they are all in, and +settled. That's Montier, the little girl's father. He is a drummer, and +a little of everything else. It's his horn that you hear sometimes. And +you know Elizabeth, who was always so kind about the flowers. His wife, +too, she's a pretty woman, and kind as kind can be." + +"What have they come here for?" asked the prisoner, amazed. + +"I'll tell you," said Laval, more generous than he had designed to be; +but he knew how he should wish, when the sea rolled between him and +Foray, that he had spoken every comfortable word in his knowledge to +this man; he knew it by his recent experiences of remorse in reference +to his buried wife, and was wise enough to profit by the +knowledge;--"I'll tell you. It's on your account. They were afraid +somebody that didn't know how long you have been here, and how much you +have suffered, would get the place; so they all came together and asked +for it. They had a pretty little house up nigh the barracks, but they +gave it up to come here. You'll see Montier to-night. For when I go +back to your room with you, then I'm going off to--to"----he hesitated, +for foremost among his instructions was this, that he should remain +silent about his purpose of returning home; he was not to go as a +messenger for the prisoner across the ocean to their native land----"to +my business," he said. "If you'll be kind to him, you will make +something by it. I thought I would tell you,--so, when you saw a +strange face in your room, you would know what it meant without +asking." + +"I thank you," said the prisoner; and to the jailer it now seemed as if +the figure of the man beside him grew in height and strength,--as if he +trod the ground less feebly and listlessly while he spoke these words. +A divine consolation must have strengthened him even then, or he could +never have added with such emphasis, "Wherever you go, take this my +assurance with you,--you have not been cruel or careless. You have done +as well as you could. I thank you for it." + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," said the jailer, after a silence +that seemed but brief to him,--such a deal of argument he had +dispatched, so many difficulties he had overcome in those few moments, +whose like, for mental activity and conclusiveness, he had never seen +before, and never would see again. "I shall be asked if I have told +you. But--where did you come from? Do not tell me your name. But whom +did you leave behind you that you would care most should know you are +alive and in good hands?" + +These questions, asked in good faith, would have had their answer; but +while the prisoner was preparing such reply as would have proceeded, +brief and wholly to the point, from the confusion of hope and surprise, +the Governor of Foray came in sight, drew near, and, suspicious, as +became him, walked in silence by the prisoner's side, while Laval +obeyed his mute instructions, leading Manuel back to his cell. A vessel +was approaching the shore of Foray. + +Having disposed of his prisoner, the jailer in turn was marched, like +one under arrest, up to the fort, where he remained, an object of +suspicion, until his time came for sailing, and, without knowing it, he +went home under guard. + +When Adolphus Montier ascended to the prisoner's room that night, he +found him standing by the window. After Laval left him, he had looked +from out that window, and seen the white sail of a vessel; he could not +see it now, but there he stood, watching, as though he knew not that +his chance of hope was over. + +As Adolphus entered the room, the prisoner turned immediately to +him,--asking quietly, as if he had not been suddenly tossed into a gulf +of despair by the breeze that brought him hope,-- + +"Has Laval sailed?" + +"When the cannon fired," was the answer. + +Then Adolphus placed the dish containing the prisoner's supper on the +table; he had already lighted the lamp in the hall. And now he wanted +to say something, on this his first appearance in the capacity of +keeper, and he knew what to say,--he had prepared himself abundantly, +he thought. But both the heart and the imagination of Adolphus Montier +stood in the way of such utterance as he had prepared. The instant his +eyes fell on that figure, lonely and forlorn, the instant he heard that +question, his kind heart became weakness, he stood in the prisoner's +place,--he saw the vessel sailing on its homeward voyage,--he beheld +men stepping from sea to shore, walking in happy freedom through the +streets of home;--a vision that filled his eyes with tears was before +him, and he was long in controlling his emotion sufficiently to say,-- + +"We are in Laval's place, Sir, and we hope you will have no cause to +regret the change. I don't know how to be cruel and severe,--but I must +do my duty. But I wasn't put here for a tyrant." + +"I know why you are here; Laval told me," said the prisoner. + +"Then we're friends, a'n't we?" asked Adolphus; "though I must do my +duty by them that employ me. You understand. I'd set every door and +window of this building wide open for you, if I had my way; though I +don't know what you're here for. But I swear before heaven and earth, +nothing will tempt me to forget my duty to the government;--if you +should escape, it would be over my dead body. So you see my position." + +"Yes," said the prisoner; and if anything could have tempted a smile +from him, this manner of speech would have done it. But Adolphus was +far enough from smiling. + +"Come, eat something," said he, with tremulous persuasion. "My wife +knows how to get up such things. She will do the best for you she can." + +"Thank you." + +The prisoner again looked out of the window. It was growing dark; the +outline of sea and land was fading out of sight; dreary looked the +world without,--but within the lamp seemed shining with a brighter +light than usual. And here was a person and a speech, a human sympathy, +that almost warmed and soothed him. + +He approached the table where Adolphus had spread his supper. He sat in +the chair that was placed for him, and the Drummer waited on him, +recommending Pauline's skill again, much as he might have presented a +petition. The prisoner ate little, but he praised Pauline, and said +outright that he had tasted nothing so palatable as her supper these +five years. This cheered Montier a little, but still his spirits were +almost at the lowest point of depression. + +"You seem to pity me," remarked the prisoner, when Adolphus was +gathering up the remains of the frugal supper. + +"My God!--yes!" exclaimed Adolphus, stopping short, and looking at the +man. + +It was a sort of sympathy that could not harm the person on whom it was +bestowed. + +"I consider myself well off to-night," said he, quietly. "It is your +little daughter that works in the garden so much? I have often watched +her." + +"Yes," said Adolphus, almost with a sob. + +"And you are the man whose music has been so cheering many a time?" + +"I want to know what airs you like best," said the poor Drummer, +hurriedly. + +"I never heard you play one that I did not like."--Precious praise! + +"Then you like music? I can be pretty tolerably severe, Sir, if I make +up my mind!" said Adolphus, as if addressing his own conscience, to set +that at rest by this open avowal. "There's no danger of my doing wrong +by the government. I'd have to pay for you with my life. Yes,--for it +would be with my liberty. And there's my wife and child. So you +understand where I am, as I told you before; but, by thunder! you shall +have all the music you want, and all the flowers; and my little girl +can sing pretty well,--her mother taught her. And if you're sick, there +a'n't a better nurse in the hospital than Pauline Montier. There! good +night!" + +Adolphus took up the tray and hurried out of the room,--and forgot to +fasten the door behind him until he had gone half way down the stairs. +He came back in haste, and turned the great key with half the blood in +his body burning in his face,--not merely an evidence of the exertion +made in that operation, which he endeavored to perform noiselessly. He +was ashamed of this caging business; but he would have argued you out +of countenance then and there, had you ventured a word against the +government,--though, as he said, he was in the dark concerning the +prisoner's crime. + +When he went down stairs he found supper prepared, and Pauline and +their daughter waiting for him. He sat down in silence, seeking to +avoid the questioning eyes which turned toward him so expectant and so +hopeful. Discerning his mood, neither wife nor daughter troubled him +with questions; at last, of himself, he broke out vehemently,-- + +"I wouldn't for the world have lost the chance! Laval wasn't the man to +take care of that gentleman. But he don't say a word against Laval, +mind you. He spoke about the flowers and the music. Oh, hang it!" + +Here, in spite of himself, the Drummer was wholly overcome. He bowed +his head to the table and broke into violent weeping. Another barrier +gave way beside. Elizabeth flew to him. He seemed not to heed her, nor +the sudden cry, "Oh, father!" that escaped her. She sat down by his +side,--she wept as he was weeping. It was a stormy emotion that raged +through her heart, when her tears burst forth. She was not weeping for +pity merely, nor because her father wept. Long before he lifted his +head, she was erect, and quiet, and hopeful,--but a child no more. She +was a woman to love, a woman to dare,--fit and ready for the guiding of +an angel. By-and-by Adolphus said to Pauline,--"If any one else had +undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut +out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. +Why,--why,--he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We +aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, I take it." + +"No, indeed!" said Pauline, as if the bare idea filled her with +indignation. The three were surely one now. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + +WALDEINSAMKEIT. + + I do not count the hours I spend + In wandering by the sea; + The forest is my loyal friend, + Like God it useth me. + + In plains that room for shadows make + Of skirting hills to lie, + Bound in by streams which give and take + Their colors from the sky, + + Or on the mountain-crest sublime, + Or down the oaken glade, + Oh, what have I to do with time? + For this the day was made. + + Cities of mortals woebegone + Fantastic care derides, + But in the serious landscape lone + Stern benefit abides. + + Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, + And merry is only a mask of sad; + But sober on a fund of joy + The woods at heart are glad. + + There the great Planter plants + Of fruitful worlds the grain, + And with a million spells enchants + The souls that walk in pain. + + Still on the seeds of all he made + The rose of beauty burns; + Through times that wear, and forms that fade, + Immortal youth returns. + + The black ducks mounting from the lake, + The pigeon in the pines, + The bittern's boom, a desert make + Which no false art refines. + + Down in yon watery nook, + Where bearded mists divide, + The gray old gods that Chaos knew, + The sires of Nature, hide. + + Aloft, in secret veins of air, + Blows the sweet breath of song; + Ah! few to scale those uplands dare, + Though they to all belong. + + See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's looks. + + And if, amid this dear delight, + My thoughts did home rebound, + I should reckon it a slight + To the high cheer I found. + + Oblivion here thy wisdom is, + Thy thrift the sleep of cares; + For a proud idleness like this + Crowns all life's mean affairs. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE GERMAN POPULAR LEGEND OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS. + + +We doubt whether any popular legend has ever taken deeper root among +the common people and spread farther in the world than the story of Dr. +Faustus and his reckless compact with the Evil One. We do not intend to +compare it, of course, to those ancient traditions which seem to have +constituted a tie of relationship between the most distant nations in +times anterior to history. These are mostly of a mythological +character,--as, for instance, those referring to the existence of +elementary spirits. Their connection with mankind has, in the earliest +times, occupied the imagination of the most widely different races. A +certain analogy we can easily explain by the affinity of human hearts +and human minds. But when we find that exactly the same tradition is +reechoed by the mountains of Norway and Sweden in the ballad of "Sir +Olaf and the Erl-king's Daughter," which the milkmaid of Brittany sings +in the lay of the "Sieur Nann and the Korigan," and in a language +radically different from the Norse,--when, here and there, the same +_forms_ of superstition meet us in the ancient popular poetry of the +Servians and modern Greeks, which were familiar to the Teutonic and +Cambrian races of early centuries,--must we not believe in a primeval +intimate connection between distant nations? are we not compelled to +acknowledge that there must have existed, in those remote times, means +of communication unknown to us? + +We repeat, however, that, in calling the legend of Dr. Faustus the most +widely-spread we know of, we cannot allude to these primitive +traditions, the circulation of which is perfectly mysterious. We speak +of such popular legends as admit of their origin being traced. Among +these the Faustus-tradition may be called comparatively new. To us +Americans, indeed, whose history commences only with the modern history +of Europe, a period of three hundred years seems quite a respectable +space of time. But to the Germans and the Scandinavians, from whose +popular lore the names of Horny Siegfried and Dietric of Berne, +(Theodoric the Great,) and of Roland, are not yet completely erased, a +story of the sixteenth century must appear comparatively modern. + +The popularity of the legend of Faustus, although of German origin, +was, almost from its first rise, not confined to German lands. The +French, Dutch, and English versions of the poor Doctor's adventurous +life are but very little younger than his German biographies; and it +was about the same time that he was made the subject of a tragedy by +Marlowe, one of the most gifted of Shakspeare's dramatic predecessors. +We are not afraid of erring, when we ascribe the uncommon popularity +and rapid circulation of this legend principally to its deep and +intrinsic _moral_ interest. Faustus's time of action was exactly the +period of the great religious reformation which shook all Europe. +During the sixteenth century, even the untaught and illiterate classes +learned to watch more closely over the salvation of their souls than +when they felt themselves safe beneath the guardianship of the Holy +Mother Church. And to those who remained under the guidance of the +latter, the dangers of learning and independent thinking, and of +meddling with forbidden subjects, were pointed out by the monks with +two-fold zeal. It cannot, therefore, surprise us, that the life and +death of a famous contemporary, who for worldly goods and worldly +wisdom placed his soul at stake, excited a deep and general interest. +In one feature, indeed, his history bears decidedly the stamp of the +great moral revolution of the time: we mean its awful end. There are two +legends of the Middle Ages--and perhaps many more--in which the +fundamental ideas are the same. The two Saints, Cyprianus, (the "Magico +Prodigioso" of Calderon,) and Bishop Theophilus, (the hero of Conrad of +Wuerzburg,) were both tempted by the Devil with worldly goods and +worldly prosperity, and allured into the pool of sin perhaps deeper +than Faustus; but repentance and penitence saved them, and secured to +them finally a place among the saints of the Church. But for Faustus +there is no compromise; his awful compact is binding; and whatever hope +of his salvation modern poetry has excited for the unfortunate Doctor +is, to say the least, in direct contradiction of the popular legend. + +Faustus was the Cagliostro of the sixteenth century. It is not an easy +task to find the few grains of historical truth referring to him, among +the chaff of popular fiction that several centuries have accumulated +around his name. A halo so mysterious and miraculous surrounds his +person, that not only have various other famous individuals, who lived +long before or after him, been completely amalgamated with him, but +even his real existence has been denied, and not much over a hundred +years after his death he was declared by scholars to be a mere myth. A +certain J.C. Duerr attempted to prove, in a learned "Dissertatio +Epistolica de Johanne Fausto," (printed at Altorf, in 1676,) that the +magician of that name had never existed, and that all the strange +things which had been related of him referred to the printer John +Faust, or Fust,--who had, indeed, been confounded with him before, +although he lived nearly a century earlier. And when we think of the +superstitious fear and monkish prejudice with which the great invention +of printing was at first regarded, such a confusion of two persons of +similar name, and both, in the eyes of a dark age, servants of Satan, +cannot surprise us. Our John Faustus was also sometimes confounded with +two younger contemporaries, one of whom was called Faustus Socinus, and +made Poland the chief theatre of his operations; the other, George +Sabellicus, expressly named himself Faustus Junior, also Faustus Minor. +Both were celebrated necromancers and astrologers, who probably availed +themselves of the advantage derived from the adoption of the famous +name of Faustus.[1] + +A second attempt to prove the historical nonentity of Dr. Faustus was +made at Wittenberg, in the year 1683. Some of his popular biographers +had claimed for him a professorship at that celebrated university, or +at least brought him into connection with it,--a pretension which the +actual professors of that learned institution thought rather +prejudicial to their honor, and which they were desirous of seeing +refuted. Stimulated, as it would seem, by a zeal of this kind, J.G. +Neumann wrote a "Dissertatio de Fausto Praestigiatore," in which he not +only tried to prove that Dr. Faustus had never been at Wittenberg, but +pronounced his whole story fabulous. An attempt like this would not +surprise us in our own time, the age of historical skepticism; but the +seventeenth century gave credit to narratives having much slighter +foundation. Although this dissertation was full of historical mistakes +and erroneous statements, it made some sensation, as is proved by its +four successive editions. It was also translated into German. All +Neumann's endeavors, however, could not stand against the testimony of +contemporaries, who partly had known Faustus personally, partly had +heard of him from living witnesses, and allude to his death as an +occurrence of recent date. + +John Faustus, or rather, after the German form of his name, Faust, was +born in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, probably not before +the year 1490. According to the oldest "Volksbuch" (People's Book) +which bears his name,[2] his parents then lived at Roda, in the present +Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. The same place is likewise named as his native +village by G.R. Widmann, his first regular biographer, who says that +his father was a peasant.[3] Although these two works are the +foundation of the great number of later ones referring to the same +subject, some of these latter deviate with respect to Faustus's +birthplace. J.N. Pfitzer, for instance, who, seventy years after +Widmann, published a revised and much altered edition of his book, +makes Faust see the light at Saltwedel, a small town belonging then to +the principality of Anhalt, and must have had his reasons for this +amendment. A confusion of this kind may, indeed, have early arisen from +a change of residence of our hero's parents during his infancy. But the +oldest Volksbuch was written nearly forty years after the death of +Faustus, and Widmann's work appeared even ten years later,--both, +indeed, professing to be founded on the Doctor's writings, as well as +on an autobiographical manuscript, discovered in his library after his +death. Perhaps, however, the assertion of two of his contemporaries, +one of whom was personally acquainted with him, is more entitled to +credit in this respect. Joh. Manlius and Joh. Wier--the latter in his +biography of Cornelius Agrippa--name Kundlingen, in Wuertemberg, as his +birthplace. + +Manlius, in his work, "Collectanea Locorum Communium," (Basel, 1600,) +speaks of him as of an acquaintance. He says that Faustus studied at +Krakow, in Poland, where there was a regular professorship of Magic, as +was the case at several universities. Others let him make his studies +at Ingolstadt, and acquire there the honors of a Doctor of Medicine. +Both these statements may be true, as also that he was for some time +the companion and pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, the +celebrated scholar, whose learning and mysterious researches after the +philosopher's stone brought him, like many other wise men of the age, +into suspicion of witchcraft. Agrippa had a pet dog, black, like the +mystical companion of Dr. Faustus, and, in the eyes of a superstitious +multitude, like him, the representative of the Evil One. Black dogs +seem to have been everywhere considered as rather suspicious creatures. +The Pope Sylvester II. had also a favorite black poodle, in whom the +Devil was supposed to have taken up his abode. According to Wier, +however, Agrippa's black dog was quite a harmless beast, and remarkable +only for the childlike attachment which the great philosopher had for +him. It may be worth remarking, that this writer, although he speaks of +Faustus in his biography of Agrippa, makes no mention of his ever +having been a friend or scholar of the latter. + +In several of the old stories of Faustus, we read that he had a cousin +at Wittenberg, who took him as a boy to his house, brought him up, and +made him his heir when he died. If this was true, it would be more +probable that he was a native of Saxony than of Suabia. It is, however, +more probable that this narrative rests on one of the numerous cases +found in old writings in general, and above all in the history of +Faustus, in which the names Wittenberg and Wuertemberg are confounded. +Our hero's abode at the former place was very probably merely that of a +traveller; he left there, as we shall soon see, a very unenviable +reputation. It is true that Saxony was the principal scene of the +Doctor's achievements; but this very circumstance makes it improbable +that he was born and brought up there, as it is well known that "a +prophet hath no honor in his own country." + +Faust's studies were not confined to medicine and the physical +sciences. He was also considered eminent as a philologist and +philosopher. Physiology, however, with its various branches and +degenerate offshoots, was the idol of the scholars of that age, and of +Faustus among the rest. A passionate desire to fathom the mysteries of +Nature, to dive into the most hidden recesses of moral and physical +creation, had seized men of real learning, and seduced them into +mingling absurd astrological and magical fancies with profound and +scholarlike researches. The deepest thinkers of their time, like +Nostradamus, Cardan, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Thomas Campanella, +flattered themselves that they could enter, by means of art and +science, into communion with good or evil spirits, on whose aid they +depended for obtaining knowledge, fame, wealth, and worldly honors and +enjoyments. Faustus was one of those whom a passion for inquiry, in +league with a powerful, sensual nature, led astray. What had been +originally an honest thirst for knowledge, a deep interest in the +supernatural, became gradually a morbid craving after the miraculous, +the pretension of having attained the unattainable, and the attempt to +represent it by means of vulgar jugglery. + +Dr. Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, +and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his _famulus_; for we +never find this _Philister_ among scholars as a companion of the +travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently +lasting. According to the popular legend, the Doctor made him his heir, +and expressly obtained for him Auerhahn, (Heathcock,) a familiar spirit +in the shape of a monkey. This was a sort of caricature of +Mephistopheles, who became, through his ludicrous clumsiness, a +pet-devil of the populace in the puppet-shows, particularly in Holland. +Widmann calls Wagner _Waiger_; while in all other publications +referring to him he bears his right name, Christoph Wagner. + +What city it was where Faustus lived before the reputation of +witchcraft made him the subject of so much talk remains unsettled. +Wittenberg and Ingolstadt are alternately named. Some of his +biographers relate, that he led a loose and profligate life, and soon +wasted his cousin's inheritance. Others represent him as a deep, +secluded student, laying hold of one science after another, and +unsatisfied by them all, until he found, by means of his physical and +chemical experiments, the secret path to the supernatural, and, in +order to reap their full fruits, allied himself with the hellish +powers. Faustus himself tells us, in his "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," (or rather, the author of this book makes him tell us,) +how his intercourse with the Devil commenced almost accidentally and +against his intentions:-- + +"I, Doctor Johann Faust, who apply myself to the Free Arts, having read +many kinds of books from my youth, happened once to light upon a book +that contained various conjurations of the spirits. Feeling some desire +to enlarge my ideas on these things, having, indeed, at the beginning, +small belief that the prescriptions of that book would so soon be +verified, I tried them only for an experiment. Nevertheless, I became +aware that a mighty spirit, named Astaroth, presented himself before +me, and asked me wherefore I had cited him. Then, hurried as I was, I +did not know how to make up my mind otherwise than to demand that he +should be serviceable to me in various wishes and desires, which he +promised _conditionale_, asking to make a compact with me. To do this I +was at first not inclined; but as I was only provided with a bad +_circle_, being merely experimenting, I did not dare to bid him +defiance, but was obliged to yield to the circumstances. I therefore +made up my mind, inasmuch as he would serve me, and would be bound to +me a certain number of years. This being settled, this spirit presented +to me another, named Mochiel, who was commanded to serve me. I asked +him how quick he was. Answer: 'Like the wind.' 'Thou shalt not serve +me! get thee back to whence thou camest!' Now came Aniguel; he +answered, that he was as quick as the bird in the air. 'Thou art still +too slow,' I replied; 'begone!' At the same moment a third stood before +me, named Aziel; this one, too, I asked how quick he was. 'Quick as the +thought of man.' 'Right for me! thee will I keep!' And I accepted him. +This spirit has served me long, as has been made known by many +writings." + +Whether it was this quick Aziel, or Astaroth himself, who became +Faustus's travelling-companion under the name of Mephistopheles, or +whether the prince of the lower regions in person condescended to play +that part, we do not know; but in all popular stories of the Doctor, +his servant bears the latter name,--while in the various books in +which, under the name of _Hoellenzwang_, the system of his magic is +laid down, he is called Aziel. + +In possession of such a power, Faustus soon became tired of his lonely +study. He craved the world for his theatre. His travels seem in reality +to have been very extensive, while in the popular stories a magic +mantle carried him over the whole globe. Conrad Gesner, the great +physiologist, who speaks of him with some respect as a physician, +comparing him with Theophrastus Paracelsus, reckons him among the +_scholastici vagantes_, or _fahrende Schueler_, an order of men already +considerably in the decline, and grown disreputable at that period. As +early as the thirteenth century, we find the custom in Germany, of +young clergymen who did not belong to any monkish order travelling +through the land to get a living,--here by instructing in schools for a +certain period,--there by temporarily serving in churches as +choristers, sacristans, or vicars,--often, too, as clerks and copyists +to lawyers or other private men. When they could no longer find a +livelihood at one place, they went to another. Their offices became, in +course of time, of the most varied and unsuitable order. They were +generally received and treated with hospitality, and this may have been +one reason why all kinds of adventurers were ready to join them. Their +unstable mode of life easily explains their frequenting the society of +other vagabonds, who traversed the country as jugglers, +treasure-diggers, quacks, or sorcerers, and that their clerical dignity +did not prevent their occasionally adopting these professions +themselves. The Chronicle of Limburg, in speaking of the Diet of +Frankfurt in 1397, says: "The number of princes, counts, noblemen, +knights, and esquires, that met there, amounted to five thousand one +hundred and eighty-two"; adding: "Besides these, there were here four +hundred and fifty persons more, such as _fahrende Schueler_, wrestlers, +musicians, jumpers, and trumpeters." The character of the clergy having +sunk so low, the Church declared itself against the custom, and at +several German councils theological students were expressly forbidden +to lead this roving life. It required, however, considerable time for +the ancient custom to become extinct, and we learn, among others, from +Conrad Gesner, that it still existed at the time of the Reformation. + +The part played by Faustus was at first in some degree respectable, and +that of a scholar. An old Erfurt Chronicle tells us that he had come to +that city and obtained permission from the university to deliver a +course of lectures on Homer. A dark rumor of his magic powers had +preceded him; the students, therefore, thronged to hear him, and, +deeply interested, requested him to let them see the heroes of Homer by +calling them from their graves. Faustus appointed another day for this, +received the excited youths in a dark chamber, commanded them to be +perfectly silent, and made the great men of the Greek bard rise up, one +by one, before their eyes. At length Polyphemus appeared; and the +one-eyed Cyclops, with his red hair, an iron spear in his hand, and, to +designate him at once as a cannibal, two bloody human thighs in his +mouth, looked so hideous, that the spectators were seized with horror +and disgust, the more so that the wily magician professed to have some +difficulty in dismissing the monster. Suddenly a violent shake of the +whole house was felt; the young men were thrown one over another, and +were seized with terror and dismay. Two of the students insisted upon +having already felt the teeth of the Cyclops.--This ridiculous story +was soon known throughout the city, and confirmed the suspicions of the +Franciscan monks and magistrates, that the learned guest was in league +with the Evil One. It is said that Faustus had previously offered to +procure for them the manuscripts of the lost comedies of Terence and +Plautus, and to leave them for a short time in their hands, to be +copied,--but that the fathers of the city and of the university +declined, because they believed this could be done only by sorcery, or +with the help of Satan. Now they sent to him the Guardian of the +Convent, Dr. Klinger, in order to convert him and to have masses read +for him, for the purpose of delivering him from his hellish connection. +But Faustus opposed, was by the clergy solemnly delivered to the Devil, +and, in consequence, banished from the city by the magistrates. + +We do not know whether it was for similar juggleries, that, when at +Wittenberg, the Elector John the Steadfast ordered him to be arrested, +as Manlius relates. He saved himself by flight. Melancthon, in one of +his letters, mentions having made his acquaintance; the whole tone of +the allusion, however, expresses contempt. + +The character of the miracles he performed soon ceased to have the +literary tincture of the one related above, and they became mere vulgar +juggleries and exhibitions of legerdemain, suited to the taste of the +multitude. Scholars turned their backs on him, and we find him only +among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their +carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of +his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any +request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of +ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus +enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep +themselves in readiness for cutting the fruit, but not to stir before +he gave them leave. And, behold, before the eyes of the gaping youths, +while they themselves were enveloped in a magic mist, there arose a +great vine, with as many bunches of grapes as there were persons in the +room. Suddenly the obscuring mist dissolved, and each one saw the +others with their hands at their own noses, ready to cut them off, as +the promised grapes. But the vine and the magician had disappeared, and +the disenchanted drunkards were left to their own rage. + +The reader will be aware that this is the tale of which Goethe availed +himself in representing Faustus's visit to Auerbach's cellar at +Leipzig. Whether it really occurred there is not stated; but that +Faustus was said to have been at Leipzig, and even in Auerbach's +cellar, is an historical fact, attested by two pictures still extant at +this famous old tavern, where many of our curious American travellers +may have seen them. These pictures, which have been retouched and +renovated more than once,--last in 1759,--are marked at the top with +the date 1525. Whether this means the year in which they were painted, +or that in which Faustus performed the great feat which the scene +represents, remains uncertain. As it occurred in the beginning of his +career, upon which we may assume him to have entered somewhere between +1520 and 1525, the date is quite likely to refer to the time of the +feat; but, to judge from the costumes and several other signs, the +pictures cannot have been painted much later. They were evidently made +expressly for the locality, sloping off on both sides at the top, to +suit the shape of the vault. The German inscription at the foot of one +of the pictures indicates that it was written after the Doctor's death, +which must have occurred between 1540 and 1550; but it is probable that +these verses were added at a later time, the more so as the traces of +an older inscription, now no longer legible, may still be discovered. +One of these curious paintings represents Faustus in company with +students and musicians sitting around a table covered with dishes and +bottles. Faustus is lifting his goblet with one hand, and with the +other beating time on the table to the music. At the bottom we read the +following verse in barbarous Latin:-- + + "Vive. Bibe. Obgregare. Memor Fausti hujus, et hujus + Poenae. Aderat claudo haec. Ast erat ampla + Gradu. 1525."[4] + +The other picture shows us the same jolly party risen from table, and +all expressing their wonder and astonishment, as Dr. Faustus is just +riding out of the door on a wine-tub. Beneath it is the following +inscription in German:-- + + "Dr. Faustus zu dieser Frist + Aus Auerbach's Keller geritten ist, + Auf einem Fass mit Wein geschwind, + Welches gesehn manch Mutterkind. + Solches durch seine subtilne Kunst hat gethan, + Und des Teufels Lohn empfangen davon. + 1525."[5] + +On neither of the two pictures does Mephistopheles appear, unless he is +meant to be represented in the shape of the black dog. It is not, +however, Goethe's poodle that meets us here, but a sleek little +creature with a collar around his neck, looking very much like a wooden +toy-dog. + +Most of the tricks and pranks reported of Dr. Faustus are of the same +absurd kind, though not all of so harmless a character. According to +the popular legend, he travelled like a great lord, had the spirits +pave the highways for him when he rode in the post-coach,--it seems, +then, that he did not always use his mantle,--and lived in the taverns +at which he stopped with an unheard-of luxury. On his departure, he +paid the hosts in a princely manner; but scarcely was he out of sight, +when the gold in the receiver's hand was changed to straw, or to round +slices of gilded horn,--a shabby trick indeed, as he could have as much +money as he liked. + +How much we have to believe of all these popular stories we may learn +from Dr. Phil. Begardi's "Zeyger der Gesundtheyt," (Guide to Health,) a +book published in 1539, at Worms, at a time when Faustus seems to have +already disappeared from Germany, after having lost caste there +completely, and when he was trying his fortune in other countries. + +"There is still another famous man," says Begardi, "whose name I would +rather not mention at all, only that he himself would not wish to +remain hidden or unknown. For he was roving, _some years ago_, through +all the different countries, principalities, and kingdoms, and has made +known his name and his great skill, boasting not only of his medical +science, but likewise of Chiromancy, Necromancy, Physiognomy, Visions +in Crystals, and more arts of the kind. And he called himself Faustus, +a celebrated experienced master, _philosophum philosophorum_, etc. But +the number of those who have complained to me of having been cheated by +him is very great. Well, his promises were likewise very great, just +like those of Thessalus, (in Galen's time,) and his reputation like +that of Theophrastus; but in deeds he was, I hear, found small and +deceitful. But in taking and receiving money he was never slow, and was +off before any one knew it." + +Thus we see the historical Faustus, the esteemed scholar, the skilful +physician, gradually merged in the juggler, the quack, the adventurer, +and the impostor. The popular legend follows him to foreign countries. +His magic mantle carries him, in eight days, over the whole world, and +even into the Infernal regions. He is honorably received at the +Emperor's court at Innspruck, introduces himself invisibly at Rome, +into the Vatican, where the Pope and his cardinals are assembled at a +banquet, snatches away his Holiness's plate and cup from before his +mouth, and, enraged at his crossing himself, boxes his ears. In the +puppet-shows he figures mostly at the court of the Duke of Parma. In +Venice his daring spirit presumed too far. He announced an exhibition +of a flight to heaven. But Mephistopheles, who had hitherto satisfied +his most extravagant demands, though often with grumbling, would not +permit _that_ feat. In the midst of a staring, wondering multitude, +Faustus rose to a certain height by means of his own Satanic skill, +acquired in his long intercourse with the Devil. But now the latter +showed that he was still his master. He suddenly hurled him from on +high, and he fell half dead upon the ground. The twenty-four years of +the compact, however, were not yet ended, and he was therefore restored +to life by the same hellish power. + +In a very trite, popular ballad, which we find in "Des Knaben +Wunderhorn," we see, that, when the travellers came to Jerusalem, the +Devil declined still another request. Faustus wishes him to make a +picture of Christ crucified, and to write under it his holy name. But +the Devil declared that he would rather give him back his signature +than be obliged to do _such_ a thing, and succeeded in turning the +Doctor's mind from the subject by showing him, instead, a picture of +Venus. + +Popular imagination seems to have been inexhaustible in stories of this +kind. But, after the twenty-four years of vile enjoyments, the hour of +retribution came at last. According to our scanty historical notices, +Faustus died an unnatural death: he was found dead in his bed, at his +birthplace, Kundlingen, with his neck twisted. How such a death must +have confirmed all the superstitious rumors about him the reader will +easily conceive. But, according to the popular legend, his end was +still more terrible. He seems to have returned to his own country, and +scholars, worthy young men, surround him once more, and become much +attached to him. From this one would suppose him to have been at +Wittenberg, or Ingoldstadt, or any university city, but, instead of +this, we find him in a little Saxon village, called Rimlich. The +twenty-fourth year draws to its close. At last, at the eleventh hour, +Faustus bethinks himself to repent; but it is too late. His end, +related in the simple language of the Volksbuch, is truly awful. He +dismisses his sympathizing friends, bidding them not to be disturbed by +any noises in the night. At midnight a terrible storm arises; it +reaches its height amid thunder and lightning. The friends hear a +fearful shriek. They rise and pray. But when, in the morning, they +enter his room, they are horror-struck at seeing his limbs scattered +round, and the walls, against which the fiend had dashed him to pieces, +covered with his blood. His body was found in the court-yard on a +dung-hill. + +The horror of this end made a peculiarly awful impression on the +popular mind. During the Thirty Years' War, it once happened that a +troop of Catholic soldiers broke into a village in Saxony, on the Elbe, +named Breda. They were just about to plunder one of the principal +houses, when the judge of the place, who, it seems, was a shrewd man, +stepped out and told them that this village was the one where Dr. +Faustus was carried off by the Devil, and that in this very house the +blood of the Doctor was still to be seen on the walls. The soldiers +were seized with terror, and left the village. + +The story of Faustus's adventurous life and shocking death, with its +impressive lessons, appears at first to have been kept extant only by +oral tradition. Nearly forty years passed before it was written down +and printed. But then, indeed, the book was received with so much +favor, that not only several new and enlarged editions appeared in a +short time, but many similar works were published soon after, which, +though founded on the oldest Volksbuch (of 1588) and Widmann's +"Histories," were yet abundant in new facts and inventions. And that +not to the illiterate classes alone was the subject interesting is +proved by the circumstance that a Latin version of the first Volksbuch +was advertised, and (probably) appeared. On the title-pages of all +these books it is expressly stated that they were written as a warning +to, and for the edification of, Christian readers. In 1712, a book was +published at Berlin, under the title, "Zauberkuenste und Leben Dr. +Fausti," (The Magic Arts and Life of Dr. Faust,) as the author of which +Christoph Wagner was named. Wagner himself became the subject of a +biographical work. + +Of still greater effect was Faustus's history on the stage. Through the +whole of the seventeenth, as well as the first half of the eighteenth +century, it remained one of the favorite subjects of puppet-shows, +popular melodramas, exhibitions of _ombres chinoises_, and pantomimes. +The more the awful event, with its moral lessons, receded into the +background of time, the more it lost its serious and impressive +character, until it became a mere burlesque, and _Hanswurst_ and +_Casperle_ its principal figures. + +The "Historie" had scarcely appeared, when it was translated into +Dutch, and the later publication of other similar works did not prevent +the demand for several new editions. These Dutch books were +illustrated, as were also the _newer_ German ones. Only a little later, +two French versions were published, one of which was even reprinted at +Paris as late as 1712. + +In Holland, our hero excited no small interest even among the artists. +There are extant several portraits of Faustus painted by Rembrandt,-- +whether ideal, or copied from older pictures, is not known. Another +Dutch painter, Christoph von Sichem, represented two scenes from the +life of the celebrated magician; and of these productions engravings +still exist. On the one, we see Faustus and Mephistopheles,--the +latter dressed like a monk, as, according to the popular tales, +he mostly appeared. On the other, Wagner and Auerhahn, (or Auerhain,) +--the latter in the shape of a monkey. There is a striking contrast +between Faustus and Wagner. The first is a well-dressed man, in +deep meditation; globes and instruments of science surround him;-- +the other the impersonation of vulgarity. Various scenes from +Faustus's life adorn the walls. Christoph von Sichem was born in +1580, and flourished at Amsterdam during the first quarter of the +seventeenth century. These pictures were consequently made when the +whole interest of the public for Faustus and his companions was still +fresh. + +Some books seem to have been published by Faustus during his +lifetime,--at least, his biographers allude to them; but it was only +after his death that the work which gave his name its chief reputation +became known. This was his peculiar System of Magic, called "Faust's +Hoellenzwang" (Compulsion of Hell). Wagner, who was said to be his +heir, published it first under the title of "Dr. Johannis Faust's +_Magia Celeberrima_, und _Tabula Nigra_, oder _Hoellenzwang_." It +contained all the different forms of conjuration, as well for the +citation as for the dismissal of spirits. There are, besides this, +several other similar works extant, such as his "Schwarzer +Mohrenstern," "Der schwarze Rabe," the "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und +Wunder-buch," already mentioned, and several more, containing about the +same matter, and most of them written in his name. Of all these +productions only manuscripts are known to remain, although they are all +professedly copies of printed works. The most singular thing is, that, +while they are represented as having been published after the +magician's death, some of them are, nevertheless, marked with dates as +early as 1509, 1510, and 1511,--and with the names of Lion, (Lyons,) +London, etc., as the places where they were printed. These +circumstances make their authenticity very doubtful, even if we allow +for mistakes made by the copyists. + +Although so large a part of Faustus's life was, according to the +popular legend, spent in Italy, we are not aware that this legend was +ever current among the Italian people. Some unfortunate attempts have +been made to engraft the story of Don Giovanni upon this German stock, +but, as it seems to us, by very arbitrary arguments and conclusions. +The career of a mere rake, who shuns no means of gratifying his low +appetites, has little analogy with that of an originally honest +inquirer, led astray by the want of faith and his sensual nature. The +only resemblance is in the end. There was at first more apparent +success in the endeavor to transplant the tale to Spain, where +Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso" was taken by some critics for a +representation of it. The foundation of Calderon's drama, as mentioned +before, is rather the legend of St. Cyprianus. More may be said in +favor of the radical identity of the stories of Faustus with some +popular legends of the Poles, referring to a necromancer called +Twardowski. But Polish scholars will not admit this; at least, they +object to giving up their great magician, and some attempts have even +been made from that side to prove that theirs is the original whom the +Germans appropriated under the name of _Faust_. + +The most interesting result of the publication of the Volksbuch +appeared in England, where it fell, for the first, and in a hundred and +fifty years the only time, into the hands of a poet. Mr. Collier, in +his "History of English Dramatic Poetry," says,--"In 1588, a ballad of +the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus was licensed to be printed"; and +adds,--"This would, according to the language of the time, have meant +any composition in verse, even the play," (of Marlowe,) and +subsequently mentions the same circumstance with reference to "the old +romance of Dr. Faustus." On this, Mr. A. Dyce (Works of Christopher +Marlowe, 1850, I. p. xvi., note) remarks,--"When Mr. Collier states +that the old romance of Faustus was entered into the Stationers' books +in 1588, (according to a note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 42,) he meant, I +apprehend, the old _ballad_." If we bear in mind that the first German +History of Dr. Faustus did not appear before the same year, we should +also conclude that he must have meant the ballad, as a translation +could hardly have been made in so short a time. But considering, on the +other hand, that the tragedy, which cannot have been composed later +than 1589 or 1590, (as the poet, who was murdered in 1593, wrote +several pieces after the one in question,) is evidently and without the +least doubt founded on the Volksbuch, often adopting the very language +of its English version, we must conclude that a translation of the +German work was made immediately after its appearance, or possibly even +from the manuscript,--which Spiess, the German editor, professes to +have obtained from Spires. Although the word "ballad" was not properly +employed for prose romances, it may have been thus used in Henslowe's +Diary by mistake. We are not aware that any _old_ English version of +this "History of Dr. Faustus" is now extant; that from which Mr. Dyce +quotes is of 1648. Marlowe's tragedy was first entered in the +Stationers' books in 1600-1, but brought upon the stage many years +before. In 1597, it had already been played so often that additions +were required. Philips, who wrote about fifty years later, remarks, +that, "of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his 'Dr. Faustus' +has made the greatest noise with its devils and such-like tragical +sport." In course of time it was "made into a farce, with the Humors of +Harlequin and Scaramouch," and represented through the whole kingdom, +like similar compositions, with immense applause. + +Marlowe's "Faustus" has been judged rather favorably by modern English +critics. Mr. Hazlitt calls it, "though an imperfect and unequal +performance, Marlowe's greatest work." Mr. Hallam remarks,--"There is an +awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistopheles, perhaps more +impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work +of Goethe." Charles Lamb even preferred Marlowe's "Faustus," as a +whole, to the latter! Mr. Collier calls it "a drama of power, novelty, +interest, and variety." So, indeed, it is; but all that power, +interest, novelty, and variety do not belong to Marlowe, but to the +prose romance, after which he wrote. Indeed, he followed it so +closely,--as every reader can see for himself, by reading the play in +Dyce's edition, and comparing it with the notes under the text,--that +sometimes whole scenes are copied, and even whole speeches, as, for +instance, that of the Emperor Charles V. The coarse buffoonery, in +particular, of which the work is full, is retained word for word. Of +the countless absurdities and prolixities of the Volksbuch, Marlowe +has, of course, omitted a great deal, and condensed the story to the +tenth part of its original length; but the fundamental idea, the plot, +and the characters, belong exclusively to the original. Marlowe's +poetical merit lies partly in the circumstance that he was the first to +feel the depth and power of that idea, partly in the thoughts and +pictures with which some speeches, principally the monologues of +Faustus himself, are interwoven. The Faustus of Marlowe is the Faust of +the legend, tired of learning because it is so unproductive, and +selling his soul, not for knowledge, but for wealth and power. His +investigating conversations with Mephistopheles, his inquiries, and the +answers of the latter, are almost as shallow and childish as those in +the People's Book; and Faustus himself remarks, on the information +which his companion gives him,-- + + "Those slender trifles Wagner could decide; + Has Mephistopheles no greater skill?" + +This latter, indeed, seems to us, in spite of the admiration of English +critics, a decided failure. There is in him no trace of either the +cruel, icy-cold malignity of the fiend of Goethe, or the awful grandeur +of Milton's Tempter. It cannot be said that Marlowe's Devil seduces +Faustus. He is almost on the verge of repentance himself; of the two, +he is decidedly the better Christian. The proposition of the compact +comes from Faustus himself, and Mephistopheles only accepts it. +Marlowe's Faustus knows nothing of the feeling of aversion and disgust +with which Goethe's Faust sees himself bound to his hellish companion; +he calls him, repeatedly, "sweet Mephistopheles," and declares,-- + + "Had I as many souls as there be stars, + I'd give them all for Mephistopheles." + +Mr. Hallam, in comparing Marlowe's production with Goethe's, +remarks,--"The fair form of Margaret is wanting." As if this were all +that was wanting! Margaret belonged, indeed, exclusively to Goethe. But +Helena, the favorite ideal of beauty of all old writers, is introduced +in the popular tale, and so, too, in Marlowe. Faustus conjures up her +spirit at the request of the students. Her beauty is described with +glowing colors; "it would," says the old romance, "nearly have enflamed +the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, +which made them lightly passe away such fancies." Not so Faustus; +although he is already in the twenty-third year of his compact, he +himself falls in love with the spirit, and keeps her with him until his +end. In all this, Marlowe follows closely; though he has good taste +enough to suppress the figure of the little Justus Faustus, who was the +fruit of this union. + +It now only remains to us to consider the way in which modern poets +have apprehended the idea of the Faust-fable. None of the German dramas +and operas which the seventeenth century produced, though they never +failed to draw large audiences, could be compared, in poetical value, +to Marlowe's tragedy. The German stage of that period was of very low +standing, and the few poets who wrote for it, as, for instance, +Lohenstein, preferred foreign subjects,--the more remote in space and +time, the better. The writers of neither the first nor the second +Silesian school were exactly the men to appreciate the depth of a +legend like that of Faustus,--still less the watery poets of the +beginning of the eighteenth century. Lessing, who, with his sharp, +sound criticism, and his clear perception of the beautiful, led the way +to a higher state of things in literature, appears also to have been +the first to discover the deep meaning buried in the popular farces of +Faustus. He pronounced it worthy the genius of a Shakspeare, and +himself attempted to make it the subject of a tragedy. How much it +occupied his mind we may conclude from the circumstance that he seems +to have made for it two plans, essentially different from each other. +We can only regret that they were never executed. Although Lessing was +not a poetical genius like Goethe, the power and acuteness of his mind +were so eminent, the force of his critical faculties was so +penetrating, that his treatment of a subject of so much depth and +intrinsic poetry would have been of the highest interest. This +expectation is also justified by the few sketches of single scenes +which are all that remain of his plans. One of the latter is, indeed, +also in so far remarkable, as we see from it that Lessing's mind +inclined to the modern view, according to which Faustus ought to be and +would be finally saved. One of the devils describes him, before +temptation, as "a solitary, thinking youth, entirely devoted to +wisdom,--living, breathing, only for wisdom and knowledge,--renouncing +every passion but the one for truth,--highly dangerous to thee [Satan] +and to us all, if he were ever to be a teacher of the people." Satan +resolves at once to seduce and destroy him. But Faustus's good angel +has mercy on him. He buries him in a deep sleep, and creates in his +place a phantom, with which the cheated devils try successfully the +whole process of temptation and seduction. All this appears to Faustus +in a dream. He awakes; the Devil discovers his error, and flies with +shame and fury, and Faustus, thanking Providence for its warning, +clings to truth and virtue more firmly than ever. + +The other plan, to judge from the fragment we possess, is less +fanciful, and seems to follow more closely the popular tradition, +according to which the temptations of Faustus were by no means +external, but lay deep in his individual mind. In one of its +lightly-sketched scenes, the poet has evidently availed himself of the +one from the Miracle-Book heretofore mentioned, and, indeed, with a +great deal of force. Faustus, impatient and annoyed at the slow process +of human action, desires the quickest servant from hell, and +successively cites seven spirits. One after another he rejects. The +arrows of the plague, the wings of the winds, the beams of light, are +all not quick enough for him. The fifth spirit rises:-- + +"_Faustus_. How quick art thou? + +"_Fifth Spirit_. As quick as the thoughts of men. + +"_Faustus_. That is something!--But the thoughts of men are not always +quick. They are slothful when truth and virtue demand them. Thou canst +be quick, if thou wilt. But who will warrant me thy being always +quick?--No, I trust thee as little as I ought to have trusted +myself.--Ah!--(to the sixth spirit.) Now tell me how quick thou art! + +"_Sixth Spirit_. As quick as the vengeance of the Avenger. + +"_Faustus_. Of the Avenger? Of what Avenger? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. Of the All-powerful, the Terrible, who has kept +vengeance for himself alone, because vengeance is his delight. + +"_Faustus_. Devil, thou blasphemest, for I see thou art +trembling!--Quick, thou sayest, as the vengeance of----no! he may not +be named among us! Quick, thou sayest, is his vengeance? Quick? And I +still live? And I still sin? + +"_Sixth Spirit_. That he suffereth thee still to sin is the beginning +of his vengeance. + +"_Faustus_. Oh that a Devil should teach me this!--But no, his +vengeance is not quick; if thou art no quicker, begone!--(To the +seventh spirit.) How quick art thou? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. Unsatisfiable (_unzuvergnuegender_) mortal! If I, +too, am not quick enough for thee------ + +"_Faustus_. Tell me, then, how quick? + +"_Seventh Spirit_. No more nor less than the transition from Good to +Evil. + +"_Faustus_. Ha! thou art my devil! Quick as the transition from Good to +Evil!--Yes, that is quick! Nothing is quicker!--Away from here, ye +horrors of Orcus! Away!--Quick as the transition from Good to Evil!--I +have learned how quick that is! I know it!" + +Lessing had this fragment printed in the "Literaturbriefe," professedly +as a specimen of one of the old popular dramas, despised at that time +by the higher classes, though Lessing remarks,--"How fond was Germany +once of its Dr. Faustus,--and is so, partly, still!" But even this bold +reformer of German taste seems not to have had the temerity to come +forward at once as the author of a conception so entirely contrary to +the reigning rules and the Frenchified taste by which, at the period of +the "Literaturbriefe," (1759-1763,) Germany was still subjugated. + +We do not know whether some of the young poets who took hold of the +subject a short time after were instigated by this fragment of +Lessing's, or whether they were moved by the awakening German Genius, +who, just at that period, was beginning to return to his national +sources for the quenching of his thirst. Between 1770 and 1780, Lenz +and Maler Mueller composed, the former his "Hoellenrichter," the latter +his dramatized Life of Dr. Faustus. No more appropriate hero could have +been found for the young "Kraft-Genies" of the "Sturm und Drang +Periode" (Storm and Stress period) of German literature. Schreiber, +Soden, Klinger, Schink, followed them, the last-named with several +productions referring to the subject. In 1786, Goethe communicated to +the world, for the first time, a fragment of that astonishing dramatic +poem which has since been acknowledged, by the whole literary public, +as his masterpiece, and the most remarkable monument of his great +genius.[6] The whole first part of the tragedy, still under the name of +a fragment, was not published before 1808. Since then Germany may be +said to have been inundated by "Fausts" in every possible shape. Dramas +by Nic. Voigt, K. Schoene, Benkowitz,--operas by Adolph Baeurle, J. von +Voss, Bernard, (with music by Spohr,)--tales in verse and prose by +Kamarack, Seybold, Gerle, and L. Bechstein,--and besides these, the +productions of various anonymous writers, followed close upon each +other in the course of the next twenty years. Chamisso's tragedy of +"Faustus," "in one actus," in truth only a fragment, had already +appeared in the "Musenalmanach" of 1804. + +To Goethe the legendary literature of his nation had been familiar from +his boyhood. Very early in life, and several years before the +publication of Maler Mueller's spirited drama, his mind was powerfully +impressed by the Faust-fable, and the greater part of the present +fragmentary poem was already written and ready for print when Mueller's +first sketch, under the title, "Situations in the Life of Dr. Faustus," +appeared (1776). As the entire poetry of Goethe was more or less +_autobiographical_,--that is, as all his poetical productions reflect, +to a certain extent, his own personal sensations, trials, and +experiences,--he fused himself and his inner life into the mould of +Faustus, with all his craving for knowledge, his passionate love of +Nature, his unsatisfied longings and powerful temptations, adhering +closely in all external action to the popular story, though of course +in a symbolic spirit Goethe had, as he tells us himself, a happy +faculty of delivering himself by poetical production, as well of all +the partly imaginary, partly morbid cares and doubts which troubled his +mind, as of the real and acute sufferings which tormented him, for a +certain period, even to agony. Love, doubt, sorrow, passion, +remorse--all found an egress from his soul into a poem, a novel, a +parable, a dramatic character, or some other form of poetical +expression. He felt as if eased of a burden, after having thus given +his feelings body and shape. Thus his works became his history. +"Faust," in its two parts, is the production of his lifetime. Conceived +in early youth, worked out in manhood, completed in old age, it became +a vehicle for all the various commotions of his existence. There is no +other poem which contains such a diversity of thought and feeling, such +a variety of sentences, pictures, scenes, and situations. For enlarging +on the poetical value of this incomparable work this is not the place. +Closely as Goethe has followed up the popular legend, it is +emphatically and entirely his own production, because it contains his +complete self. + +Nearly a quarter of a century passed before this extraordinary poem was +followed by its second part. It is not difficult to trace in this +continuation, published only after the death of the aged poet, the few +scenes which may have been composed contemporarily with or soon after +the first part; but that the whole is conceived and executed in a +totally different spirit not even the most unconditional admirers of +Goethe's genius will deny. There is no doubt that he regarded his +"Faust" only as a beginning, and always contemplated a continuation. +The _role_ of Dr. Faustus, the popular magician, was only half-played. +Its most brilliant part, his intercourse with the great of the earth +and the heroes of the past, had not yet commenced. But as, in the +course of advancing life, the poet's views and ideas changed, the +mirror of his soul reflected an altered world to him; and as the second +part of "Faust" is hardly less an image of himself than the first, it +is not unnatural that it is as different from the latter as the Goethe +the septuagenarian was from Goethe the youth. + +Meanwhile the _literati_ of Germany became exceedingly impatient for +the promised second part; and when the master lingered, and did not +himself come forth with the solution of the mystery, the disciples +attempted to supply him as well as they could. C.C.L. Schoene and J.D. +Hoffmann had both the requisite courage for such an undertaking; and +the first even sent his production, with perfect _naivete_, to the +great master, as the second part of his own work. C. Rosenkranz and +Gustav Pfitzer--two very honorable names--also wrote after-plays. + +We must confess that we have never felt any desire to see "Faust" +continued. It ought to have remained a fragment. Its last scene, +perhaps, surpasses, in sublimity and heart-rending power, anything ever +written. No light of this world can ever entirely clear up the sacred +mystery of the Beyond, but that scene gives us a surety for the +salvation of Margaret, and _hope_ for Faust, to every one who has not +forgotten the words of the Lord in the second Prologue:-- + + "Draw down this spirit from its source, + And, _canst thou catch him_, to perdition + Carry him with thee in thy course; + But stand abashed, if thou must needs confess + That a good man, though passion blur his vision, + Has of the right way still a consciousness."[7] + +By the appearance of the second part of "Faust" the magic spell was +completely broken. No work of Art of a more chilling, disenchanting +character was ever produced. For the striking individuality of the +first part, we have here nothing but abstractions; for its deep poetry, +symbolism; for its glow and thrilling pathos, a plastic finish, hard +and cold as marble; for its psychological truth, a bewildering +mysticism. All the fine thoughts and reflections, and all the abundance +of poetical passages, scattered like jewels through the thick mist of +the whole work, cannot compensate for its total want of interest; and +we doubt whether many readers have ever worked their way through its +innumerable obscure sayings and mystical allegories without feeling +something of the truth of Voltaire's remark: "_Tout genre est permis +hors le genre ennuyeux_." + +The impression which the first part of "Faust," the poetical +masterpiece of German literature, made among foreigners, was, though in +some instances ultimately powerful, yet on the whole surprisingly slow. +While the popular legend, in its coarsest shape, had, in its time, +spread with the rapidity of a running fire through all countries, the +great German poet's conception of it, two hundred years later, found no +responding echo in either French or English bosoms. Here and there some +eccentric genius may have taken it up, as, for instance, Monk Lewis, +who, in 1816, communicated the fundamental idea to Lord Byron, reading +and translating it to him _viva voce_, and suggesting to him, in this +indirect way, the idea of his "Manfred." But even the more profound +among the few German scholars then extant in England did not understand +"Faust," and were inclined to condemn it,--as, for instance, Coleridge, +who, as we see from his "Table-Talk," misconceived the whole idea of +the poem, and found fault with the execution, because it was different +from what he fancied he himself would have made of this legend, had he +taken it in hand. The first English translation was published in the +same year as the first French version, that is, in 1825; both were +exceedingly imperfect. Since then several other translations in prose +and verse have appeared in both languages, especially in +English,--though the "twenty or thirty metrical ones" of which Mr. C.T. +Brooks speaks in his preface are probably to be taken as a mere mode of +speech,--and lately one by this gentleman himself, in our very midst. +This latter comes, perhaps, as near to perfection as it is possible for +the reproduction of all idiomatic poetical composition in another +language to do. All this indicates that the time for the just +appreciation of German literature in general and of Goethe in +particular is drawing near at last; that its influence has for some +time been felt is proved, among other things, by that paraphrastic +imitation of "Faust," Bailey's "Festus." + +That a poem like "Faust" could not at first be generally understood is +not unnatural. Various interpretations of its seeming riddles have been +attempted; and if the volumes of German "Goethe-Literature" are +numerous enough to form a small library, those of the "Faust- +Literature" may be computed to form the fourth part of it. To +the English reader we cannot recommend highly enough, for the full +comprehension of "Faust," the commentary on this poem which Mr. Lewes +gives in his "Life of Goethe," as perhaps the most excellent portion of +that excellent work. Goethe himself has given many a hint on his own +conception, and as to how far it was the reflex of his own soul. "The +puppet-show-fable of 'Faust,'" he says, "murmured with many voices in +my soul. I, too, had wandered into every department of knowledge, and +had returned disgusted, and convinced of the vanity of science. And +life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and had always come back +sorrowing and unsatisfied." "Faust's character," he says in another +place, "at the height to which the modern elaboration (_Ausbildung_) of +the old, crude, popular tale has raised it, represents a man, who, +feeling impatient and uncomfortable within the general limits of earth, +esteems the possession of the highest knowledge, the enjoyment of the +fairest worldly goods, inadequate to satisfy his longings even in the +least degree, a mind which, turning to every side in search of this +satisfaction, ever recedes into itself with increased unhappiness."--He +remarks, too, that "the approbation which this poem has met with, far +and near, may be owing to the rare peculiarity, that it fixes +permanently the developing process of a human mind, which by everything +that torments humanity is also pained, by all that troubles it is also +agitated, by what it condemns is likewise enthralled, and by what it +desires is also made happy."[8] + +If this article were devoted to Goethe's "Faust," instead of the +popular legend of Faustus, of which the former is only the most eminent +apprehension, it would be easy to add to these reasons for the +universal "approbation" which it has won still others, founded on the +great genius of the poet. This, however, would by far exceed our +limits. + +[Footnote 1: Some regard Sabellicus and Faustus Socinus as one and the +same person.] + +[Footnote 2: _Historie von D. Johann Fausten, aan weltbeschreyten +Zauberer und Schwarzkuenstler_, etc. Frankfurt a. M. 1588.] + +[Footnote 3: _Wahrhaftige Historien von den greulichen und +abscheulichen Suenden und Lastern, etc., so D. Johannes Faustus, etc., +bis an sein schreckliches End hat getrieben, etc._, erklaert durch Georg +Rudolf Widmann. Hamburg, 1599.] + +[Footnote 4: Live, drink, and be merry, remembering this Faust and his +punishment. It came slowly, but was in ample measure. 1525.] + +[Footnote 5: Dr. Faustus on this day From Auerbach's cellar rode away, +Of a barrel of wine astride, Which many mothers'-children eyed; This +through his subtle art achieved, And for it the Devil's reward +received. 1525.] + +[Footnote 6: It first appeared in the fourth volume of his Works. +Leipzig. Goeschen. 1786.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Brooks's translation.] + +[Footnote 8: _Kunst und Alterthum_. B. VI. Heft I., II.] + + + +MISS WIMPLE'S HOOP. + + +"Believe in God and yourself, and do the best you can." + +In Hendrik on the Hudson, fifty miles from New York, there was, winter +before last, a certain "patent seamless."-- + +But a hooped skirt with a history, touching and teaching, is no theme +for flippancy; so, by your leave, I will unwind my story tenderly, and +with reverential regard for its smooth turns of sequence. + +The Wimples, of whom Sally is the last, were among the oldest and most +respectable of Hendrik families. Sally's father, Mr. Paul Wimple, had +been a publisher in good standing, and formerly did a flourishing +business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite +penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all +gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he +returned to Hendrik, his native place. + +There, the friends of his youth, steadfast and generous, pitying his +sad plight, and having perfect faith in his unimpeached integrity, +purchased--principally at the sale in bankruptcy of his own effects--a +modest stock of new and second-hand books and magazines, together with +some stationery and a few fancy articles in that line, and +reestablished him in the humble but peaceful calling of a country +bookseller. They called his shop "The Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating +Library," and all the county subscribed; for, at first, the Wimples +were the fashionable charity, "the Wimples were always so very +respectable, you know," and Sally was such a sweet girl that really it +was quite an interesting case. Mrs. Splurge forthwith began improving +the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions +for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of +fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times +competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful +charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar +investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note," +motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory +tablets, pencil-sharpeners, and ink-erasers. + +But all their munificence came to nought. Mr. Paul Wimple's heart was +broken,--as they say of any weary Sysiphus who lies down by his stone +and sleeps forever;--so he died. + +Poor little Sally! The first thing she did was to disappoint her +friends, and shock the decencies of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on +all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else +fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold, +corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'" But +when they came, with all their tedious commonplaces of a stupid +condolence not wholly innocent of curiosity, Sally thanked them with +dry eyes and prudent lips and quiet nerves, and only said she thought +she should do very well after she had set the house to rights and slept +awhile. The sewing-circle of that week was a coroner's inquest on +Sally's character, and "ungrateful," "cold-blooded," "indecent," "worse +than a hypocrite," were not the hardest epithets in the verdict of the +jury. + +But Sally set the place to rights, and bade her father's old friends to +the funeral, and buried him with all the money that was in the house, +neither asking nor accepting aid from any; and with the poor pittance +that her severe conscience could afford her sorrow she procured some +cheap material of the doleful sort and went into the most unbecoming of +"full mourning." When she made her appearance in church,--which she +did, as usual, the very first Sunday after the funeral,--that plainest +of bonnets and straitest of black delaines, unadorned save by the +old-fashioned and dingy lace-cape, descended through many shifts of +saving from her long-ago-dead-and-gone mother, were so manifestly a +condescending concession to the conventionalities or superstitions of +Hendrik, and said so plainly, "This is for your 'decencies,'--it is all +that I can honestly spare, and more than you should demand,--my life is +mourning enough,"--that all the congregation bristled at the affront. +Henceforth Miss Wimple--no longer dear Sally, or even Miss Sally, but +sharp "Miss Wimple"--had that pew to herself. + +Now I believe it was not generally known in Hendrik that Miss Wimple +had narrowly escaped being a very pretty girl. She was but just in her +nineteenth year when her father died. Her features were regular, her +expression lovely, her complexion, before trouble nipped the roses of +her cheeks, full of the country's freshness. She had tender eyes, +profoundly overshadowed by long, pensive lashes; in the sweet lines of +her very delicate mouth a trace of quiet pride was prettily blended +with thoughtfulness, and a just-forming smile that was always +melancholy. Her feet were little, and her hands were soft and white; +nor had toil and sorrow, and the weariness, and indifference to self, +that come of them, as yet impaired the symmetry of her well-turned +shape, or the elasticity of her free and graceful carriage. Her +deportment was frank and self-reliant, and her manners, though +reserved, far from awkward; her complete presence, indeed, compelled +consideration and invited confidence. + +In her father's lifetime, she had sought, on occasions of unwonted +cheerfulness, to please him with certain charming tricks of attire; and +sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided +shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a +carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the +prettiness of Sally Wimple. + +But now there was no longer a grateful life for her white rose-star to +brighten; so she sat down, in her loneliness and sombre unbecomingness, +between her forlorn counters with their pitiful shows of stock, and let +her good looks go by, entertaining only brave thoughts of duty,--till +she grew pale "and fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces," +so that "how anybody could see the least beauty in that distressing +Miss Wimple" began to be with many a sincere and almost reasonable +expression of surprise, instead of a malicious sin against knowledge. +She waited for customers, but they seldom came,--often, from opening to +window-barring, not one; for the unwilting little martyr of the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Circulating Library had made herself a highly +disapproved-of Miss Wimple by her ungrateful and contumacious behavior +at her father's death, even if the hard and sharp black lines of that +scrimped delaine had not sufficed to turn the current of admiration, +interest, and custom. Besides, the attractions of her slender stock +were all exhausted. She had not the means of refreshing it with pretty +novelties and sentimental toys in that line,--with albums and +valentines, fancy portfolios and pocket-secretaries, pearl paper-knives +and tortoise-shell cardcases, Chinese puzzles and _papier-mache_ +checker-boards. Nor was the Library replenished "to keep up with the +current literature of the day"; its last new novel was a superannuated +dilapidation; not one of its yearly subscribers but had worked through +the catalogue once and a half. + +Since the funeral, and especially since the inauguration of the +delaine, Mrs. Marmaduke Splurge had been less alive to the necessity of +improving the minds of her girls; and that virginal ten-dollar +investment had provided Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline with supplies +of small arms and ammunition enough for a protracted campaign of +epistolary belligerence, interrupted by hair-strokes of coquettish +diplomacy. + +In the flaunting yellow house on the hill the widow and daughters of +the late Marmaduke Splurge, Esq., railroad-director and real-estate +broker, fondled and hated each other. Mrs. Marmaduke was a +well-preserved woman, stylish, worldly-minded, and weak. Miss +Josephine, her eldest, was handsome, patronizing, _passee_, and a +sentimental fool; Miss Adelaide, who came next, was handsome, +eccentric, malicious, and sly; and Miss Madeline, the youngest, was +handsome, distinguished-looking, intellectual, passionate, and proud. + +Mrs. Marmaduke's heart was set on marrying her daughters +"advantageously," and she gave all of her narrow mind to that thankless +department. Josephine insisted on a romantic attachment, and pursued a +visionary spouse with all the ardor and obstinacy of first-rate +stupidity. Adelaide had the weakness to hate Josephine, the shrewdness +to fear Madeline, and the viciousness to despise her mother; she +skilfully and diligently devoted herself to the thwarting of the +family. Madeline waited, only waited,--with a fierceness so dangerously +still that it looked like patience,--hated her insulting bondage, but +waited, like Samson between the pillars upon which the house of Dagon +stood, resolved to free herself, though she dragged down the edifice +and were crushed among the wreck. + +Mrs. Marmaduke talked tediously of the trials and responsibilities of +conscientious mothers who have grown-up daughters to provide for, was +given to frequent freshets of tears, consumed many "nervous pills" of +the retired-clergyman-whose-sands-of-life-have-nearly-run-out sort, and +netted bead purses for the Select Home for Poor Gentlemen's Daughters. +Josephine let down her back hair dowdily, partook recklessly of poetry +and pickles, read inordinately in bed,--leaning all night on her +elbow,--and was threatened with spinal curvature and spiritualism. +Adelaide set invisible little traps in every nook and cranny, every +cupboard and drawer, from basement to attic, and with a cheerful, +innocent smile sat watching them night and day. Madeline, fiercely +calm, warned off the others, with pale lips and flashing eyes and +bitter tongue, resenting _en famille_ the devilish endearments she so +sweetly suffered in company; but ever as she groped about in her soul's +blindness she felt for the central props of that house of Dagon. + +All the good society of Hendrik said the Splurges were a charming +family, a most attached and happy family, lovely in their lives and in +death not to be divided, and that they looked sweetly in hoops. And yet +the Splurges had but few visitors; the young women of the neighborhood, +when they called there, left always an essential part of their true +selves behind them as they entered, and an ornamental part of their +reputations when they took their departure; nor were the young men +partial to the name,--for Josephine bored them, and Adelaide taunted +them, and Madeline snubbed them, and Mrs. Marmaduke pumped them, and +the combined family confounded them. Only Mr. Philip Withers was the +intimate and encouraged _habitue_ of the house. + +Mr. Philip Withers was the very man for the looser principles of +Hendrik,--a fine gentleman's fine son, and his only one, who, by the +death of his father, had come, whilst he was yet very young, into a +pretty property in the neighborhood,--a sort of idyllic man of the +world, with considerable cleverness, a neat miscellaneous education, +handsome person, effective clothes, plausible address, mischievous +brilliancy of versatile talk, a deep voice, two or three +accomplishments best adapted to the atmosphere of sentimental women, +graceful self-possession, small feet, nice hands, striking attitudes, a +subduing smile, magnetic whisper, Machiavellian tact, and French +morals. He could sing you into tears, and dance you into love, and talk +you into wonder; when he drew, you begged for his portrait by himself, +and when he wrote, you solicited his autograph. + +Mr. Philip Withers had taken his moustache to foreign parts, and done +the Continent sophisticatedly. He was well-read in cities, and had +brought home a budget of light, popular, and profusely illustrated +articles of talk on an equivocal variety of urban life, which he +prettily distributed among clovery pastorals, Wordsworthian ballads, De +Coverly entertainments, Crayon sketches, and Sparrowgrass Papers, for +the benefit of his country subscribers. From all of which you have no +doubt gathered by this time that Mr. Philip Withers was a graceful +scamp, and a friend of the Splurges,--who had money, which Mr. Philip +Withers had not; for he had been a munificent patron of elegant +pleasures abroad, and since his return had erected an addition to his +father's house in the shape of a pair of handsome mortgages, as a +proprietor of romantic tastes in architecture might flank his front +door with mediaeval donjons. + +Mrs. Marmaduke made much of that good-looking and delightful Withers. +Though not a pious man, in the formal sense of the term, she felt sure +he was religious according to that stained-glass and fragrant religion +of the tastes which is an essential attribute of every gentleman,--that +is, of every well-born man of cultivated preferences and sensitive +antipathies,--and she had no doubt that gentlemen's souls could be +saved by that arrangement just as satisfactorily, and so much more +gracefully. She only wished, my dear, you could hear Mr. Withers +express himself on those subjects,--his ideas were so delightfully +"your deal, my love"--clear, his illustrations so sweetly pretty, and +his manner so earnest; really, he stirred her like--"hearts, did you +say?--a trump." + +Josephine Splurge contented herself with letting down her back hair for +Mr. Withers and making eyes at him. + +"Good-morrow to the guileless Genevieve!"--Withers delighted in +dispensing equivocal nothings to the dowdy Muse of the sofa and back +hair.--"Charming weather!" + +"There, you bewildering Joseph Surface, you need not go on,--I know +what you are going to say, and I will neither be flattered nor +fascinated. Come, confess now, like a dear candid creature, throw off +your irresistibly bewitching mask, and own that your sentiments are all +rhetoric." + +"Josy, dear," Adelaide would insinuate, "what a wonderful memory you +have!--so well managed, too! Now whom _did_ you hear say that?" + +Josephine was wont to declare that the Admirable Crichton lived again +in that kaleidoscopic creature; but he was so dazzling, so bewildering, +so dangerous, that to converse with him was like having fireworks in +one's boudoir. + +With Madeline Withers was on strange terms, if any terms at all. She +threatened to him in the middle of his best stories, smiled quietly +when he preached, yawned to his poetical recitations, left the room +when he sang, mistook the subjects of his sketches with a +verisimilitude of innocence that often deceived even himself, was +silent and sneered much whenever he was present. And all these +rudenesses she performed with a successful air of genuine abstraction; +they never failed of their intention by being overdone, or by being too +_directly_ directed at him. + +Remarks seldom passed between these two; when they did, Withers spoke +always first, and Madeline replied briefly and with politeness. And yet +there were occasions when a sharp-sighted and suspicious observer might +have detected a strange discomposure in Madeline's conduct in the +presence of Withers,--when, indeed, she seemed to be laboring under +irritability, and proneness to singular excitement, which began with +his entrance and disappeared with his departure. At such times she +would break her haughty quiet with fierce sallies upon her sisters; but +Withers stung her back into silence with sharp and telling retorts,--as +you may have seen a practised beast-tamer in a cage flog an angry +tigress, when her eyes flashed, and her ears were set back, and she +unsheathed her horrid claws, and lashed her sides, and growled with all +the appalling fee-faw-fum of the jungle,--flog her back into her +corner, with nought more formidable than a lady's riding-whip, dainty, +slender, and sharp. But Withers administered the chastisement with such +devilish grace that it was unperceived, save by the quick, shrewd +Adelaide perhaps, who perceived everything,--but never _saw_, nor ever +spoke. If you could have beheld the lips and the eyes of Madeline, on +such occasions, you would have cursed this Philip Withers, or beaten +him to her feet. + +Between Withers and Adelaide the relations were plainer; indeed, before +the small Splurge set they appeared as avowed lovers. Toward "Addy" +Withers was all elegant devotion and gracious gallantry, knight-like in +his chivalric and debonair devoir. + +For Withers Addy was, openly, all deference and tenderly wistful +solicitude, but in secret not all security and exultation. Even while +it seemed high triumph in her heart's camp, her well-drilled eyes and +ears were still on guard, and her hidden thoughts lay upon their arms. + +Still it wore the aspect of a lyric match, and the hearts of humbler +Hendrik lovers set it to music. + +"For other guests," Withers seemed to say, + + "I wile the hours with tale or song, + Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme; + But how to find a fitting lay for thee, + Who hast the harmonies of every time?" + +And Addy _looked_, + + "Thou art to me most like a royal guest, + Whose travels bring him to some humble roof, + Where simple rustics spread their festal fare, + And, blushing, own it is not good enough. + + "Bethink thee, then, whene'er thou com'st to me, + From high emprise and noble toil to rest, + My thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine, + But the poor mansion offers thee its best." + +So Mrs. Marmaduke exalted her horn and exceedingly magnified her +manoeuvring office. On the strength of it, she treated herself to +profuse felicitations and fished among her neighbors for more. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +And now I will let you into a secret, which, according to the received +rules for story-construction, should be barred against you yet a little +longer. I will fling it wide open at once, instead of holding it ajar +and admitting you edgewise, as it were, one conjecture at a time. + +Miss Wimple had a lover;--she had had him since six months before her +father died, and the decayed publisher had never guessed of him nor +Sally confessed him; for the good, thoughtful daughter knew it would +but complicate the old man's perplexities and cares to no purpose. To +be sure, his joyful consent was certain; but so long as he lived, "the +thing was not to be thought of," she said, and it was not wise to plant +in his mind a wish with which her duty could not accord. So Sally's +lover was hushed up,--hidden in discretion as in a closet. + +Simon Blount was his name, and he was a young farmer of five hundred +acres in first-rate cultivation, with barns, stables, and offices in +complete repair,--a well-stocked, well-watered place, with "all the +modern improvements," and convenient to the Hendrik branch of the New +York and Bunker Hill railroad. + +The young man had inherited this very neat property from his father,--a +thriving, intelligent farmer of the best class, Mr. Wimple's oldest +friend, his playmate in boyhood, and his crony when he died. Simon's +mother and Sally's had likewise been schoolmates, and intimates to the +last, fondly attached to each other, and mutually confiding in each +other's love and truth in times of pain and trouble. + +But Mr. Blount and Mrs. Wimple had been dead these ten years;--they +died in the same month. Simon and Sally were children when that +happened, and since then they had grown up together in the closest +family intimacy, interrupted only by Sally's winter schooling in New +York, and renewed every summer by her regular seasons at Hendrik. + +To the young man and the ripening maiden, then, their love came as +naturally as violets and clover-blooms, and was as little likely to +take their parents or the familiar country-folk by surprise. + +When Simon took trips to New York, he "stopped" at Mr. Wimple's, and +Sally's summer home in Hendrik was always "Aunt Phoebe's," as she had +been taught to call Simon's mother. + +You will wonder, then, that Mr. Paul Wimple should have blushed and +struggled and died in the forlorn little "Athenaeum," and that Sally +should sit down in her loneliness and "that fright of a delaine" to +wait for customers that came not, when in their old friends' house were +comfortable mansions, and in their old friends' hearts tearful kisses +and welcome free as air. But you must remember that with sudden poverty +comes, often, shrinking pride, and a degree of suspicion, and high +scorn of those belittled pensioners who hang upon old ties; that old +age, when it is sorely beset, is not always patient, clear-sighted, and +just; that, when the heart of a young girl, in Sally's extremity, +carries the helpless love that had been clad in purple, and couched in +eider, and pampered with bonny cats, and served in gold, to Pride, and +asks, "Stern master, what shall I do with this now?" the answer will +be, "Strip it of its silken fooleries,--let it lie on the ground, the +broad bosom of its honest, hearty mother,--teach it the wholesomeness +of brown bread and cresses, fairly earned, and water from the +spring,--and let it wait on itself, and wait for the rest!" Once, when +the talk at the Splurge house descended for a moment from its lofty +flights to describe a few eccentric mocking circles around the Hendrik +Athenaeum and Miss Wimple, Madeline said, "If you have sense or +decency, be silent;--the girl is true and brave, every way better +taught than we, and prouder than she knows. If we were truly as +scornful of her as she is indifferent to us, we would let her glorious +insignificance alone." + +So Miss Wimple waited in her shabby little shop and plied her needle +for hire. Her lover was a handsome fellow, with a bright, frank face, +and a vigorous, agile, and graceful form; there was more than common +intellect in his clear, broad brow, overhung with close clusters of +brown country curls; taste was on his lips and tenderness in his eyes; +his soul was full of generosity, candor, and fidelity; his every +movement and attitude denoted native refinement, and in his talk he +displayed an excellent understanding and remarkable cultivation; for +his father had bestowed on him superior advantages of education;--"as +fine a young fellow, Sir," that estimable old Doctor Vandyke would say, +"as ever you saw." + +It was true, Simon's travels had never reached beyond New York; but, +unlike Mr. Philip Withers, he had brought home solid comforts, useful +facts, wholesome sentiments, natural manners, and sensible, but modest +conversation,--instead of an astonishing variety of intellectual +curiosities and intricate moral toys, whereat plain people +marvelled--as in the case of a certain ingenious Chinese puzzle, ball +within ball, all save the last elaborately carved--how the very +diminutive _plain_ one at the centre ever got in there, or ever could +be got out. + +In another respect the young farmer enjoyed a noticeable advantage over +the man-of-the-world;--he was quite able to tear down those fancy +donjon additions, and erect a plain, honest, substantial, very +comfortable, and very cheerful Yankee porch on their site. + +But Miss Wimple said to Simon,--"For a season you will keep aloof from +this place and from me. I must see you no oftener than it would be +allowable for an occasional customer of the better sort to drop in; and +when you do come, state your business--let it always be _business_, or +pass by--and take your leave, like any indifferent neighbor who came to +change a book, or purchase a trifle, or engage work. On these terms our +love must wait, until by my own unaided exertions--without help, mark +you, Simon, from any man or woman on earth--I have discharged the debt +of charity that is due to the good people of this place who helped my +father in his utmost need, and gave him this shop and these things in +trust. From you, of all men, Simon, I will accept no aid. Play no +tricks of kindness upon me; nor let your love tempt you to experiment, +with disguised charity, upon my purpose. You would only find that you +had failed, and ruined all. The proceeds of this poor shop must belong +to those whose money procured it, until I shall have paid its price; on +no pretext shall that fund be touched for other purposes. I will +sustain myself independently; you know that I ply a nimble needle, and +that my handiwork will be in esteem among the richer folks of Hendrik. +And now, dear Simon, let me have my way. You need no more earnest +assurance of my love than the pains I would take, in this matter, to +make you respect me more. When my task is done, I will deck myself as +of old, and again light up the rose-star in my hair, and stand in the +door and clap my hands to call you hither, and hold you fast; but not +till then. Let me have my way till then." + +And Simon said,--"You are wiser than I, Sally, and braver, and every +way better. I will obey you in this, and wait,--the more cheerfully +because I shall be always at hand, and, if your heart should fail you, +I know you will not refuse my aid, nor prefer another's to mine." + +And so they passed for mere acquaintances; and there were some who +said--Philip Withers among them--that "that plausible Golden Farmer, +young Blount, had treated the forlorn thing shabbily." + +About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the +first that appeared in Hendrik. + +One day, as Miss Wimple sat in a low Yankee rocking-chair, sewing among +her books, she was favored with the extraordinary apparition of Miss +Madeline Splurge,--her first visitor that day, whether on business or +curiosity. + +"I wish to procure a small morocco pocket-book, Miss Wimple, if you +keep such things." + +Miss Wimple, with a slight bow of assent, took from a glass +counter-case a paper box in which was a miscellaneous assortment of +such articles; there were five or six of the pocket-books. Madeline +selected one,--a small, flexible affair, of some dark-colored morocco +lined with pink silk. She paid the trifle the shy, demure little +librarian demanded, and was taking her leave in silence, without even a +"Good-day," when, as she was passing the door, Miss Wimple espied on +the counter, near where her customer had stood, a visiting-card; her +eye fell on the engraved name,--"Mr. Philip Withers"; of course Miss +Splurge had dropped it unawares. She hastened with it to the +door,--Madeline had just stept into the street,-- + +"This card is yours, I presume, Miss Splurge?" + +Madeline turned upon her with a surprised air, inquiringly,--looked in +her own hands, and shook her handkerchief with the quick, nervous, +alarmed movement of one who suddenly discovers a very particular +loss,--became, in an instant, pale as death, stared for a moment at +Miss Wimple with fixed eyes, and slightly shivered. Then, quickly and +fiercely, she snatched the card from Miss Wimple's hand,-- + +"Where--where did you find this? Did--did I leave--drop--?" + +"You left it on my counter," Miss Wimple quietly replied, with a +considerate self-possession that admirably counterfeited +unconsciousness of Madeline's consternation. + +"Come hither, into the shop,--a word with you,"--and Madeline entered +quickly, and closed the door behind her. For a moment she leaned with +her elbow on the counter, and pressed her eyes with her fingers. + +"Are you ill, Miss Splurge?" Miss Wimple gently inquired. + +"No. Did you read what is on this card?" + +"Yes." + +"You--you--you read"----Madeline's hands were clenched, her face red +and distorted; she gnashed her teeth, and seemed choking. + +"Why, Miss Splurge, what is the matter with you? Yes, I read the +name,--Mr. Philip Withers. The card lay on the counter,--I could not +know it was yours,--I read the name, and immediately brought it to you. +What excites you so? Sit down, and calm yourself; surely you are ill." + +Madeline did not accept the stool Miss Wimple offered her, but, +availing herself of the pause to assume a forced calmness which left +her paler than at first, she fixed her flashing eyes steadily on the +deep, still eyes of her companion, and asked,-- + +"You did not turn this card, then?--you did not look on the other +side?" + +"On my honor, I did not." + +"On your honor! You are not lying, girl?"--Miss Splurge thrust the card +into the newly-purchased pocket-book, and hid that in her bosom. + +"Miss Splurge," said Miss Wimple, very simply, and with no excitement +of tone or expression, "when you feel sufficiently recovered to appear +on the street, without exposing yourself there as you have done in +here, go out!" + +And Miss Wimple turned from Madeline and would have resumed her sewing; +but Madeline cried,-- + +"Stay, stay, Miss Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; +forgive me, ah, forgive me!--for you are merciful, as you are pure and +true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult +you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,--false, +too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, +and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the +next. If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any +human being, I would come to you--dear, honest, brave girl!--before all +others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech +you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your +gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. Good-by! +Good-by! I need not ask your pardon again,--you have no anger for such +as I. But if your blessed loneliness is ever disturbed by vulgar, +chattering visitors, you will not name me to them, or confess that you +have seen me." And ere Miss Wimple could utter the gentle words that +were already on her lips, Madeline was gone. + +For a while Miss Wimple remained standing on the spot, gazing +anxiously, but vacantly, toward the door by which the half-mad lady had +departed,--her soft, deep eyes full of painful apprehension. Then she +resumed her little rocking-chair, and, as she gathered up her work from +the floor where she had dropped it, tears trickled down her cheeks; she +sighed and shook her head, in utter sorrow. + +"They were always strange women," she thought, "those Splurges,--not a +sound heart nor a healthy mind among them. Could their false, barren +life have maddened this proud Madeline? Else what did she mean by her +'hot head' and her 'fierce heart'? And what had that Philip Withers to +do with her trouble and her distraction? She recollected now that Simon +had once said, in his odd, significant way, that Mr. Withers was a +charming person to contemplate from a safe distance,--Simon, who never +lent himself to idle detraction. She remembered, too, that she had +often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the +man,--that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the +face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly +dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music. Was he +on both sides of that card?--Ah, well! it might be just nothing, after +all; the poor lady might be ill, or vexed past endurance at home; or +some unhappy love affair might have come to fret her proud, impatient, +defiant temper. But not Withers,--oh, of course not Withers!--for was +it not well known that Adelaide was his choice, that his assiduous and +graceful attentions to her silenced even his loudest enemies, who could +no longer accuse him of duplicity and disloyalty to women? But she +would feel less disturbed, and sleep better, perhaps, if she knew that +Madeline was safe at home, and tranquil again." + +Thinking of sleep reminded Miss Wimple that she had a pious task to +perform before she could betake her to her sweet little cot. A +superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her +last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must +cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a +basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night. + +About nine o'clock Miss Wimple had done her charitable errand, and was +on her way home again, with a light step and a happy heart, an empty +basket and old Hetty's abundant blessings. She was alone, but feared +nothing,--the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she +to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently +understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in +town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward +walk; and the rudest respected her. + +As she approached the covered bridge, the moon was shining brightly at +the entrance, making the gloom within profounder. It was a long, wooden +structure, of a kind common enough on the turnpikes of the Atlantic +States, where they cross the broader streams. Stout posts and +cross-beams, and an arch that stretched from end to end, divided the +bridge into two longitudinal compartments, for travellers going and +coming respectively; there were small windows on each side, and at +either end, on a conspicuous signboard, were the Company's +"Rules,"--"Walk your Horses over this Bridge, or be subject to a Fine +of not less than Five nor exceeding Twenty Dollars"--"Keep to the +Right, as the Law directs." + +As Miss Wimple entered the shadow of the bridge on the right hand, she +was startled by hearing excited voices, which seemed to come from the +other side of the central arch, and about the middle of the bridge, +where the darkness was deepest:-- + +"Speak low, I say, or be silent! Some one will be coming presently;--I +heard steps approaching even now"--Miss Wimple instinctively stopped, +and stood motionless, almost holding her breath, at the end of the arch +where the moonlight did not reach. She was no eavesdropper, mark +you,--the meannesses she scorned included that character in a special +clause. But she had recognised the voice, and with her own true +delicacy would spare the speaker the shame of discovery and the dread +of exposure.--"Speak low, or I will leave you. If you are indifferent +for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik." + +"You are right";--it was a woman's voice; but, whatever her tone had +been before, she spoke so low now, and with a voice so hoarse with +suppressed emotion, so altered by a sort of choking whisper, that Miss +Wimple, if she had ever heard it before, could not recognize it;--"You +are right; the time for that has not come;--I could not stay to enjoy +it;--I am going now, but we will meet again." + +"What would you have? I have said I would marry you,--and leave +you,--so soon as I can shake myself clear of that other stupid +infatuation." + +"Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, +having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find +me such a fool, after all,--that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest +shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a +cowardly ass to besot myself with.--There, the subject sickens me, and +I am going. Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you. +I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold +you, my exquisite Joseph Surface--oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the +wisdom of fools!--by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall +find you. I can take care of me and _mine_; but beware how you dare to +claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your +brand be on it,--Joseph!" + +She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful +laugh, departed. As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick +breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where +the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw +a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear. Then Philip +Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or +two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from +the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to +the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once +looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town. + +All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple +remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had +quite disappeared. Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she +resumed her homeward way. As she emerged from the shadows into the same +bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just +passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground. She stooped and +picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk. + +Good Heaven! She remembered,--the one she had sold to Miss Madeline +Splurge that afternoon,--the very same! So, then, that was her voice, +her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, +while that woman was speaking so bitterly,--but had not recognized her +tones, nor once fancied it might be she. Now she easily recalled her +words, and understood some of her allusions. And her wild, distracted, +incoherent speech in the shop, too,--ah! it was all too plain; that was +surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss +Wimple dared not try to guess. This Philip Withers,--was he a villain, +after all? "Had he--this poor lady--Oh, God forbid! No, no, no!" + +She opened the pocket-book;--a visiting-card was all it contained. She +drew it forth,--"Mr. Philip Withers,"--yes, she knew it by that broken +corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose. She held it up +before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and--turned the other +side. + +"Ah, me!" exclaimed that Chevalier Bayard in shabby, skimped delaine, +"what was I going to do?" + +Blushing, she returned the card to its place, and hiding the +pocket-book in her honorable bosom, hurried homeward. But her soul was +troubled as she went; sometimes she sobbed aloud, and more than once +she stood still and wrung her hands. + +"Ah! if Simon Blount would but come now to advise me what is safest and +best to do!" + +Should she go to Mrs. Splurge and tell her all? No,--what right had +she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be +necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a +step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a +different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt +she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer +judgment and information. Till then she would hope for the best. + +When Miss Wimple reached her humble little nest, she knelt beside her +bed and prayed, tearfully, to the God who averts danger and forgives +sin; but she did not sleep all night. + +In the morning a gossiping neighbor came with the news;--"that little +cooped-up Wimple never hears anything," she thought. + +Miss Madeline Splurge had disappeared. Mr. Philip Withers was searching +for her high and low. She had not been seen since yesterday +afternoon,--had not returned home last night. It was feared she had +drowned herself in the river for spite. She, the knowing neighbor, "had +always said so,--had always said that Madeline Splurge was a quare +girl,--sich high and mighty airs, and _sich_ a temper. Now here it was, +and what would people say,--specially them as had always turned up +their nose at her opinion?" + +Miss Wimple said nothing; but she treated Pity to two poor little +lies;--one she told, and the other she looked:--She was not well, she +said, which was the reason why she was so pale; and then she looked +surprised at the news of Madeline's flitting. + +Later in the day another report:--A letter left by Madeline had been +found at home. She had taken offence at some sharp thing that sarcastic +Mr. Withers, who always did hate her, had said; and had gone off in a +miff, without even good-by or a carpet-bag, and taken the night train +to New York, where she had an uncle on the mother's side.--And a good +riddance! Now Miss Addy and Mr. Withers would have some peace of their +time. Such a sweet couple, too! + +Madeline _had_ left a note:--"I was sick of you all, and I have escaped +from you. You will be foolish to take any trouble about it." + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE CUP. + + + The cup I sing is a cup of gold, + Many and many a century old, + Sculptured fair, and over-filled + With wine of a generous vintage, spilled + In crystal currents and foaming tides + All round its luminous, pictured sides. + + Old Time enamelled and embossed + This ancient cup at an infinite cost. + Its frame he wrought of metal that run + Red from the furnace of the sun. + Ages on ages slowly rolled + Before the glowing mass was cold, + And still he toiled at the antique mould, + Turning it fast in his fashioning hand, + Tracing circle, layer, and band, + Carving figures quaint and strange, + Pursuing, through many a wondrous change, + The symmetry of a plan divine. + At last he poured the lustrous wine, + Crowned high the radiant wave with light, + And held aloft the goblet bright, + Half in shadow, and wreathed in mist + Of purple, amber, and amethyst. + + This is the goblet from whose brink + All creatures that have life must drink: + Foemen and lovers, haughty lord + And sallow beggar with lips abhorred. + The new-born infant, ere it gain + The mother's breast, this wine must drain. + The oak with its subtile juice is fed, + The rose drinks till her cheeks are red, + And the dimpled, dainty violet sips + The limpid stream with loving lips. + It holds the blood of sun and star, + And all pure essences that are: + No fruit so high on the heavenly vine, + Whose golden hanging clusters shine + On the far-off shadowy midnight hills, + But some sweet influence it distils + That slideth down the silvery rills. + Here Wisdom drowned her dangerous thought, + The early gods their secrets brought; + Beauty, in quivering lines of light, + Ripples before the ravished sight; + And the unseen mystic spheres combine + To charm the cup and drug the wine. + + All day I drink of the wine and deep + In its stainless waves my senses steep; + All night my peaceful soul lies drowned + In hollows of the cup profound; + Again each morn I clamber up + The emerald crater of the cup, + On massive knobs of jasper stand + And view the azure ring expand: + I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swim + In the wine that o'erruns the jewelled rim, + Edges of chrysolite emerge, + Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge; + My thrilled, uncovered front I lave, + My eager senses kiss the wave, + And drain, with its viewless draught, the lore + That warmeth the bosom's secret core, + And the fire that maddens the poet's brain + With wild sweet ardor and heavenly pain. + + + +THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA. + + +Every calling has something of a special dialect. Even where there is, +one would think, no necessity for it, as in the conversation of +Sophomores, sporting men, and reporters for the press, a dialect is +forthwith partly invented, partly suffered to grow, and the sturdy stem +of original English exhibits a new crop of parasitic weeds which often +partake of the nature of fungi and betoken the decay of the trunk +whence they spring. + +Is this the case with the language of the sea? Has the sea any +language? or has each national tongue grafted into it the technology of +the maritime calling? + +The sea has its own laws,--the common and unwritten law of the +forecastle, of which Admiralty Courts take infrequent cognizance, and +the law of the quarter-deck, which is to be read in acts of Parliament +and statutes of Congress. The sea has its own customs, superstitions, +traditions, architecture, and government; wherefore not its own +language? We maintain that it has, and that this tongue, which is not +enumerated by Adelung, which possesses no grammar and barely a lexicon +of its own, and which is not numbered among the polyglot achievements +of Mezzofanti or Burritt, has yet a right to its place among the +world's languages. + +Like everything else which is used at sea,--except salt-water,--its +materials came from shore. As the ship is originally wrought from the +live-oak forests of Florida and the pine mountains of Norway, the iron +mines of England, the hemp and flax fields of Russia, so the language +current upon her deck is the composite gift of all sea-loving peoples. +But as all these physical elements of construction suffer a sea-change +on passing into the service of Poseidon, so again the landward phrases +are metamorphosed by their contact with the main. But no one set of +them is allowed exclusive predominance. For the ocean is the only true, +grand, federative commonwealth which has never owned a single master. +The cloud-compelling Zeus might do as he pleased on land; but far +beyond the range of outlook from the white watch-tower of Olympus +rolled the immeasurable waves of the wine-purple deep, acknowledging +only the Enosigaios Poseidon. Consequently, while Zeus allotted to this +and that hero and demigod Argos and Mycene and the woody Zacynthus, +each to each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after +nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at +the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has +been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,--now a black raven, then a +broom,--to-day St. Andrew's Cross, to-morrow St George's, perhaps the +next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main +by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined +castles are lying "fifty fathom deep,"--Carthaginian galley and Roman +trireme, the argosy of Spain, the "White Ship" of Fitz Stephen, the +"Ville de Paris," down to the latest "non-arrival" whispered at +Lloyd's,--all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the +green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and +Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one +gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the +fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are +the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, +gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the +language that we are able to trace the successive nations in their +march along the mountain waves; for to that each has from time to time +given its contribution, and of each it has worn the seeming stamp, till +some Actium or Lepanto or Cape Trafalgar has compelled its reluctant +transfer to another's hands. + +Or rather, we may say, the language of the sea comes and makes a part, +as it were, of the speech of many different nations, as the sailor +abides for a season in Naples, Smyrna, Valparaiso, Canton, and New +York,--and from each it borrows, as the sailor does, from this a silk +handkerchief, from that a cap, here a brooch, and there a scrap of +tattooing, but still remains inhabitant of all and citizen of +none,--the language of the seas. + +What do we mean by this? It is that curious nomenclature which from +truck to keelson clothes the ship with strange but fitting +phrases,--which has its proverbs, idioms, and forms of expression that +are of the sea, salt, and never of the land, earthy. Wherever tidewater +flows, goes also some portion of this speech. It is "understanded of +the people" among all truly nautical races. It dominates over their own +languages, so that the Fin and Mowree, (Maori,) the Lascar and the +Armorican, meeting on the same deck, find a common tongue whereby to +carry on the ship's work,--the language in which to "hand, reef, and +steer." + +Whence did it come? From all nautical peoples. Not from the Hebrew +race. To them the possession of the soil was a fixed idea. The sea +itself had nothing wherewith to tempt them; they were not adventurers +or colonizers; they had none of that accommodating temper as to creed, +customs, and diet, which is the necessary characteristic of the sailor. +But the nations they expelled from Canaan, the worshippers of the +fish-tailed Dagon, who fled westward to build Tartessus (Tarshish) on +the Gaditanian peninsula, or who clung with precarious footing to the +sea-shore of Philistia and the rocky steeps of Tyre and Sidon,--these +were seafarers. From them their Greek off-shoots, the Ionian islanders, +inherited something of the maritime faculty. There are traces in the +"Odyssey" of a nautical language, of a technology exclusively belonging +to the world "off soundings," and an exceeding delight in the rush and +spray-flinging of a vessel's motion,-- + + "The purple wave hissed from the bow of the + bark in its going." + +Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a +Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with +classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their +sterns. + +But the Greek and Carthaginian elements of the ocean language must now +lie buried very deep in it, and it is hard to recognize their original +image and superscription in those smooth-worn current coins which form +the basis of the sea-speech. It is not within the limits of a cursory +paper like this to enter into too deep an investigation, or to trace +perhaps a fanciful lineage for such principal words as "mast," and +"sail," and "rope." In one word, "anchor," the Greek plainly +survives,--and doubtless many others might be made out by a skilful +philologist. + +The Roman, to whom the empire of the sea, or, more properly speaking, +the petty principality of the Mediterranean, was transferred, had +little liking for that sceptre. He was driven to the water by sheer +necessity, but he never took to it kindly. He was at best a +sea-soldier, a marine, not brought up from the start in the +merchant-service and then polished into the complete blue-jacket and +able seaman of the navy. Nobody can think of those ponderous old +Romans, whose comedies were all borrowed from Attica, whose poems were +feeble echoes of the Greek, and whose architecture, art, and domestic +culture were at best the work of foreign artists,--nobody can think of +them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of +the first "reef-topsail breeze." Fancy those solemn, stately +Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a +streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor'wester +brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral +Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand +fighters,--none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, +having won them, they dropped sea-going, and made the conquered nations +transport their corn and troops, while they went back to their +congenial camps and solemn Senate-debates. + +But Italy was not settled by the Roman alone. A black-haired, +fire-eyed, daring, flexible race had colonized the Sicilian Islands, +and settled thickly around the Tarentine Gulf, and built their cities +up the fringes of the Apennines as far as the lovely Bay of Parthenope. +Greek they were,--by tradition the descendants of those who took +Troy-town,--Greek they are to this day, as any one may see who will +linger on the Mole or by the Santa Lucia Stairs at Naples. At Salerno, +at Amalfi, were cradled those fishing-hamlets which were to nurse +seamen, and not soldiers. Far up the Adriatic, the storm of Northern +invasion had forced a fair-haired and violet-eyed folk into the +fastnesses of the lagoons, to drive their piles and lay their keels +upon the reedy islets of San Giorgio and San Marco; while on the +western side an ancient Celtic colony was rising into prominence, and +rearing at the foot of the Ligurian Alps the palaces of Genoa the +Proud. + +Thus upon the Italian stock was begun the language of the seas. Upon +the Italian main the words "tack" and "sheet," "prow" and "poop," were +first heard; and those most important terms by which the law of the +marine highway is given,--"starboard" and "larboard." For if, after the +Italian popular method, we contract the words _questo bordo_ (this +side) and _quello bordo_ (that side) into _sto bordo_ and _lo bordo_, +we have the roots of our modern phrases. And so the term "port," which +in naval usage supersedes "larboard," is the abbreviated _porta lo +timone_, (carry the helm,) which, like the same term in military usage, +"port arms," seems traditionally to suggest the left hand. + +But while the Italian races were beginning their brief but brilliant +career, there was in training a nobler and hardier race of seamen, from +whose hands the helm would not so soon be wrested. The pirates of the +Baltic were wrestling with the storms of the wild Cattegat and braving +the sleety squalls of the Skager Rack, stretching far out from the land +to colonize Iceland and the Faroes, to plant a mysteriously lost nation +in Eastern Greenland, and to leave strange traces of themselves by the +vine-clad shores of Narraganset Bay. For, first of all nations and +races to steer boldly into the deep, to abandon the timid fashion of +the Past, which groped from headland to headland, as boys paddle skiffs +from wharf to wharf, the Viking met the blast and the wave, and was no +more the slave, but the lord of the sea. He it was, who, abandoning the +traditionary rule which loosened canvas only to a wind dead aft or well +on the quarter, learned to brace up sharp on a wind and to baffle the +adverse airs. Yet he, too, was overmuch a fighter to make a true +seaman, and his children no sooner set foot on the shore than they drew +their swords and went to carving the conquered land into Norman +lordships. But where they piloted the way others followed, and city +after city along the German Ocean and upon the British coasts became +also maritime. For King Alfred had come, and the English oaks were +felled, and their gnarled boughs found exceedingly convenient for the +curved knees of ships. Upon the Italian stock became engrafted the +Norman, and French, and Danish, the North German and Saxon elements. +And so, after a century of crusading had thoroughly broken up the +stay-at-home notions of Europe, the maritime spirit blazed up. Spain +and Portugal now took the lead and were running races against each +other, the one in the Western, the other in the Eastern seas, and +flaunting their crowned flags in monopoly of the Indian archipelagos +and the American tropics. Just across the North Sea, over the low +sand-dykes of Holland, scarce higher than a ship's bulwarks, looked a +race whom the spleeny wits of other nations declared to be born +web-footed. Yet their sails were found in every sea, and, like resolute +merchants, as they were, they left to others the glory while they did +the world's carrying. Their impress upon the sea-language was neither +faint nor slight. They were true marines, and from Manhattan Island to +utmost Japan, the brown, bright sides, full bows, and bulwarks tumbling +home of the Dutchman were familiar as the sea-gulls. Underneath their +clumsy-looking upper-works, the lines were true and sharp; and but the +other day, when the world's clippers were stooping their lithe +racehorse-like forms to the seas in the great ocean sweepstakes, the +fleetest of all was--a Dutchman. + +But to combine and fuse all these elements was the work of England. To +that nation, with its noble inheritance of a composite language, +incomparably rich in all the nomenclature of natural objects and +sounds, was given especially the coast department, so to speak, of +language. Every variety of shore, from shingly beaches to craggy +headlands, was theirs. While the grand outlines and larger features are +Italian, such as Cape, Island, Gulf, the minuter belong to the Northern +races, who are closer observers of Nature's nice differences, and who +take more delight in a frank, fearless acquaintance and fellowship with +out-door objects. Beach, sand, headland, foreland, shelf, reef, +breaker, bar, bank, ledge, shoal, spit, sound, race, reach, are words +of Northern origin. So, too, the host of local names by which every +peculiar feature of shore-scenery is individualized,--as, for instance, +the Needles, the Eddystone, the Three Chimneys, the Hen and Chickens, +the Bishop and Clerks. The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of +the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the +Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host +of words of which the derivation is doubtful,--such as sea, mist, foam, +scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that +clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman's +tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over +it. They are docked without mercy, or, now and then, when not properly +mouth-filling, they are "spliced" with a couple of vowels. It is +impossible to tell the whys and wherefores of sea-prejudices. + +We have now indicated the main sources of the ocean-language. As new +nations are received into the nautical brotherhood, and as new +improvements are made, new terms come in. The whole whaling diction is +the contribution of America, or rather of Nantucket, New Bedford, and +New London, aided by the islands of the Pacific and the mongrel Spanish +ports of the South Seas. Here and there an adventurous genius coins a +phrase for the benefit of posterity,--as we once heard a mate order a +couple of men to "go forrard and trim the ship's whiskers," to the +utter bewilderment of his captain, who, in thirty years' following of +the sea, had never heard the martingale chains and stays so designated. +But the source of the great body of the sea-language might be marked +out on the map by a current flowing out of the Straits of Gibraltar and +meeting a similar tide from the Baltic, the two encountering and +blending in the North Sea and circling Great Britain, while not +forgetting to wash the dykes of Holland as they go. How to distinguish +the work of each, in founding the common tongue, is not here our +province. + +It would be difficult to classify the words in nautical +use,--impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A +specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the +blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so +far into the tar-bucket as to bother (_nautice_, "galley") the +landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship +are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is +English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (_mezzano_). To go +from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish _duk_, and +"canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,--from the root _canna_, a +cane or reed,--thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,--hence +any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon _stearn_, +steering-place; "stem," from the German _stamm_. The whole family of +ropes--of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that there are but +three to a ship, namely, _bolt_-rope, _bucket_-rope, and _man_-rope, +all the rest of the cordage being called by its special name, as +_tack_, _sheet_, _clew-line_, _bow-line_, _brace_, _shroud_, or +_stay_--the whole family of ropes are akin only by marriage. "Cable" is +from the Semitic root _kebel_, to cord, and is the same in all nautical +uses. "Hawser"--once written _halser_--is from the Baltic stock,--the +rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope +by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish,--from _painter_, a +snare. "Sheet" is Italian,--from _scotta_; "brace" French, and "stay" +English. "Clew" is Saxon; "garnet" (from _granato_, a fruit) is +Italian,--that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to +the clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through +the block. Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the +same diversity. "Pitch" one easily gets from _pix_ (Latin); "tar" as +easily from the Saxon _tare_, _tyr_. "Junk," old rope, is from the +Latin _juncus_, a bulrush,--the material used along the Mediterranean +shore for calking; "oakum," from the Saxon _oecumbe_, or hemp. The verb +"calk" may come from the Danish _kalk_, chalk,--to rub over,--or from +the Italian _calafatare_. The now disused verb "to pay" is from the +Italian _pagare_;--it survives only in the nautical aphorism, "Here's +the Devil to _pay_,"--that is, to pitch the ship,--"and no pitch hot." +In handing the sails, "to loose" is good English,--"to furl" is +Armorican, and belongs to the Mediterranean class of words. "To rake," +which is applied to spars, is from the Saxon _racian_, to incline;--"to +steeve," which is applied to the bowsprit, and often pronounced +"stave," is from the Italian _stivare_. When we get below-decks, we +find "cargo" to be Spanish,--while "ballast" (from _bat_, a boat, and +_last_, a load) is Saxon. A ship in ballast comes from the Baltic,--a +vessel and cargo from the Bay of Biscay. Sailors must eat; but there is +a significant distinction between merchant-seamen and man-o'-war's-men. +The former is provided for at the "caboose," or "camboose," (Dutch, +_kombuis_); the latter goes to the "galley," (Italian, _galera_, in +helmet, primitively). This distinction is fast dying out,--the naval +term superseding the mercantile,--just as in America the title +"captain" has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, +"master," which is now used only in law-papers. The "bowsprit" is a +compound of English and Dutch. The word "yard" is English; the word +"boom," Dutch. The word "reef" is Welsh, from _rhevu_, to thicken or +fold; "tack" and "sheet" are both Italian; "deck" is German. Other +words are the result of contractions. Few would trace in "dipsey," a +sounding-lead, the words "deep sea"; or in "futtocks" the combination +"foot-hooks,"--the name of the connecting-pieces of the floor-timbers +of a ship. "Breast-hook" has escaped contraction. Sailors have, indeed, +a passion for metamorphosing words,--especially proper names. Those lie +a little out of our track; but two instances are too good to be +omitted:--The "Bellerophon," of the British navy, was always known as +the "Bully-ruffian," and the "Ville de Milan," a French prize, as the +"Wheel-'em-along." Here you have a random bestowal of names which seems +to defy all analysis of the rule of their bestowal. + +If the reader inclines to follow up the scent here indicated, we can +add a hint or two which may be of service. We have shown the sources, +which should, for purposes of classification, be designated, not as +English, Italian, Danish, etc., but nautically, as Mediterranean, +Baltic, or Atlantic. These three heads will serve for general +classification, to which must be added a fourth or "off-soundings" +department, into which should go all words suggested by whim or +accidental resemblances,--such terms as "monkey-rail," "Turk's head," +"dead-eye," etc.,--or which get the name of an inventor, as a +"Matthew-Walker knot." More than that cannot well be given without +going into the whole detail of naval history, tactics, and science,--a +thing, of course, impossible here. + +This brings us to another view of the subject, which may serve for +conclusion. A great many people take upon themselves to act for and +about the sailor, to preach to him, make laws for him, act as his +counsel, write tracts for him, and generally to look after his moral +and physical well-being. Now eleven out of every dozen of these are +continually making themselves ridiculous by an utter ignorance of all +nautical matters. They pick up a few worn-out phrases of sea-life, +which have long since left the forecastle, and which have been bandied +about from one set of landsmen to another, have been dropped by +sham-sailors begging on fictitious wooden-legs, then by small +sea-novelists, handed to smaller dramatists for the Wapping class of +theatres, to be by them abandoned to the smallest writers of pirate and +privateer tales for the Sunday press. And stringing these together, +with a hazy apprehension of their meaning, they think they are "talking +sailor" in great perfection. Now the sailor will talk with pleasure to +any straightforward and perfectly "green" landsman, and the two will +converse in an entirely intelligible manner. But confusion worse +confounded is the result of this ambitious ignorance,--confusion of +brain to the sailor, and confusion of face to the landsman. + +For the sea has a language, beyond a peradventure,--an exceedingly +arbitrary, technical, and perplexing one, unless it be studied with the +illustrated grammar of the full-rigged ship before one, with the added +commentaries of the sea and the sky and the coast chart. To learn to +speak it requires about as long as to learn to converse passably in +French, Italian, or Spanish; and unless it be spoken well, it is +exceedingly absurd to any appreciative listener. + +If you desire to study it philologically, after the living manner of +Dean Trench, it will well repay you. If you desire to use it as a +familiar vehicle of discourse, wherewith to impress the understanding +and heart of the sailor, you undertake a very difficult thing. For +though men are moved best by apt illustrations from the things familiar +to them, _un_apt illustrations most surely disgust them. + +But if you earnestly desire it, we know of but one certain course, +which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who +was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone +to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of +a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in +eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony +of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John's breast. At last the latter +conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, +which was securely lashed to the forward deck of the steamer, he +exclaimed,--"I say, d'ye know, I'd give a guinea to know your secret +for keeping well in this infernal Channel." The traveller solemnly +extended one hand for the money, and, as it dropped into his palm, with +the other shaded his mouth, that no portion of the oracle might fall on +unpaid-for ears, and whispered,--"Hark ye, brother, GO TO SEA TWENTY +YEARS, AS I HAVE." + + + +THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME. + + +"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."--TWELFTH +NIGHT. + +My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in +relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence +in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal +trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in +court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so +indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down +its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had +heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded +it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will +remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the +right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as +well as in novels. + +The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who +tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged +mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, +but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. +Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his +casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old +Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel +as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration +enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters +had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and +holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor +direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that +sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of +beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his +hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart +to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old +mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such +glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty +heiress seemed to be quite enough, even with a field clear of rivals. +But two other suitors now made advances, more or less openly, and poor +Carl thought himself entirely overshadowed. One was Schoenfeld, the most +considerable farmer in the neighborhood, a widower, with hair beginning +to show threads of silver, and a fierce man withal, who was supposed to +have once slain a rival, wearing thereafter a seam in his cheek as a +souvenir of the encounter. The other was Hans Stolzen, a carpenter, +past thirty, a shrewd, well-to-do fellow, with nearly a thousand +thalers saved from his earnings. Carl had never fought a duel,--and he +had not saved so much as a thousand groschen, to say nothing of +thalers; he had only a manly figure, a cheery, open face, the freshness +of one-and-twenty, and a heart incapable of guile. Katrine was not long +in discovering these excellences, and, if his boldness had equalled his +passion, she would have shown him how little she esteemed the +pretensions of the proud landholder or the miserly carpenter. But he +took it for granted that he was a fool to contend against such odds, +and, buttoning his jacket tightly over his throbbing heart, toiled away +in his little fields, thinking that the whole world had never contained +so miserable a man. + +Hans Stolzen was the first to propose. He began by paying court to the +jealous Rauchen himself, set forth his property and prospects, and +asked to become his son-in-law. The miller heard him, puffed long +whiffs, and answered civilly, but without committing himself. He was in +no hurry to part with the only joy he had, and, as Katrine was barely +eighteen, he naturally thought there would be time enough to consider +of her marriage hereafter. Hans hardly expected anything more decisive, +and, as he had not been flatly refused, came frequently to the house +and chatted with her father, while his eyes followed the vivacious +Katrine as she tripped about her household duties. But Hans was +perpetually kept at a distance; the humming-bird would never alight +upon the outstretched hand. He had not the wit to see that their +natures had nothing in common, although he did know that Katrine was +utterly indifferent towards him, and after some months of hopeless +pursuit he began to grow sullenly angry. He was not long without an +object on which to vent his rage. + +One evening, as Katrine was returning homeward, she chanced to pass +Carl's cottage. Carl was loitering under a tree hard by, listening to +the quick footsteps to which his heart kept time. It was the coming of +Fate to him, for he had made up his mind to tell her of the love that +was consuming him. Two days before, with tears on his bashful face, he +had confided all to his mother; and, at her suggestion, he had now +provided a little present by way of introduction. Katrine smiled +sweetly as she approached, for, with a woman's quick eye, she had read +his glances long before. His lips at first rebelled, but he struggled +out a salutation, and, the ice once broken, he found himself strangely +unembarrassed. He breathed freely. It seemed to him that their +relations must have been fixed in some previous state of existence, so +natural was it to be in familiar and almost affectionate communication +with the woman whom before he had loved afar off, as a page might sigh +for a queen. + +"Stay, Katrine," he said,--"I had nearly forgotten." He ran hastily +into the cottage, and soon returned with a covered basket. "See, +Katrine, these white rabbits!--are they not pretty?" + +"Oh, the little pets!" exclaimed Katrine. "Are they yours?" + +"No, Katrinchen,--that is, they were mine; now they are yours." + +"Thank you, Carl. I shall love them dearly." + +"For my sake?" + +"For their own, Carl, certainly; for yours also,--a little." + +"Good-bye, Bunny," said he, patting the head of one of the rabbits. +"Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don't keep those long +ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me." + +"Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself,--don't you think +so, Bunny?" said Katrine, taking the basket. + +The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl's pulses bounded; he +seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses. "So! this is +the bashful young man!" thought Katrine. "I shall not need to encourage +him any more, surely." + +The night was coming on; Katrine remembered her father, and started +towards the mill, whose broad arms could scarcely be seen through the +twilight. Carl accompanied her to the gate, and, after a furtive glance +upward to the house-windows, bade her farewell, with a kiss, and turned +homeward, feeling himself a man for the first time in his life. + +Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the +window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son's return. An hour +passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow +anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and +asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl. An hour of terrible +suspense ensued. It was worse than she had even feared. Carl lay by the +roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood, +moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless. +Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid +with bruises. The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently +lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of +Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son. "May he die in a foreign +land," said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, "without wife to +nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul! May his body lie +unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures! May his inheritance pass into +the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!" They +muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless +eyes, and left her with her son. + +For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever +set in, and he raved continually. He fancied himself pursued by Hans +Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff. When this was +reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal; +but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled. His +disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt. In truth, it was the +rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival +in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead. + +Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had +pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a +warmer affection for the victim of his brutality. She threw off all +disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch's cottage, to aid in +nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery. She had, one +day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning +sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle +fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples. An indissoluble tie +now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering +and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death. + +When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped +speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable +opportunity to obtain her father's consent to their marriage. The scars +were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured. No bones had +been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault. +But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy +the happiness for which he hoped,--the love that had called him back to +life. As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk has +seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he +may secure for himself the prize,--so Schoenfeld, not uninformed of what +was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain +Katrine's favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way. An officer in +the king's service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for +the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the +entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized +for the shambles. The officer had apparently been a friend and +companion of Schoenfeld's in former days, and passed some time at his +house. It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors +as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the +army. He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no +alternative; he must serve his three years. This last blow was too much +for his poor mother. Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing +him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her +grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other +recruits, was marched off. + +What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three +years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such +visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted +from her lover as though it were forever. The miller found that the +light and the melody of his house were gone. Katrine was silent and +sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble. To all his offers +of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears +she had besought his interference in Carl's behalf. She would not be +comforted. The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had +thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish +fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing +look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he +sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his +tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon +the slightest whiff. + +For six months Schoenfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought, +would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier. +Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his +hand to Katrine. The miller was inclined to favor his suit. In wealth +and position Schoenfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful +ally, and a very disagreeable enemy. In fact, Rauchen really feared to +refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he +could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer. Katrine, +however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl +was a victim of Schoenfeld's craft; and her rejection of his proposal +was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal. The +old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the +mill, vowing vengeance for the affront. + +Rauchen and his daughter were now more solitary than ever. The father +had forgotten the roaring stories he used to tell to the neighboring +peasants, over foaming flagons of ale, at the little inn; he sat at his +mill-door and smoked incessantly. Katrine shunned the festivities in +which she was once queen, and her manner, though kindly, was silent and +reserved; she went to church, it is true, but she wore a look of +settled sorrow that awed curiosity and even repelled sympathy. But +scandal is a plant that needs no root in the earth; like the houseleek, +it can thrive upon air; and those who separate themselves the most +entirely from the world are apt, for that very reason, to receive the +larger share of its attention. The village girls looked first with +pity, then with wonder, and at length with aversion, upon the gentle +and unfortunate Katrine. Careless as she was with regard to public +opinion, she saw not without pain the altered looks of her old +associates, and before long she came to know the cause. A cruel +suspicion had been whispered about, touching her in a most tender +point. It was not without reason, so the gossip ran, that she had +refused so eligible an offer of marriage Schoenfeld's. The story reached +the ears of Rauchen, at last. With a fierce energy, such as he had +never exhibited before, he tracked it from cottage to cottage, until he +came to Schoenfeld's housekeeper, who refused to give her authority. The +next market-day Rauchen encountered the former suitor and publicly +charged him with the slander, in such terms as his baseness deserved. +Schoenfeld, thrown off his guard by the sudden attack, struck his +adversary a heavy blow; but the miller rushed upon him, and left him to +be carried home, a bundle of aches and bruises. After this the tongues +of the gossips were quiet; no one was willing to answer for guesses or +rumors at the end of Rauchen's staff; and the father and daughter +resumed their monotonous mode of life. + +The three years at length passed, and Carl Proch returned home,--a +trifle more sedate, perhaps, but the same noble, manly fellow. How +warmly he was received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to +relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter +any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily +married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back; +cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent +rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a +grandson, and often resumed his old place at the inn, telling the old +stories with the old _gusto_ over the ever-welcome ale. But one +morning, not long after, he was found dead in his bed; a smile was on +his face, and his limbs were stretched out as in peaceful repose. + +There was no longer any tie to bind Carl to his native village. All his +kin, as well as Katrine's, were in the grave. He was not bred a miller, +and did not feel competent to manage the mill. Besides, his mind had +received new ideas while he was in the army. He had heard of countries +where men were equal before the laws, where the peasant owed no +allegiance but to society. The germ of liberty had been planted in his +breast, and he could no longer live contented with the rank in which he +had been born. At least he wished that his children might grow up free +from the chilling influences that had fallen upon him. At his earnest +persuasion, Katrine consented that the mill should be sold, and soon +after, with his wife and child, he went to Bremen and embarked for +America. + + * * * * * + +We must now follow the absconding Stolzen, who, with his bag of +thalers, had made good his escape into England. He lived in London, +where he found society among his countrymen. His habitual shrewdness +never deserted him, and from small beginnings he gradually amassed a +moderate fortune. His first experiment in proposing for a wife +satisfied him, but in a great city his sensual nature was fully +developed. His brutal passions were unchecked; conscience seemed to +have left him utterly. At length he began to think about quitting +London. He was afraid to return to Germany, for, as he had left Carl to +all appearance dead, he thought the officers of the law would seize +him. He determined to go to Australia, and secured a berth in a clipper +ship bound for Melbourne, but some accident prevented his reaching the +pier in season; the vessel sailed without him, and was never heard of +afterwards. Then he proposed to buy an estate in Canada; but the owner +failed to make his appearance at the time appointed for the +negotiation, and the bargain was not completed. At last he took passage +for New York, whither a Hebrew acquaintance of his had gone, a year or +two before, and was established as a broker. Upon arriving in that +city, Stolzen purchased of an agent a tract of land in a Western State, +situated on the shore of Lake Michigan; and after reserving a sum of +money for immediate purposes, he deposited his funds with his friend, +the broker, and started westward. He travelled the usual route by rail, +then a short distance in a mail-coach, which carried him within six +miles of his farm. Leaving his luggage to be sent for, he started to +walk the remaining distance. It was a sultry day, and the prairie road +was anything but pleasant to a pedestrian unaccustomed to heat and +dust. After walking less than an hour, he determined to stop at a small +house near the road, for rest, and some water to quench his thirst; but +as he approached, the baying hounds, no less than the squalid children +about the door, repelled him, and he went on to the next house. He now +turned down a green lane, between rows of thrifty trees, to a neat +log-cabin, whose nicely-plastered walls and the regular fence inclosing +it testified to the thrift and good taste of the owner. He knocked; all +was still. Again, and thirsty as he was, he was on the point of +leaving, when he heard a step within. He waited; the door opened, and +before him stood----Katrine! + +She did not know him; but he had not forgotten that voluptuous figure +nor those melting blue eyes. He preferred his requests, looking through +the doorway at the same time to make sure that she had no protector. +Katrine brought the stranger a gourd of water, and offered him a chair. +She did not see the baleful eyes he threw after her as she went about +her household duties. Stolzen had dropped from her firmament like a +fallen and forgotten star. Secure in her unsuspecting innocence, she +chirruped to her baby and resumed her sewing. + +That evening, when Carl Proch returned from his field, after his usual +hard day's labor, he found his wife on the floor, sobbing, speechless, +and the child, unnoticed, crying in his cradle. His dog sat by the +hearth with a look of almost intelligent sympathy, and whined as his +master entered the room. He raised Katrine and held her in his arms +like a child, covered her face with kisses, and implored her to speak. +She seemed to be in a fearful dream, and shrunk from some imagined +danger in the extremest terror. Gradually her sobs became less +frequent, her tremors ceased, and she smiled upon the manly face that +met hers, as though she had only suffered from an imaginary fright. But +when she felt her hair floating upon her shoulders, saw the almost +speaking face of the dog, Bruno, and became conscious of the cries of +the neglected child, the wave of agony swept over her again, and she +could utter only broken ejaculations. As word after word came from her +lips, the unhappy husband's flesh tingled; his hair stiffened with +horror; every nerve seemed to be strung with a new and maddening +tension. There was for him no such thing as fatigue, no distance, no +danger,--no law, no hereafter, no God. All thought and feeling were +drowned in one wild desire for vengeance,--vengeance swift, terrible, +and final. + +He first caressed the dog as though he had been a brother; he put his +arms about the shaggy neck, and shook each faithful paw; he made his +wife caress him also. "God be praised, dear Katrine, for your +protector, the dog!" said he. "Come, now, Bruno!" + +Katrine saw him depart with his dog and gun; but if she guessed his +errand, she did not dare remonstrate. He walked off rapidly,--the dog +in advance, now and then baying as though he were on a trail. + +In the night he returned, and he smiled grimly as he set down the rifle +in its accustomed corner. His wife was waiting for him with intense +anxiety. It was marvellous to her that he was so cheerful. He trotted +her upon his knee, pressed her a hundred times to his bosom, kissed her +forehead, lips, and cheeks, called her his pretty Kate, his dear wife, +and every endearing name he knew. So they sat, like lovers in their +teens, till the purpling east told of a new day. + +The luggage of one Stolzen, a stagecoach passenger, remained at the +tavern uncalled-for, for nearly a year. No one knew the man, and his +disappearance, though a profound mystery, was not an uncommon thing in +a new country. The Hebrew broker in New York received no answers to his +letters, though he had carefully preserved the post-office address +which Stolzen had given him. He began to fear lest he should be obliged +to fulfil the duty of heirship to the property deposited with him. To +quiet his natural apprehensions in view of this event, he determined to +follow Stolzen's track, as much of it as lay in _this_ world, at least, +and find out what had become of him. Upon arriving in the neighborhood, +the Jew had a thorough search made. The country was scoured, and on the +third day there was a discovery. A man walking on the sandy margin of a +river, about two or three miles from Carl's house, saw a skull before +him. As the steep bluff nearly overhung the spot where he stood, he +conjectured that the body to which the skull belonged was to be found +above on its verge. He climbed up, and there saw a headless skeleton. +It was the body of Stolzen, as his memorandum-book and other articles +showed. His pistol was in his pocket, and still loaded; that fact +precluded the idea of suicide. Moreover, upon examining more closely, a +bullet-hole was found in his breast-bone, around which the parts were +broken _outwardly_, showing that the ball must have entered from +behind. It was clear that Stolzen had been murdered. + +The curse of Frau Proch had been most terribly fulfilled. + +Circumstances soon pointed to Carl Proch as the perpetrator. A +stranger, corresponding to the deceased in size and dress, had been +seen, about the time of his disappearance, by the neighboring family, +walking towards Proch's house; and on the evening of the same day an +Irishman met Carl going at a rapid rate, with a gun on his shoulder, as +though in furious pursuit of some one. A warrant for his arrest was +issued, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial. If now the Hebrew +had followed the _lex talionis_, after the manner of his race in +ancient times, it might have fared badly with poor Carl. But as soon as +the broker was satisfied beyond a peradventure that the depositor was +actually dead, he hastened back to New York, joyful as a crow over a +newly-found carcass, to administer upon the estate, leaving the law to +take its own course with regard to the murderer. + +Beyond the two facts just mentioned as implicating Carl, nothing was +proved at the trial. Jameson, the lawyer, whom I mentioned at the +beginning of this story, was engaged for the defence. He found Carl +singularly uncommunicative; and though the government failed to make +out a shadow of a case against his client, he was yet puzzled in his +own mind by Carl's silence, and his real or assumed indifference. +Katrine was in court with her child in her arms, watching the +proceedings with the closest attention; though she, as well as Carl, +was unable to understand any but the most familiar and colloquial +English. The case was speedily decided; the few facts presented to the +jury appeared to have no necessary connection, and there was no known +motive for the deed. The jury unanimously acquitted Carl, and with his +wife and boy he left the court-room. The verdict was approved by the +spectators, for no man in the neighborhood was more universally loved +and respected than Carl Proch. + +Having paid Jameson his fee for his services, Carl was about to depart, +when the lawyer's curiosity could be restrained no longer, and he +called his client back to the private room of his office. + +"Carl," said he, "you look like a good fellow, above anything mean or +wicked; but yet I don't know what to make of you. Now you are entirely +through with this scrape; you are acquitted; and I want to know what is +the meaning of it all. I will keep it secret from all your neighbors. +Did you kill Stolzen, or not?" + +"Well, if I did," he answered, "can they do anything with me?" + +"No," said Jameson. + +"Not if I acknowledge?" + +"No, you have been acquitted by a jury; and by our law a man can never +be tried twice for the same offence. You are safe, even if you should +go into court and confess the deed." + +"Well, then, I did kill him,--and I would again!" + +For the moment, a fierce light gleamed upon the calm and kindly face. +Then, feeling that his answer would give a false view of the case, +without the previous history of the parties, Carl sat down and in his +broken English told to his lawyer the story I have here attempted to +record. It was impossible to doubt a word of it; for the simplicity and +pathos of the narrative were above all art. Here was a simple case, +which the boldest inventor of schemes to punish villany would have been +afraid to use. Its truth is the thing that most startles the mind +accustomed to deal with fictions. + +We leave Carl to return to his farm with his wife, for whom he had +suffered so much, and with the hope that no further temptation may come +to him in such a guise as almost to make murder a virtue. + + + +THE TELEGRAPH. + + Thou lonely Bay of Trinity, + Ye bosky shores untrod, + Lean, breathless, to the white-lipped sea + And hear the voice of God! + + From world to world His couriers fly, + Thought-winged and shod with fire; + The angel of His stormy sky + Rides down the sunken wire. + + What saith the herald of the Lord?-- + "The world's long strife is done! + Close wedded by that mystic cord, + Her continents are one. + + "And one in heart, as one in blood, + Shall all her peoples be; + The hands of human brotherhood + Shall clasp beneath the sea. + + "Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain, + And Asian mountains borne, + The vigor of the Northern brain + Shall nerve the world outworn. + + "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, + Shall thrill the magic thread; + The new Prometheus steals once more + The fire that wakes the dead! + + "Earth gray with age shall hear the strain + Which o'er her childhood rolled; + For her the morning stars again + Shall sing their song of old. + + "For, lo! the fall of Ocean's wall, + Space mocked, and Time outrun!-- + And round the world, the thought of all + Is as the thought of one!" + + Oh, reverently and thankfully + The mighty wonder own! + The deaf can hear, the blind may see, + The work is God's alone. + + Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat + From answering beach to beach! + Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, + And melt the chains of each! + + Wild terror of the sky above, + Glide tamed and dumb below! + Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, + Thy errands to and fro! + + Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, + Beneath the deep so far, + The bridal robe of Earth's accord, + The funeral shroud of war! + + The poles unite, the zones agree, + The tongues of striving cease; + As on the Sea of Galilee, + The Christ is whispering, "Peace!" + + + +THE BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. + + +The singing-birds whose notes are familiar to us, in towns and villages +and the suburbs of the city, are found in the breeding-season only in +these places, and are strangers to the deep woods and solitary +pastures. Most of our singing-birds follow in the wake of the pioneer +of the wilderness, and increase in numbers with the clearing and +settlement of the country,--not, probably, from any dependence on the +protection of mankind, but on account of the increased abundance of the +insect food upon which they subsist, consequent upon the tilling of the +ground. It is well known that the labors of the husbandman cause an +excessive multiplication of all those species of insects whose larvae +are cherished in the soil, and of all that infest the orchard and +garden. The farm is capable of supporting insects just in proportion to +its capacity for producing corn and fruit. Insects will multiply with +their means of subsistence in and upon the earth; and birds, if not +destroyed by artificial methods, will increase in proportion to the +multiplication of those insects which constitute their principal food. + +These considerations will sufficiently account for the fact, which +often excites a little astonishment, that more singing-birds are found +in the suburbs of the city, and among the parks and gardens of the +city, than in the deep forest, where, even in the singing-season, the +silence is sometimes melancholy. It is still to be remarked, that the +species which are thus familiar in their habits do not include all the +singing-birds, but they include all that are well known to the majority +of our people. These are the birds of the garden and orchard. There are +many other species, wild and solitary in their habits, which are +delightful songsters in uncultivated regions remote from the town. But +even these are rare in the depths of the forest. They live on the edge +of the wood and in the half-wooded pasture. + +The birds of the garden and orchard have been frequently described, and +their habits are very generally known; but in the usual descriptions +little has been said of their powers and peculiarities of song. In the +present sketches, I have given particular attention to the vocal powers +of the different birds, and have endeavored to designate the parts +which each one performs in the grand hymn of Nature. I shall first +introduce the Song-Sparrow, (_Fringilla melodia_,) a little bird that +is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest +visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He +is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any +superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his +departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which he +is always recognized. + +In March, before the violet has ventured to peep out from the southern +knoll of the pasture or the sunny brow of the hill, while the northern +skies are liable to pour down at any hour a storm of sleet and snow, +the Song-Sparrow, beguiled by southern winds, has already made his +appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry +notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, +therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest +songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest +tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises +of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come +with a double charm to our ears, because they are harmonized by silence +and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose--in like manner does +the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the +sweet prelude to the universal hymn of Nature. + +His haunts are the pastures which have been half reduced to tillage, +and are still partially filled with wild shrubbery; for he is not so +familiar in his habits as the Hair-bird, that comes close up to our +door-step, to find the crumbs that are swept from our tables. Though +his voice is constantly heard in the garden and orchard, he selects a +more retired spot for his nest, preferring not to trust his progeny to +the doubtful mercy of the lords of creation. In some secure retreat, +under a tussock of herbage or a tuft of shrubbery, the female sits upon +her nest of soft dry grass, containing four or five eggs, of a greenish +white ground, almost entirely covered with brownish specks. Commencing +in April, she rears three broods of young during the season, and her +mate prolongs his notes until the last brood has flown from the nest. + +The notes of the Song-Sparrow would not entitle him to be ranked among +our principal singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations +of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other +bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be +distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate +tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in +the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and +repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one +occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each of the tunes, +and the order of singing them. Of the tunes, as he had numbered them, +the bird "sang No. 1, 27 times; No. 2, 36 times; No. 3, 23 times; No. +4, 19 times; No. 5, 21 times; No. 6, 32 times; No. 7, 18 times. Perhaps +next he would sing No. 2, then perhaps No. 4, or 5, and so on." Mr. +Paine adds, "Some males will sing each tune about fifty times, though +seldom; some will only sing them from five to ten times. But as far as +I have observed, each male has his seven songs. I have applied the rule +to as many as a dozen different birds, and the result has been the +same." + +An individual will sometimes, for half a day, confine himself almost +entirely to a few of these variations; but he will commonly sing each +one more or less in the course of the day. I have observed also, that, +when one principal singer takes up a particular tune, other birds in +the vicinity will unite in the same. The several variations are mostly +in triple time, a few in common time, and there is an occasional +blending of both in the same tune, which consists usually of four bars +or strains, sometimes five, though the song is frequently broken off at +the end of the third strain. This habit of varying his notes through so +many permutations, and the singularly fine intonations of many of them, +entitle the Song-Sparrow to a very high rank as a singing-bird. + +There is a manifest difference in the expression of these several +tunes. The one which I have marked as No. 3 is particularly plaintive, +and is usually in common time. No. 2 is the one which I think is most +frequently sung. No. 5 is querulous and entirely unmusical. There is a +remarkable precision in the song of this bird, and the finest singers +are those which, in the language of musicians, have the least +execution. There are some individuals that blend their notes together +so promiscuously, and use so many flourishes, that it is difficult to +identify their song, or to perceive its expression. Whether these tunes +of the Song-Sparrow express to his mate, or to others of his species, +different sentiments, and convey different messages, or whether the +bird adopts them for his own amusement, I have not been able to +determine. Neither have I learned whether a certain hour of the day or +a certain state of the weather predisposes him to sing a particular +tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; +and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their +matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, +of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and +solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent +and a definite object in every instinct which she has established among +her creatures, it is not probable that this habit of the Song-Sparrow +is the mere result of accident. All the variations of his song are +given, with the specimens, at the end of this article, and, though +individuals differ in their singing, the notes will afford the reader a +good general idea of the several tunes. + +Soon after the arrival of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers +have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more +fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (_Fringilla +graminea_,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This +species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, +when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp +of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a lower key, than +that of the present species. By careless observers, these two Finches, +on account of the similarity in their general appearance and habits, +are considered identical. The Vesper-bird, however, is the least +familiar of the two, and, when both are singing at the same time, will +be found to occupy a position more remote from the house than the +other. In several localities, these two species are distinguished by +the names of Bush-Sparrow and Ground-Sparrow, from their supposed +different habits of placing their nests, one in a bush and the other on +the ground. But they do not in fact differ in this respect, as each +species occasionally builds in both ways. + +The Vesper-bird attracts more general attention to his notes than the +Sparrow, because he sings a longer, though a more monotonous song, and +warbles with more fervency. His notes bear considerable resemblance to +those of the Canary-bird, but they are more subdued and plaintive, and +have a peculiar reedy sound, which is never perceived in the notes of +the Canary. This bird is periodical in his habits of song, confining +his lays to particular hours of the day and conditions of the weather. +The Song-Sparrow, on the contrary, sings about equally from morning to +night, and but little more at one hour than another; and the different +performers of this species do not seem to join in concert. This habit +renders the latter more companionable, at the same time it causes his +notes to be less regarded than those of the Vesper-bird, who pours them +forth more sparingly, and at regular periods. + +The Vesper-bird begins with all his kindred in a general concert at +early dawn, after which they are comparatively silent until sunset, +when they repeat their concert, with still greater zeal than they +chanted in the morning. It is from this circumstance that it has +obtained the name it bears--from its evening hymn, or vespers. I have +heard this name applied to it only in one locality; but it is so +precisely applicable to its habits, that I have thought it worthy of +being retained as its distinguishing cognomen. There are particular +states of the weather that frequently call out the birds of this +species into a general concert at other periods of the day--as when +rain is suddenly followed by sunshine, or when a clear sky is suddenly +darkened by clouds, presenting to them a sort of occasional morn and +occasional even. It may be remarked, that you seldom hear one of these +birds singing alone; but when one begins, all others in the vicinity +immediately join him. + +The usual resorts of the Vesper-bird are the pastures and the +hay-fields; hence the name of Grass-Finch, by which he is usually +distinguished. His voice is heard frequently by the rustic roadsides, +where he picks up a considerable portion of his subsistence. This is +the little bird that so generally serenades us during our evening +walks, at a little distance from the town, and not so far into the +woods as the haunts of the Thrushes. When we go out into the country, +on pleasant days in June or July, at nightfall, we hear multitudes of +them singing sweetly from a hundred different points in the fields and +farms. + +Among the birds which are endowed by Nature with the gift of song in +connection with gaudy plumage is the American Goldfinch, or Hemp-bird, +(_Fringilla tristis_,) one of the most interesting and delicate of the +feathered tribe. Of all our birds this bears the closest resemblance to +the Canary, both in his plumage and in the notes of his song. He cannot +be ranked with the finest of our songsters, being deficient in compass +and variety. But he has great sweetness of tone, and is equalled by few +birds in the rapidity of his execution. His note of complaint is +exactly like that of the Canary, and is heard at almost all times of +the year. He utters also, when flying, a very animated series of notes, +during the repeated undulations of his night, and they seem to be +uttered with each effort he makes to rise. + +It is remarkable that this bird, though he often rears two broods in a +season, does not begin to build his nest until July, after the first +broods of the Robin and the Song-Sparrow have flown from their nests. +Mr. Augustus Fowler[2] is of opinion, from his observation of their +habits of feeding their young, that the cause of this procrastination +is, "that they would be unable to find, in the spring and early summer, +those new and milky seeds which are the necessary food of their young," +and takes occasion to allude to that beneficent law of Nature which +provides that these birds "should not bring forth their young until the +very time when those seeds used by them for food have passed into the +milk, in which state they are easily dissolved by the stomach, and when +an abundant supply may always be found." + +The Hemp-birds are remarkable for associating at a certain season, and +singing, as it were, in choirs. "During spring and summer," says Mr. +Fowler, "they rove about in small flocks, and in July will assemble +together in considerable numbers on a particular tree, seemingly for no +other purpose than to sing. These concerts are held by them on the +forenoon of each day, for a week or ten days, after which they soon +commence building their nests. I am inclined to believe that this is +their time of courtship, and that they have a purpose in these meetings +beside that of singing. If perchance one is heard in the air, the males +utter their call-note with great emphasis, particularly if the +new-comer be a female; and while in her undulating flight she describes +a circle, preparatory to alighting, they will stand almost erect, move +their heads to the right and left, and burst simultaneously into song." + +While engaged in these concerts, it would seem as if they were governed +by some rule, that enabled them to time their voices, and to swell or +diminish the volume of sound. Some of this effect is undoubtedly +produced by the gradual manner in which the different voices join in +harmony, beginning with one or two, and increasing in numbers in a sort +of geometrical progression, until all are singing at once, and then in +the same gradual manner becoming silent. This produces the effect of a +perfect _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_. Beginning, as it seems, at a +distance, one voice leads on another, and the numbers multiply until +they make a loud shout, which dies away gradually until one single +voice winds up the chorus. These concerts are repeated at intervals, +sometimes for an hour in duration. + +Another peculiar habit of the Hemp-bird is that of building a nest, and +then tearing it to pieces before any eggs have been deposited in it, +and using the materials to make a new nest in another locality. In +former years I have repeatedly watched this singular operation, in the +Lombardy poplars that stood before my study-windows. I have thought +that the male bird only was addicted to this practice, and that this +might be his method of amusement while unprovided with a partner. The +nest of the Hemp-bird is made of cotton, the down of the fern, and +other soft materials, woven together with threads and the fibres of +bark, and lined with thistle-down, if it be late enough to obtain it, +and sometimes with cow's hair. It is commonly placed in the fork of the +slender branches of a maple, linden, or poplar, and is fastened to them +with singular ingenuity. + +Among the earliest songsters of spring, occasionally tuning his voice +before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or +American Linnet (_Fringilla purpurea_). I have frequently heard his +notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard +one warbling cheerily on the 18th of February. But the Linnet does not +persevere like the Song-Sparrow, after he has once commenced. His voice +is only occasionally heard, until the middle of April, after which he +is a very constant singer. + +The notes of this bird are very simple and melodious, and some +individuals greatly excel others in their powers of song. It is +generally believed that the young males are the best singers, and that +age diminishes their vocal capacity. The greater number utter only a +few strains, resembling the notes of the Warbling Fly-catcher, (_Vireo +gilvus_,) and these are constantly repeated during the greater part of +the day. His song consists of four or five bars or strains; but there +are individuals that extend them _ad libitum_, varying their notes +after the manner of the Canary. The latter, however, sings with more +precision, and is louder and shriller in his tones. I have not observed +that this bird is more prone to sing in the morning and evening than at +noonday and at all hours. + +I have alluded to the fact that the finest singing-birds build their +nests and seek their food either on the ground or among the shrubbery +and the lower branches of trees, and that, when singing, they are +commonly perched rather low. The Linnet is an exception to this general +habit of the singing-birds, and, in company with the Warbling +Fly-catchers, he is commonly high up in an elm or some other tall tree, +and almost entirely out of sight, when exercising himself in song. It +is this preference for the higher branches of trees that enables these +birds, as well as the Golden Robin, to be denizens of the city. Hence +they may be heard singing as freely and melodiously from the trees on +Boston Common as in the wild-wood or orchard in the country. + +I have seen the Linnet frequently in confinement; but he does not sing +so well in a cage as in a state of freedom. His finest and most +prolonged strains are delivered while on the wing. On such occasions +only does he sing with fervor. While perched on a tree, his song is +short and not greatly varied. If you closely watch his movements when +he is singing, he may be seen on a sudden to take flight, and, while +poising himself in the air, though still advancing, he pours out a +continued strain of melody, not surpassed by the notes of any other +bird. On account of the infrequency of these occasions, it is seldom we +have an opportunity to witness a full exhibition of the musical powers +of the Linnet. + +The male American Linnet is crimson on the head, neck, and throat, +dusky on the upper part of its body, and beneath somewhat +straw-colored. It is remarkable that a great many individuals are +destitute of this color, being plainly clad, like the female. These are +supposed to be old birds, and the loss of color is attributed to age. +The same change takes place when the bird is confined. + +The little bird whose notes serve more than those of any other species +to enliven the summer noondays in our villages is the House-Wren +(_Troglodytes fulvus_). It is said to reside and rear its young chiefly +in the Middle States; but it is far from being uncommon in +Massachusetts, and, as it extends its summer migrations to Labrador, it +is probable that it breeds there also. It is evident, however, that its +breeding-places are not confined to northern latitudes. It is a +migratory bird, is never seen here in winter, but commonly arrives in +May and returns south early in October. It builds in a hollow tree, +like the Blue-bird, or in a box or other vessel provided for it, and by +furnishing such accommodations we may easily entice one to make its +home in our inclosures. + +The Wren is a very active bird, and one of the most restless of the +feathered tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when singing he +is always flitting about and changing his position. We see him in +almost all places, as it were, at the same moment of time,--now +warbling in ecstasy from the roof of a shed, then, with his wings +spread and feathers ruffled, scolding furiously at a Blue-bird or a +Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a +cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we +observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and +out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the +stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of +the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden +under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a +cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling +vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have occupied +hardly a minute, so rapid and incessant is he in his motions. + +The notes of the Wren are very lively and garrulous, and, if not +uttered more frequently during the heat of the day, are certainly more +noticeable at this hour. There is a concert at noonday, as well as in +the morning and evening, among the birds, and in the former the Wren is +one of the principal musicians. After the full rays of the sun have +silenced the early performers, the Song-Sparrow and the Red Thrush +continue to sing, at intervals, the greater part of the day. The Wren +is likewise heard at all hours; but when the languishing heat of noon +has arrived, and most of the birds are silent, the few that continue to +sing become more than usually vocal, and seem to form a select company. +They appear, indeed, to prefer the noonday, because the general silence +that prevails at this hour renders their voices more distinguishable +than at other times. The birds which are thus, as it were, associated +with the Wren, in this noonday concert, are the Bobolink, the Cat-bird, +and the two Warbling Fly-catchers, occasionally joined by the few and +simple notes of the Summer Yellow-bird. If we are in the vicinity of +the deep woods, we may also hear, at this hour, the loud and shrill +voice of the Golden-Crowned Thrush, a bird that is partial to the heat +of noon. + +Of all these, however, the Wren is the most remarkable, having a note +that is singularly varied and animated. He exhibits great compass and +power of execution, but wants variety in his tones. He begins very +sharp and shrill, like a grasshopper, then suddenly falls to a series +of low guttural notes, and ascends, like the rolling of a drum, to +another series of high notes, rapidly trilled. Almost without a pause, +he recommences with his querulous insect-chirp, and proceeds through +the same trilling and demi-semiquavering as before. He is not +particular about the part of the song which he makes his closing note, +but will leave off right in the middle of a strain, when he appears to +be in the height of ecstasy, to pick up a spider or a fly. + +As the Wren raises two broods of young in a season, his notes are +prolonged to a late period of the summer, being frequently heard in the +second or third week in August. He leaves for a southern clime about +the first of October. In his migratory habits he differs from the +European Wren, which is a constant resident in his native regions. + +Our American birds, like the American flowers, have not been celebrated +in classic song. They are scarcely known, except to our own people, and +they have not in general been exalted by praise above their real +merits. We read, both in prose and verse, the praises of the European +Lark, Linnet, and Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been +immortalized in song. But the American Robin, (_Turdus migratorius_,) +though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different +habits. Little has been written about him, and he enjoys but little +celebrity; he has never been puffed and overpraised, and, though +universally admired, the many who admire him are diffident all the +while, lest they are mistaken in their judgment and are wasting their +admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, and whose true merits +fall short of their own estimate. + +I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about +genius--and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he +cannot cry like a chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his +charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and +incongruous sounds--for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a +singing-bird. Let them say of him, in the cant of modern criticism, +that his performances cannot be great, because they are faultless; it +is enough for me, that his mellow notes, heard at the earliest flush of +morning, in the more busy hour of noon, or the quiet lull of evening, +come upon the ear in a stream of unqualified melody, as if he had +learned to sing under the direct instruction of that beautiful Dryad +who taught the Lark and the Nightingale. The Robin is surpassed by +certain birds in some particular qualities. The Mocking-bird has more +power, the Red Thrush more variety, the Vesper-bird more execution, and +the Bobolink more animation; but each of these birds has more faults +than the Robin, and would be less esteemed as a constant companion, a +vocalist for all hours, whose strains never tire and never offend. + +There are thousands who admire the Mocking-bird, because, after pouring +forth a continued stream of ridiculous and disagreeable sounds, or a +series of two or three notes repeated more than a hundred times in +uninterrupted and monotonous succession, he condescends to utter a +single delightfully modulated strain. He often brings his tiresome +_extravaganzas_ to a magnificent climax of melody, and just as often +concludes an inimitable chant with a most contemptible bathos. But the +notes of the Robin are all melodious, all delightful,--loud without +vociferation, mellow without monotony, fervent without ecstasy, and +combining more of mellowness of tone, plaintiveness, cheerfulness, and +propriety of execution, than those of any other bird. + +The Robin is the Philomel of our spring and summer mornings in New +England, and in all the country north and west of these States. Without +his sweet notes, the mornings would be like a vernal landscape without +flowers, or a summer-evening sky without tints. He is the chief +performer in the delightful anthem that welcomes the rising day. Of the +others, the best are but accompaniments of more or less importance. +Remove the Robin from this woodland orchestra, and it would be left +without a _soprano_. Over all the northern parts of this continent, +wherever there are any human settlements, these birds are numerous and +familiar. There is probably not an orchard in all New England that is +not supplied with several of these musicians. When we consider the +millions thus distributed over this broad country, we can imagine the +sublimity of that chorus which, from the middle of April until the last +of July, must daily ascend to heaven from the voices of these birds, +not one male of which is silent, on any pleasant morning, from the +earliest flush of dawn until sunrise. + +In my boyhood, an early morning-walk was one of my favorite +recreations, and never can I forget those delightful matins that +awaited me at every turn. Even then I wondered that so little +admiration was expressed for the song of the Robin, who seemed to me to +be worthy of the highest regard. The Robin, when reared in confinement, +is one of the most affectionate and interesting of birds. His powers of +song are likewise susceptible of great improvement. Though not prone to +imitation, he may be taught to sing tunes, and to imitate the notes of +other birds. I have heard one whistle "Over the water to Charlie" as +well as it could be played with a fife. Indeed, this bird is so +tractable, that I believe any well-directed efforts would never fail of +teaching him to sing any simple melody. + +But what do we care about his power of learning artificial music? Even +if he could be taught to perform like a _maestro_, this would not +enhance his value as a minstrel of the woods. We are concerned with the +birds only as they are in a state of nature. It is the simplicity of +the songs of birds, as I have before remarked, that constitutes their +principal charm; and were the Robins so changed in their nature as to +relinquish their native notes, and sing only tunes hereafter, we should +listen to them with as much indifference as to the whistling of boys in +the streets. + +In the elms on Boston Common, and in all the lofty trees in the suburbs +as well as in the country villages, are two little birds whose songs +are heard daily and hourly, from the middle of May until the latter +part of summer. These are the Warbling Fly-catchers (_Vireo gilvus and +V. olivaceus_). The first is commonly designated as the Warbling Vireo, +the second as the Red-eyed Vireo. The former arrives about a week or +ten days earlier than the other, and becomes silent likewise at a +somewhat earlier period. Both species are very similar in their habits, +frequenting the villages in preference to the woods, singing at all +hours of the day, particularly at noon, taking all their insect prey +from the leaves and branches of trees, or seizing it as it flits by +their perch, and amusing themselves, while thus employed, with +oft-repeated fragments of song. Each builds a pensile nest, or places +it in the fork of the slender branches of a tree. I have seen a nest of +the Warbling Vireo placed less than fifteen feet from the ground, on a +pear-tree, directly opposite the window of a chamber that was +constantly occupied; but the nests of both species are usually +suspended at a considerable height from the ground. + +The notes of the Warbling Vireo have been described by the words, +"Brigadier, Brigadier, Bridget." They are few, simple, and melodious, +and being often repeated, they form a very important part of the sylvan +music of cultivated and thickly-settled places. It is difficult to +obtain sight of this little warbler while he is singing, on account of +his small size, the olive color of his plumage, and his habit of +perching among the dense foliage of the trees. + +The Red-eyed Vireo is more generally known by his note, because he is +particularly vocal during the heat of the long summer-days, when other +birds are comparatively silent. The modulation of his notes is similar +to that of the common Robin, but his tones are sharper, and he sings in +a very desultory manner, leaving off very frequently in the middle of a +strain to seize a moth or a beetle. Singing, while he is engaged in +song, never seems to be his sole employment. This is the little bird +that warbles for us late in the summer, after almost all other birds +have become silent, uttering his moderate notes, as if for his own +amusement, during all the heat of the day, from the trees by the +roadsides and in our inclosures. We might then suppose him to be +repeating very moderately the words, "Do you hear me? Do you see me?" +with the rising inflection of the voice, and with a pause after each +sentence, as if he waited for an answer. + +As soon as the cherry-tree is in blossom, and when the oak and the +maple are beginning to unfold their plaited leaves, the loud and mellow +notes of the Golden Robin (_Icterus Baltimore_) are heard for the first +time in the year. I have never known the birds of this species to +arrive before this date, and they seem to be governed by the supply of +their insect food, which probably becomes abundant simultaneously with +the flowering of the orchards. These birds may from that time be +observed diligently hunting among the branches and foliage of the +trees, and they appear to make a particular examination of the +blossoms, from which they obtain a great variety of flies and beetles +that are lodged in them. While thus employed, the bird frequently +utters his brief, but loud and melodious notes; but he sings, like the +Vireo, only while attending to the wants of life. Almost all remarkable +singing-birds, when warbling, give themselves up entirely to song, and +pay no regard to other demands upon their time until they have +concluded. But the Golden Robin never relaxes from his industry, nor +remains stationed upon the branch of a tree for the sole purpose of +singing. He sings, like an industrious maid-of-all-work, only while +employed in the ordinary concerns of life. + +The Golden Robin is said to inhabit North America from Canada to +Mexico; but there is reason to believe that the species is most +abundant in the north-eastern parts of the continent, and that a +greater number breed in the New England States than either south or +west of this section. They are also more numerous in the suburbs of +cities and towns than in the ruder and more primitive parts of the +country. Their peculiar manner of protecting their pensile nests, by +hanging them from the extremities of the lofty branches of an elm or +other tall tree, enables the bird to rear its young with great +security, even in the heart of the city. The only animals that are able +to reach their nests are the smaller squirrels, which sometimes descend +the long, slender branches upon which they are suspended, and devour +the eggs. + +This depredation I have never witnessed; but I have seen the Red +Squirrel descend in this manner to devour the crysalis of a certain +insect, which was rolled up in a leaf. + +The ways and manners of the Golden Robin are very interesting. He is +remarkable for his vivacity, and his bright plumage renders all his +movements conspicuous. His plumage needs no description, since every +one is familiar with its colors, as they are seen like flashes of fire +among the trees. The bird derives its specific name (Baltimore) from +the resemblance of its colors to the livery of Lord Baltimore of +Maryland. The name of a bird ought to have either a sylvan or a poetic +origin. This has neither. I prefer, therefore, the common and +expressive name of Golden Robin. + +This bird is supposed to possess considerable power of musical +imitation. Still it may be observed that in all cases he gives the +notes of those birds only whose voice resembles his own. Thus, he often +repeats the song of the Red-bird, but in doing this he varies his own +notes no more than he might do without meaning any imitation. Though he +repeats but few notes, he utters them with great variety of modulation. +Sometimes for several days he confines himself to a single strain, and +afterwards for about an equal space of time he will adopt another +strain. Sometimes he lengthens his brief notes into an extended melody, +and sings in a sort of ecstasy, like the birds of the Finch tribe. Such +musical paroxysms are exceedingly rare in his case, and seem to be +occasioned by some momentary exultation. + +The Golden Robin rears but one brood of young in this part of the +country, and his cheerful notes are discontinued soon after the young +have left their nest. The song of the old bird seems after this period +hardly necessary to the offspring, who keep up an incessant chirping +from the moment of leaving their nest until they are able to accompany +the old ones to the woods, whither they retire in the latter part of +the season. It is remarkable, that, after a perfect silence of two or +three weeks after this time, the Golden Robins suddenly make their +appearance again for a few days, uttering the same merry notes with +which they hailed the arrival of summer. They soon disappear again, and +before autumn arrives they make their annual journey to the South, +where they pass the winter. + +There is no singing-bird in New England that enjoys the notoriety of +the Bobolink (_Icterus agripennis_). He is like a rare wit in our +social or political circles. Everybody is talking about him and quoting +his remarks, and all are delighted with his company. He is not without +great merits as a songster; but he is well known and admired, because +he is showy, noisy, and flippant, and sings only in the open field, and +frequently while poised on the wing, so that everybody who hears him +can see him, and know who is the author of the strains that afford him +so much delight. He sings also at broad noonday, when everybody is out, +and is seldom heard before sunrise, while other birds are pouring forth +their souls in a united concert of praise. He waits until the sun is +up, and when most of the early performers have become silent, as if +determined to secure a good audience before exhibiting his powers. + +The Bobolink, or Conquedle, has unquestionably great talents as a +musician. In the grand concert of Nature it is he who performs the +_recitative_ parts, which he delivers with the utmost fluency and +rapidity; and one must be a careful listener, not to lose many of his +words. He is plainly the merriest of all the feathered creation, almost +continually in motion, and singing upon the wing, apparently in the +greatest ecstasy of joy. + +There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound +is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him +without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his +companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon +him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his +spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. The object of his +love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a +modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel. It +is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her +costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces. +She must be entirely without vanity, unless we suppose that it is +gratified by observing the pomp and display which are made by her +partner, and by listening to his delightful eloquence of song: for if +we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed that he is unsurpassed +in fluency and rapidity of utterance; and if we regard him only as a +musician, he is unrivalled in brilliancy of execution. + +Vain are all attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly +original style. The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and +refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage. I cannot look +upon him as ever in a very serious humor. He seems to be a lively, +jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when +half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same +orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons +dramatized in some comic opera. These birds never remain stationary +upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary +amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often +commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an +apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part +while balancing themselves on the wing. The merriest part of the day +with these birds is the later afternoon, during the hour preceding +dewfall, and before the Robins and Thrushes commence their evening +hymn. Then, assembled in company, it would seem as if they were +practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own +movements, as he sallies forth and returns,--and nothing can exceed +their apparent merriment. + +The Bobolink usually commences his warbling just after sunrise, when +the Robin, having sung from the earliest dawn, brings his performance +to a close. Nature seems to have provided that the serious parts of her +musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, and that the +lively and comic strains shall follow them. In the evening this order +is reversed; and after the comedy is concluded, Nature lulls us to +meditation and repose by the mellow notes of the little Vesper-bird, +and the pensive and still more melodious strains of the solitary +Thrushes. + +In pleasant, sunshiny weather, the Bobolink seldom flies without +singing, often hovering on the wing over the place where his mate is +sitting upon her ground-built nest, and pouring forth his notes with +great loudness and fluency. The Bobolink is one of our social birds, +one of those species that follow in the footsteps of man, and multiply +with the progress of agriculture. He is not a frequenter of the woods; +he seems to have no taste for solitude. He loves the orchard and the +mowing-field, and many are the nests which are exposed by the scythe of +the haymaker, if the mowing be done early in the season. Previously to +the settlement of America, these birds must have been comparatively +rare in the New England States, and were probably confined to the open +prairies and savannas in the northwestern territory. + + +THE O'LINCON FAMILY. + + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there,--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week, and, ere you + marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and + wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + Oh, what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead! + How they sing, and how they play! See, they fly away, away! + Now they gambol o'er the clearing,--off again, and then appearing; + Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar, and now they sing:-- + "We must all be merry and moving; we must all be happy and loving; + For when the midsummer has come, and the grain has ripened its ear, + The haymakers scatter our young, and we mourn for the rest of the + year. + Then Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste, away!" + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE SONG-SPARROW, AND ITS VARIATIONS. Three +lines of music. Line one is labelled THEME. Line 2 is labelled Var. 1 +and line 3 is Var. 2.] + +[Illustration: (musical notation) NOTE.--The notes marked _guttural_ +seem to me to be performed by a rapid trilling of these notes with +their octave. It should be added, that no bird sings constantly in so +regular time as is represented above, and the intervals between the +high and low notes are very irregular. Both the time and the tune are +in great measure _ad libitum_] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE LINNET. (_Fringilla purpurea_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE WREN. (_Trogledytes fulvus_.) (musical +notation)] + +[Illustration: SONG OF THE ROBIN. (_Turdus migratorius_.) (musical +notation)] + +Another--Flexibly modulated, as if pronouncing the words below. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Tu lu lu, tu lu lu, tu lu lu, too loo. + +NOTE.--The Robin is continually varying his notes; so that the two +specimens, as given above, may be considered but the theme upon which +he constructs his melody. + +SONG OF THE WARBLING VIREO. (_V. Gilvus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] Brigadier Brigadier Brigadier Briget. + +SONG OF THE RED-EYED VIREO. (_V. olivaceus._) + +[Illustration: Musical staff] pauses to Take a fly. + +[Illustration: Musical staff] takes another, The same repeated without +conclusion. + +SONG OF THE GOLDEN ROBIN. (_Icterus Baltimore._) [Illustration: Musical +staff] + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles S. Paine, of East Randolph, who, I believe, +was the first to observe this habit of the Song-Sparrow.] + +[Footnote 2: Mr. Augustus Fowler of Danversport, who has made one of +the finest collections of the eggs of native birds. His drawings of the +same are beautifully executed, accompanied by representations of the +nests and of the foliage that surrounded them. This gentleman and his +brother, Mr. S.P. Fowler, have found leisure, during the intervals of +their occupation in a mechanical art, to acquire a knowledge of certain +branches of natural history which would do honor to a professor.] + + + +THE OLD WELL. + + +On a bright April morning many years ago, a stout, red-faced old +gentleman, Geoffrey Purcill, followed by several workmen bearing +shovels and pick-axes, took his way to a little knoll on which stood a +wide-spreading chestnut-tree. When they reached the top of the knoll, +the old man paused a moment and then struck his gold-headed cane upon +the ground at some little distance from the trunk of the tree, saying, +"Dig here." + +The workmen looked at each other and then at their master. + +"It would be useless to dig a well here, Sir," said one of the workmen, +very respectfully,--"no water would ever come into it." + +"Who asked for your opinion?" inquired Geoffrey, in an angry tone. "Do +as I bid you;--the well shall be digged here, and water _shall_ come +into it." + +The man ventured no further remonstrance; he took off his jacket, and +struck his pickaxe into the hard, dry soil near the point where the +cane rested. + +Geoffrey Purcill was a choleric old gentleman, who, having had his own +way all his life, was by no means inclined to forego that privilege now +that he was advanced in years. As he sat beneath the chestnut-tree, one +warm spring day, he felt very thirsty, and he suddenly thought what a +good thing it would be to have a well there, so that he might refresh +himself with a draught of clear, cool water, without the trouble of +returning to the house. The more thirsty he grew, the pleasanter seemed +the project to him,--a large, deep well, neatly stoned, with a sweep +and buckets,--it would be a pretty object to look at, as well as +comfort to man and beast. The well should be digged forthwith, and what +Geoffrey Purcill once resolved upon he was not slow to execute; and, +despite the remonstrances of those who knew better than he, the work +was commenced at once. + +A more unpromising place for a well could not have been selected in all +his extensive grounds; but he was not a man to be patiently baffled +even by Nature herself, and he stood looking with grim satisfaction at +the hole which rapidly widened and deepened under the vigorous efforts +of his sturdy workmen. + +Day after day old Geoffrey watched his workmen on the knoll. The well +increased in size till it was large enough to have watered a whole +caravan,--but the desert of Sahara itself was not drier. Geoffrey +fumed, raved, and swore; and when two of the men were killed by the +falling of the earth, and the rest absolutely refused to work any +longer, he bade them go, a pack of ungrateful scoundrels as they were, +and, procuring more laborers, declared "he would dig there till the +Devil came to fetch him." + +Geoffrey was as good as his word;--he labored with a pertinacity worthy +of a better object, and dug deeper into the bowels of the earth, and +partly stoned his well,--but no water, save that which fell from +heaven, ever appeared in it. + +And when old Geoffrey was gathered to his fathers, he left his house +and grounds to his only daughter, Eleanor Purcill, on the express +condition that the well was not to be filled up, but to remain open +till water did come into it. + + * * * * * + +One July day, when Geoffrey Purcill had been some twenty years with his +fathers, or with Satan, (which two destinies might have been one and +the same, after all, for he came of a turbulent, wicked race,) two +children, a boy and girl, sat on the brink of the well and looked down +into it. It was half filled with the rubbish of the fallen stones, but +it was still deep, and dark enough to tempt their curious eyes into +trying to discover what lay hidden in its shadowy depths. The great +chestnut-tree, rich with drooping, feathery blossoms, shaded them from +the burning sun,--a few stray beams only finding their way through the +glossy leaves, and resting on the golden curls of the girl. + +The boy leaned over the well, and peered into it;--the little girl bent +forward, as if to do the same, but drew back again. + +"Take hold of my hand, Mark," said she, "and let me lean over as you +do." + +"What do you want to look in for?" asked the boy,--"there is nothing to +see. Oh, yes," continued he, mischievously, "there is a horrid dragon, +just such as St. George fought with, lying all curled up in the bottom +of the well, with fire and smoke coming out of his mouth." + +Rosamond Purcill was too true a descendant of old Geoffrey to be +frightened at the thought of a dragon. She caught hold of Mark's arm to +steady herself, and leaned over the well. + +"Let me see! let me see!" cried she, eagerly. + +Mark made one or two feints of pushing her in, but at last held her +firmly by the waist, while she looked in vain for the fabulous monster +below. + +"Where is he, Mark? I don't see anything, and I don't believe you saw +him." + +"Oh, yes, I did," said Mark;--"there, don't you see the end of his tail +sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little +girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for +luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up in a +minute." + +"What stories, Mark! Aunt Eleanor says there are no dragons, nor ever +were." + +"Pooh!" retorted Mark, contemptuously,--"Aunt Eleanor has not seen +everything that there is to be seen in the world. Look again, Rosy." + +Again the little curly head was bent over the well, somewhat puzzled +which to believe, Aunt Eleanor or Mark, but half-inclined to credit +Mark's eyes rather than Aunt Eleanor's words. + +"Do you think that can be one of his scales?" asked she, pointing to a +small piece of tin which glittered in a stray sunbeam among the stones. + +Mark's eyes followed the direction of her finger, and he was about to +declare that it must be a scale that the dragon had scraped off his +back, wriggling among the stones, when both children were startled by a +loud voice calling out, "What are you doing, children? You will fall +into the well and break your good-for-nothing little necks!" + +Mark and Rosamond drew back, and saw a young man, their brother +Bradford, with a basket and a fishing-rod in his hand, coming up the +knoll. + +"Why are you here, Mark?" asked he. "Aunt Eleanor thinks it a dangerous +place, and has forbidden you to play here." + +Mark looked up at his brother. "I come," said he, sturdily, "for that +very reason,--because I am told not to. I won't mind Aunt Eleanor, nor +any other woman." + +Bradford shook his head and burst out into a laugh. "Ah, Mark, my boy," +said he, with a serious, comical air, "it will do very well for you to +talk,--you will find out, sooner or later, that all men have to do just +what women wish." + +Mark opened his incredulous eyes, and inwardly resolved that this +should never be the case with him; and considering that Bradford was +only eighteen it is somewhat remarkable that he should have gained so +much wisdom, either by observation or experience, at so early an age. + +"Mark says," chimed in Rosamond, "that there is a dragon at the bottom +of the well; and I want to see him." + +"A dragon?" cried Bradford,--"Mark is a story-teller, and you are a +goose;--but if there is one, I will catch him for you";--and he stood +on the brink of the well, and sportively threw his line into it. + +"You are a pretty fellow to talk about catching a dragon, Brad!" +retorted Mark, a little nettled at the tone in which Bradford spoke of +him,--"you can't even catch a shiner!"--and he glanced at Bradford's +empty basket. + +Bradford laughed louder than before. "And for that very reason I expect +to catch the dragon. One kind of a line will not catch all kinds of +fish; and this line may be good for nothing but dragons, after +all.--There! I've got a bite. Stand back, Rosy," cried he, "the dragon +will be on the grass in a minute." + +Bradford tried to pull up his line, but it was either entangled among +the stones, or had some heavy object attached to it, for the rod bent +beneath the weight as he with a strong pull endeavored to draw up his +prize. Rosamond's eyes opened to their widest extent, and, fully +expecting to see the dragon swinging wide-mouthed in the air over her +head, drew a little closer to Mark, who, on his part, wondered what +Bradford was at, and whether he was not playing some trick upon him. + +When the end of the line rose to the top of the well, they saw +suspended by the two hooks, not a winged, scaly monster, but a small +rusty box, in the fastenings of which the hooks had caught. + +Rosamond drew a long breath,--"Is that all, Bradford? I am so sorry! I +thought, to be sure, you had the dragon." + +"Never mind the dragon, Rosy," cried he; "let us see what I have +caught. + +"Who knows but the purse of Fortunatus or the slipper of Cinderella may +be in here?--they have been lost for many a day, and nobody knows where +they are." + +Bradford knelt down on the grass, and, unhooking his line, strove to +undo the rusty hasp; but it resisted all the efforts of his fingers, +and it was only by the aid of a knife and a stone that he opened the +box. In it was a morocco case, much discolored, but still in tolerable +preservation, from which he drew a small manuscript book. + +Rosamond's disappointment was greater than before. "It is nothing but a +writing-book, after all," said she. "I wish you had not said anything +about the purse or slipper, and then I should never have thought of +them. You never heard anybody say where they thought the purse and +slipper were hid,--did you?" + +"Come, Rosy," cried Mark, "come down to the meadow; there is nothing +more to be got out of the old well. Let us leave Brad alone with his +book and his fish." + +The children turned away towards the meadow,--Rosamond meditating upon +the probability of her ever finding the purse and slipper, if she +should ever set out in quest of them, and Mark thinking what a fool +such a big fellow as Bradford must be, to mind any woman that ever was +born. + +Bradford took the box and the book to the chestnut-tree, and, +stretching himself at full length in the shade, began to turn over the +leaves. It was a journal, written in a delicate, graceful hand; and +though the paper was somewhat yellow, and the ink faded, the writing +was perfectly legible. Bradford looked at it, carelessly reading here +and there a sentence, till his eye catching some familiar names, he +opened it at the commencement, and read as follows:-- + +"_December_ 31.--It is the last night of the old year. A few more +steps, and the old year will have vanished into the great hall of the +Past, where all the ages that ever have been are gathered. I have been +sitting the last hour by myself, and have fancied that time moved not +with its usual swiftness,--that the old year lingered with a sad +regret, as if loath to pass away and let the new come in. Even now the +midnight clock is striking,--eleven,--twelve;--the last flutter of the +old year's robe is out of sight, and the new year glides in with +noiseless feet, like one who enters the chamber of the dead. These are +but melancholy fancies;--because I am sad myself must I put all the +world in mourning? The old year did not linger;--it is only I that am +loath to go. I have been so happy here, that the prospect of spending +the coming year with Cousin Eleanor fills my mind with sad +forebodings;--and yet my childish remembrances of her have in them +nothing unpleasant. I think of her as a grave, quiet woman, who never +strove to attract and win the love of a child. How I shall miss the +life and gayety, the jests and laughter of Madge and Bertha! Madge the +more, because she is so full of whims and oddities. To-night she came +into my room, and brought this little book for me to write a journal of +all that befell me while I was gone, making me promise to write often +in it. Not that she ever wished to see it again. Heaven forbid that she +should ever be so cruelly punished as to be made to read anybody's +journal!--least of all such a stupid one as mine must be, shut up with +Cousin Eleanor!--but she thought that I could never draw the book from +the case (she had chosen one that fitted very tightly, and would give +me much trouble for that very reason) without thinking of her;--and to +be thought of often by her friends she confesses she is weak enough to +wish.--Dear Madge, I could not forget her, if I would. The book just +fits in a little japanned box that belonged to my grandmother, in which +she used to keep rouge and pearl-powder. I will keep it in that, and +remember my promise to Madge. + +"_February_ 21.--The journey is over, and I am at Cousin Eleanor's. How +the evils that we dread shrink into nothing when we fairly meet them! +Cousin Eleanor received me kindly, and looked neither so grave nor so +cold as my memory, assisted by my imagination, had pictured her; and +Ashcroft is a pretty place, even in midwinter. I am never tired of +sitting at the library-window, and looking at the bare branches of the +black ash-trees, as they spread out their network against the winter +sky. I have a little desk near the bay-window, where I have my drawing +and writing materials, and where I pretend to write and draw, while +Eleanor occupies a larger one at the opposite window. Eleanor is a +woman of business,--keeps all her accounts, looks after her farm and +servants, and manages all her own affairs, and, though a strict and +exacting mistress, is neither harsh nor unkind;--she evidently intends +to perform all her own duties punctually and faithfully, and expects +others to do the same. I often look at her with wonder, her nature is +so different from mine,--never impulsive, always cool and steady,--full +of ceaseless activity, yet never hurried, and seemingly never +perplexed. I sometimes think she sees the whole of her life mapped out +before her, and takes up every event in order. With the exception of +the servants, we are the only occupants of the house, Eleanor does not +seek nor desire the society of her neighbors; and so while she works I +dream, read, or answer Madge or Bertha's letters. + +"_February_ 28.--It has been snowing ceaselessly for two days. I have +read, drawn, and sewed till I am as weary as Marianna in the moated +grange. I have yawned aloud a dozen times, but Eleanor does not mind +it. She has been extremely busy with accounts, papers, and letters. For +the last four hours I do not think she has spoken a word. I hear +nothing but the scratch of her pen as it moves over the paper, and the +wind in the ash-trees. I have taken Madge's journal in despair. Ah, +Madge! I wish the bonnie girl were here;--how we would talk nonsense by +the hour together, just to keep our tongues in practice, and Madge +would hunt down an idea through all its turnings and windings, as if it +were a hare, and she a dog in chase of it! A ring at the door;--I hope +it may be some human body that will make Cousin Eleanor open her lips +at last. + +"_March_ 1.--The blots on the opposite page show with what haste I shut +up my journal yesterday. The ring at the door brought more than I +anticipated, and opened my eyes effectually for the rest of the day. +'Mr. Lee,' said the servant, throwing the library-door wide open, and +ushering in a man wrapped in a cloak, with a travelling-cap in his +hand. Cousin Eleanor rose instantly, and advanced to meet him. I +expected to see her extend her hand towards him, and welcome him in her +usual courteous manner. Instead of that, she gave him a hearty kiss, +which could be heard as well as felt, and which was returned, as I +thought, with interest. If the marble Widow Wadman in the library had +kissed the sympathizing face of Uncle Toby, I should not have been so +much surprised, and should have thought it much more likely to happen. + +"'I am very glad to see you, Thornton,' said she. 'I did not think you +could come till to-morrow.' + +"'I have made the best use of my time,' returned he, 'and had no wish +to spend my precious hours at a country inn. It seemed good to see +winter and snow again, after so many months of summer.' + +"Bending forward to catch a better view of him as he spoke, the +rustling of my dress reminded Eleanor of my presence. + +"'My cousin Elizabeth Purcill, Thornton Lee,' said she. 'My two good +friends I hope will also be friends to each other.' + +"Mr. Lee made me a gentlemanly bow, and said something about the +pleasure of seeing me; but more than suspecting that my presence in the +library was no pleasure to either of them, I shut up my journal, +crowded it into the box, and stole out of the room at the first +convenient opportunity. On the stairs I met Mrs. Bickford, the +housekeeper. + +"'Is any one in the library with Miss Purcill?' asked she. + +"'Yes,--a Mr. Lee.' + +"'Mr. Lee?' exclaimed she, in surprise. 'I did not know as he was +expected home now.' + +"'Who is Mr. Lee?' + +"'He is the gentleman whom Miss Purcill is to marry; but I thought he +was not coming till autumn. I wonder if she knew it.' + +"What Eleanor knows she always keeps to herself; none of her household +are any the wiser for it. I was more surprised than Mrs. Bickford. +Eleanor affianced! I never thought or dreamed of such a thing. Eleanor +in love must be a curious spectacle. I did not feel sleepy any longer. +What could a woman, so independent, so self-relying, so sufficient for +herself, want of a lover? She always seemed to be a whole, and did not +need another half to complete herself. I speculated much on the +subject, and, when the bell rang for tea, went down-stairs with +something of the same feeling of eager curiosity with which I open the +pages of a good novel. There is nothing so interesting to idle, +observant people as a pair of lovers, provided they are not silly, in +which stage they are perfectly unbearable, and never should suffer +themselves to be seen even by their intimate friends. Was it my fancy, +or not? I thought Eleanor had grown young since I left the library. A +soft light beamed in her eyes, and a clear crimson--the first trace of +color I had ever seen in her face--burned on her cheek. It was a very +different countenance from that at which I had been casting sidelong +glances half the day, and yet it seemed to me that she was ashamed of +these signs of joy, and thought it but a weakness to feel so glad. I +sat silent nearly all the evening;--words always come more readily to +my pen than to my lips, and, were it not so, there would have been no +occasion for any speech of mine. Their conversation flowed on +uninterruptedly, like a full, free river, whose current is strong and +deep. How much richer both their lives seemed than mine! He had +travelled, thought, seen, and felt so much, and had brought such wealth +home with him, fitly coined into aptly chosen words; and she had +gathered treasures as priceless from the literature of her own and +foreign lands. I had nothing to offer either of them but my ears, and +for those I doubt whether they felt grateful,--and when that doubt +became a certainty, I crept into the great window in the drawing-room, +and looked out upon the lawn. The moon, breaking through the clouds, +shone brightly on the new-fallen snow. I sat down on a low chair,--the +curtains fell about me,--their voices came to me with a low, dreamy +sound,--I leaned my head on my hand, and fell asleep. When I awoke, the +fire had died away, and the chairs were empty. + +"_March_ 20.--Mr. Lee comes every day. His father lives only a few +miles from us,--a distance so short as to be no obstacle to a lover +with a good horse; though I suspect, if the horse could speak, he would +wish the distance either less or greater. These midnight rides must be +detrimental to the constitution of any steady horse, and he often wakes +me up at night, pawing impatiently under the window while his master is +making his lingering adieux on the door-step. + +"_April_ 1.--I dislike Eleanor more every day. I know not why, unless +because I watch her so closely. When Mr. Lee is not here she works as +industriously as ever. If I were in love, I would give myself up to a +dream or reverie now and then, and build myself an air-castle, if it +were only to see it tumble down, and call myself a fool for my pains; +but she is too matter-of-fact to do that. Well, if there is not much +romance about her love, perhaps there is more reality; yet Thornton Lee +is just the man one could make an ideal of, if one only would. But this +is not what I especially dislike her for; people must love according to +their own nature and temperament, and not after another's pattern. The +thing that frets me most just now is the way that Eleanor has of +divining my thoughts before they are spoken, and even before they are +quite clear to myself. Sometimes, when we are talking together, some +subject comes up on which I do not care to express my opinion. Eleanor +fixes her clear, penetrating eyes upon me, and drags my thought out +into the light, just as a kingfisher pounces upon and pulls a fish out +of the water. Had I anything to conceal, any secret, I should be afraid +of her; and as it is, I do not like this invasion of my personal +kingdom,--though my thoughts often acquire new strength and beauty from +Eleanor's strong and vigorous language. Last evening, Mr. Lee, Eleanor, +and myself were turning over the prints in a large portfolio. We paused +at one, the Departure of Hagar into the Wilderness. The artist had +represented Hagar turning away from the door of the tent with Ishmael +and the bottle of water; Abraham was near her; while Sarah in the +background with a triumphant face exulted at the driving out of the +bondmaid. The picture had not much merit as a work of Art; but in +Hagar's face was such a look of despairing, wistful tenderness, as she +turned towards Abraham for the last time, that it moved me almost to +tears. I drew a long breath as the picture was turned over. Looking up, +I saw Eleanor's eyes fixed upon me. + +"'You pity Hagar, then? You think it was a harsh and cruel thing to +drive her out into the wilderness with her child?' + +"'Yes,' said I, shortly,--a little provoked that she should have seen +it in my face. + +"She went on: 'Sarah was right. Had I been she, I would have driven her +out as remorselessly and as pitilessly. Did she not, presuming upon her +youth, her beauty, and her child, despise her mistress? and why should +her mistress feel compassion for her? The love of a long life might +well thrust aside the passion of a few months, and Sarah, contemned by +her bondmaid, is more worthy of pity than Hagar, in my eyes.' + +"I was about to say that Sarah was more to blame for Hagar's conduct +than she was herself, when Mr. Lee observed 'that Abraham was more to +be pitied than either of them, for he was unable or unwilling to +protect either of the women whom he loved,--his wife from the contempt +of her bondmaid, or the bondmaid from the fury of his wife.' + +"I fancied Eleanor did not exactly like this remark, for she turned to +the next print hastily and began commenting upon it. + +"_May_ 6.--The groves and fields are beautiful with the fresh beauty of +the early spring. We have given up our winter occupations for long +rambles on the hills and in the woods. I sometimes decline being a +third in the lovers' walks; but Eleanor seems so dissatisfied, if I +refuse to accompany them, that I consent, lagging behind often, and +have learned to be both blind and deaf as occasion requires. I think, +too, that Mr. Lee is not sorry to have me with them. He and Eleanor +have been separated for three years, and I sometimes wonder if they +have not grown away from each other in that time. A long absence is a +dangerous experiment even for friends, much more for lovers. Besides, +no life is long enough to allow such great gaps in it. + +"_June_ 1.--We were sitting yesterday under the ash-trees on the +lawn,--Eleanor netting, Mr. Lee reading Dante aloud, and I making +myself rings and bracelets out of the shining blades of grass, and +pretending to listen, when a servant brought Eleanor a letter. It was +very short, for she did not turn the leaf. When she had read it she +drew out her watch. + +"'I have an hour before the express-train starts. Tell Mrs. Bickford to +pack my trunk for a journey. Harness the black horse to drive to the +station.' + +"She put the letter into Mr. Lee's hands. 'My brother is very ill, and +I shall go to him at once. Elizabeth, I am sorry to leave you here +alone, but while I am gone I hope Thornton will consider you under his +charge and protection.' + +"She rose, as she spoke, and went towards the house, followed by +Thornton. + +"In a few minutes she appeared again, dressed in a gray +travelling-dress,--kissed me lightly on the check, and bade me +good-bye. All her preparations for this long journey had been made +without any hurry or confusion, and she did not apparently feel so +agitated or nervous at the thought of travelling this distance alone as +I should to have gone by myself to the nearest town. Why Thornton did +not accompany her, whether he could not or she did not wish it, I do +not know; but he parted from her at the station, and soon returned for +his horse. + +"_July_ 1.--Eleanor has been gone a month; in that time we have +received but one letter from her. Her brother still lies in a very +critical state, and she will not leave him at present. His motherless +children, too, she thinks require her care. It seemed very lonesome at +first without her. I did not think I could have missed an uncongenial +person, one with whom I had so little sympathy, so much. I think I must +belong to the tribe of creeping plants, which cling to whatever is +nearest to them. Ashcroft grows daily more beautiful, and Thornton +comes often to see me. We read together books that I like, (not Dante,) +walk and sketch. We are on excellent terms, and call each other Cousin +in view of our future relationship. I can talk more freely to him, now +that Eleanor is not here,--and feel no disposition to hide my thoughts, +now that I can keep them to myself, if I choose. + +"_July_ 24.--A week ago, one fair midsummer afternoon, we strolled to +the knoll, and sat down under the blossoming boughs of the +chestnut-tree. + +"'I think,' said I, 'this is the pleasantest place in all the grounds; +but Eleanor never seemed willing to come here.' + +"'Eleanor has many unpleasant remembrances connected with the place,' +replied Thornton. 'Her father's obstinate persistence in digging the +well was a great annoyance to the whole household, and, unimaginative +as Eleanor is, I fancy sometimes, from her avoidance of the spot, that +she has some superstitious idea connected with the well,--that she +fears through it some great misfortune may happen to some of the +family.' + +"'I hardly see how that can be,' said I, rising and going to the brink +of the well; 'it is very deep, but there was never any water in it.' + +"Just then I caught sight of a little flower growing out of the cleft +of one of the stones. I knelt down and bent over to reach it. I +slipped, I know not how, and should have fallen, had not Thornton +sprung to my side and caught me. + +"'Ah, my foolish cousin!' said he, 'there needs not to be water in the +well to make it a dangerous place. Promise me that you will not attempt +such a thing again.' + +"'Not I,' said I, laughing gayly to conceal my fright,--for I did think +I was about to break my neck on the stones below. 'There is no harm +done, and I have got what I was after,'--and I held up the flower. + +"It was an ugly little thing, and looked not half so pretty in my hand +as it did in the shadow of the well. I would not have gathered it, had +I seen it growing by the roadside. 'Is it not pretty?' + +"'Humph!' said he, 'very!--worth breaking one's neck for!' + +"'I was about to offer it to you, but, since you despise it, I will +keep it myself,'--and I stuck it into my hair. + +"Some time after, I missed the flower. I did not see it on the grass, +but a leaf strangely similar peeped out of Thornton's waistcoat-pocket. +When we passed by the well, on leaving the knoll, 'Promise me,' said he +again, 'that you will not reach over the well for flowers any more.' + +"I was a little irritated at his pertinacity. 'I shall do no such +thing,' returned I; 'you are growing as superstitious as Eleanor. On +the contrary, I think I shall make a garden there and tend it every +day; and whenever I go away from Ashcroft, I will leave something on +the stone for you, to show how idle your fears are.' + +"Thornton did not answer. He was provoked, but showed his anger only by +his silence. We sauntered back to the house in a different mood from +that in which we had left it. + +"_August_ 4.--Thornton came into the library to-day with a letter from +Eleanor. She cannot leave her brother, and wrote to Thornton about some +papers that she wished sent to her without delay. They were in the +drawer of the desk at which I was sitting. Thornton said he was in +haste, as he wished to prepare the packet for the next mail. I rose at +once. In his hurry he knocked the little japanned box on to the floor. +Begging pardon for his awkwardness, he picked it up, and looked at it a +moment to assure himself that it had suffered no damage. + +"'It is a curious little thing,' said he, 'and looks as if it were a +hundred years old.' + +"'It belonged once to my grandmother, and held pearl-powder and rouge,' +said I. + +"'And is used for the same purpose now?' inquired he. + +"'Yes,' returned I, my cheek reddening a little. 'I was just putting +some on as you entered.' + +"'It must be very uncommon rouge,' remarked he, quietly fixing his eyes +on me; 'it grows red after it is put on, and must require much care in +the use of it.' + +"'I thought you were in a great hurry, Thornton, when you came in.' + +"'And so I am';--and he began undoing and separating papers, but every +few moments he would steal a glance--a glance that made me feel +uneasy--towards me, as I sat at the other window busying myself with my +needle. + +"_August_ 25.--I wish Eleanor would come home. I sometimes think I will +go away; but to leave Ashcroft now would imply a doubt of Thornton's +honor, and impute thoughts to him which perhaps have no existence but +in my vanity. + +"_October_ 3.--Ah, why was I so foolish? Why did I not go when I saw the +danger so clearly, instead of cheating myself into the belief that +there was none? Would that I had never come to Ashcroft, or had had the +courage to leave it! These last six weeks, I do not know, I cannot +tell, how they have been spent. Thornton was ever by my side, and +I--did not wish him away. We sat this afternoon on the lawn under the +great ash-tree,--the one under which he sat reading Dante to Eleanor +the last day she was with us. The love which had burned in his eyes all +day found utterance at last, and flamed out in fiery, passionate words. +He drew me towards him. His vehemence frightened me, and I muttered +something about Eleanor. It checked him for a moment, but, quickly +recovering, he spoke freely of himself and of her,--of the love which +had existed between them,--a feeling so feeble and so poor, compared to +that which he felt for me, as to be unworthy of the name. He entreated, +he implored my love. I was silent. He bent over me, gazing into my +face. There was a traitor lurking in my heart, which looked out of my +eyes, and spoke without my consent. He understood that language but too +well. I bent my eyes upon the ground,--his arm was around my waist, his +hand clasped mine, his lips approached my cheek. A shadow seemed +suddenly to come between me and the sun. I looked up and saw Eleanor, +clad in mourning, standing before us. I started at once to my feet, +and, like the coward that I am, fled and left them together. I ran down +to the old hawthorn-tree, against which I leaned, panting and +trembling. Yet, in a few moments, ashamed of my weakness, I stole back +to where I could see them unobserved. Eleanor stood upon the same spot, +calm and motionless. Thornton was speaking, but I was too far off to +hear more than the sound of his voice. When he had ended, he approached +her, as if to bid her adieu; but she passed him with a stately bow, and +entered the hall-door. Thornton took his way to the stables, and I soon +heard the clattering of his horse's hoofs on the hard gravelled road. +When the sound died away in the distance, I stole into the house and +crept up to my chamber. How long I was there I could not tell; but when +I heard the bell ring for tea, I washed my face and smoothed my hair. +I would not be so cowardly as to fear to see Eleanor again, and perhaps +it would be better for us both to meet in the presence of a third +person. + +"Mrs. Bickford was alone at the table. 'Miss Purcill would not come +down tonight,--she was fatigued with her journey.' + +"The good lady strove to entertain me with her conversation, but, +finding that I neither heard, answered, nor ate, our meal was soon +brought to a close. It is long past midnight. I have thought till I am +sick and giddy with thinking. I cannot sleep, and have been writing +here to control the wildness of my imaginings. I have been twice to +Eleanor's chamber. The door is half ground-glass, and I can see her +black shadow as she walks to and fro across the room. She has been +walking so ever since she entered it. + +"_October_ 4.--What shall I do? Where shall I go? All night and all day +Eleanor has walked her chamber-floor. I have been to the door. I have +knocked. I have called her by name. I have turned the handle,--the door +is locked. No answer comes to me,--nothing but the black shadow +flitting across the panes. I sat down by the threshold and burst into +tears. + +"Mrs. Bickford found me there. 'Do not grieve so, Miss Elizabeth,' said +she, kindly. 'It is dreadful, I know; but Miss Purcill walked the floor +all night after her father died, and would admit no one to her room. +She will be better to-morrow.' + +"I shook my head. Could I believe that grief for the dead, and not +sorrow for the conduct of the living, moved her thus, I should be +happy. Then I could offer consolation and sympathy; but now, if I saw +her, what could I say? Pity, sorrow for her grief, would be but idle +words, which she would spurn with contempt,--and she would be right. +There is but one thing left for me,--I must go from Ashcroft; then, +perhaps, she and Thornton--But no, it cannot be; so wide asunder, they +cannot come together again. And do I wish it? Is not his love as much +mine now as it ever was hers? Ah, how some words once spoken cannot be +forgotten! Before me now is the little picture of Hagar, which Eleanor +had framed and hung in the library. Did she place it before my eyes as +a warning to me? In Hagar's fate I see my own; for even now I hear +Eleanor asking if the passion of a few hours is to thrust aside the +love of long years. The bondmaid will go ere she is driven out. But +Thornton--I cannot, will not, see him again. He has written to me +to-day, saying that he cannot come here, and asking me to meet him at +the well to-morrow. By that time I shall be far on my way to Madge. He +will wait for me, and I shall not come. How can I leave him thus? He +will believe me heartless and cruel. I grieve even now for his pain and +grief. He will think that I did not love, but only sported with him. +How dearly I love him words cannot tell; and I go that his way may be +smoother, and that in my absence he may find--peace at last. A little +dried flower lies on the page that I turned. It is one of those that +grew in the well, that I wore on my bosom one day, that he might see +and know it, and chide me for having been there again. His chiding was +sweeter to me than others' praise. I will not be so unjust to myself. I +will not go without one word. I jestingly told him once I would leave a +token for him on the stone in the well when I went away from Ashcroft. +I will put my journal there. He will see the box and remember it. He +will learn that I have gone, and will know that I love, but that I +leave and renounce him." + + * * * * * + +The remaining pages of the book were blank. Elizabeth Purcill's journal +was ended. Bradford was busy with conjectures. Why had not Thornton +found and kept the journal intended for him? Had it fallen at once to +the bottom of the well, and lain there for years, while he waited in +vain for her coming or her token? Her departure had not brought Eleanor +Purcill and Thornton Lee together; for his aunt still remained +unwedded, and he came every Sunday to the village church, with a sweet +matronly-faced woman on his arm, and two children by his side. + +Bradford thrust the journal into his pocket, took up his fishing-rod +and basket, and sauntered towards the village. He thought he remembered +the name of Elizabeth Purcill on a head-stone in the church-yard. He +opened the little wicket and went in. The setting sun threw the long +shadows of the head-stones across the thick, rank grass. The sounds of +the village children at play on the green came to his ear softened and +mellowed by the distance. + +He turned towards the spot where, year after year, the Purcills had +been gathered,--those who had died in their beds in their native town, +and those who had perished in far-off climes, and whose bones had been +brought to moulder by the old church-wall. He found the stone, and, +bending down, read, "Elizabeth Purcill, died Oct. 5th, 18--, aged 19." +Bradford opened the journal and looked at the last date. She had died, +then, the day after the journal was ended. But how, and where? + +He sat down on the flat stone which covered his grandfather, and turned +over the pages again, as if they could tell him more than he already +knew. So absorbed was he, that he did not see a woman who a few minutes +afterwards knelt down before the same stone, and with a sickle began to +cut away the weeds and grass. + +Bradford looked up at last, and, as the woman raised her head for an +instant, saw that it was Mrs. Bickford. He approached her and called +her by name. She gave a little start, as she heard his voice. + +"Why, Master Bradford, who would have thought of seeing you here at +this time?" + +Bradford smiled. "Whose grave is this that you are taking such pains to +clear?" + +She pointed to the name with her sickle. + +"Yes, I know all that that can tell me. But who was Elizabeth +Purcill?--what relation was she to me?--and how came she to die so +young, and to be buried here?" + +"Why do you think I should know?" she replied. "People often die young; +and no matter where the Purcills die, they all wish to come here at +last;--that one died in Cuba,--that in France,--that in Greece,--and +that at sea." And she turned her hand towards them, as she spoke. + +"But you do not care for their graves; look, how the grass and weeds +nod over that tombstone; and you would not clear this, unless you knew +something about the girl that lies underneath it." + +"It is an old story," said she, with a sigh, "and I can tell you but +little of it." She laid her sickle down on the cut grass and sat down +by it. + +"Elizabeth Purcill was the daughter of your grandfather's brother, and +therefore your father's cousin. Long as I have lived in the family, I +never saw him; for he went to India, while a young man, to seek a +fortune, which was found too late to benefit either himself or his +children. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, was sent home for her +education, and lived first with one of her kinsfolk, and then another, +as her father's whims or their convenience dictated. You remember, +though so young, when your Aunt Eleanor came to your father's house on +her way to your Uncle Erasmus in his last illness?" + +Bradford nodded. + +"A little before that time Elizabeth Purcill came to Ashcroft. She was +a pretty, lively girl, and it was pleasant to see in our sober +household one who had time to be idle and could laugh. Your Aunt +Eleanor was always a busy woman,--busier then than she is now,--and had +no time for mirth. Every servant in the house liked Miss Elizabeth for +her sunny smile and her pleasant ways. Shortly afterwards, Thornton Lee +came home. He had been three years in Africa, and he and your aunt were +to be married in the autumn. + +"When Miss Purcill went away, Mr. Lee remained, and came often to see +Miss Elizabeth. She had a winsome face, that few men could look upon +and not love; and I sometimes thought, when I saw them together, how +much better she was suited to Mr. Lee than your Aunt Eleanor, and +wondered if he had not found it out himself. Your aunt was away a long +time, and, by some mistake, the letter, saying that she was coming +home, did not reach us till the day after her arrival. + +"It was a beautiful October afternoon. I had been gathering the grapes +that grew on the garden wall, and was carrying a basket of them to Miss +Elizabeth, whom I had seen, half an hour before, with Mr. Lee, on the +lawn. As I was crossing the hall, Miss Purcill, dressed in deep +mourning, looking ghastly pale, entered the front door. I started as if +I had seen a ghost, and dropped my basket. Miss Eleanor passed me +quickly and went up-stairs. I spoke to her. She did not answer, but, +entering her chamber, fastened the door behind her. + +"I looked out of the window. No one was on the lawn; but presently I +saw Mr. Lee coming out of the stable, leading his horse. He mounted and +was out of sight in an instant. Miss Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. +What had happened I could not tell. I could only guess. + +"Miss Elizabeth was the only one who came to tea, and her eyes were +heavy and dull, and she seemed like one in a dream. That night was a +wretched one to both. When I went to the library to see if the windows +were fastened for the night, Miss Elizabeth sat by the smouldering fire +with her face buried in her hands. I shut the door softly and left her, +and till I slept I heard Miss Eleanor's steps across her chamber-floor. + +"The day was no better than the night. Miss Purcill did not leave her +room, and her cousin wandered about the house, as if her thoughts would +not let her rest. Once I found her in tears at your aunt's door, and +tried to console her; but she shook her head impatiently, as if I could +not understand the cause of her grief. + +"The next morning, while I was dressing, my niece Sally came to me in +great haste, saying that Roger, the gardener, wished to see me at once. +I hurried on my clothes and went down. I knew by the man's face that +something dreadful had happened; but when he told me that he had been +to the old well, and had found Miss Elizabeth lying dead at the bottom +of it, I felt as if I was stunned. + +"I roused myself at last. I ran to Miss Purcill's door. I shook it +violently and called her by name. She came and opened the door in her +night-dress. Somehow, I know not and cared not how, for it seemed to me +that she had something to do with all this, I told her that her Cousin +Elizabeth was lying dead at the bottom of the old well. She staggered +and leaned against the door like one who had received a heavy blow. For +a moment I repented my roughness. But she was soon herself again. She +thrust her feet into her slippers, and, wrapping her dressing-gown +about her, went down-stairs, and gave directions, as calmly and +collectedly as if she were (Heaven help her!) ordering a dinner for the +men--to bring the body home. Ah, me! I never shall forget how the poor +thing looked when the four men who bore the litter set it down on the +library-floor. A bruise on the temple showed where she had struck on +the cruel stones. The hoarfrost, which had turned into drops of dew, +glittered among her soft brown curls." + +The tears which had been gathering in Mrs. Bickford's eyes fell in +large drops into her lap as she went on. + +"On the day of the funeral, she lay in the library, still and cold in +her coffin. I had gathered a few flowers, with which I was vainly +trying to cheat death into looking more like life, by placing them on +her bosom and in her stiffened fingers. Miss Eleanor sat at the foot of +the coffin, almost as motionless as the form within it. I had finished +my task and turned away, when the door opened and Mr. Lee came in +silently. A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin +and bent over it. What a change had three days made in the man! Ten +years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him +look so old and wan. He looked upon her as a man who looks his last +upon what he loved best in the world;--his whole soul was in his eyes. + +"I think he did not see Miss Eleanor till he was about to leave the +room. She had not spoken, and he was unconscious of her presence. He +turned towards her and held out his hand; his lips moved, but no words +escaped them. I heard Miss Purcill's low, unfaltering answer to his +unspoken thoughts. She did not take his proffered hand, but said, +'Nothing can unite us again, Thornton,--not even death.' + +"His hand dropped by his side;--he quickly left the room, and never +came to Ashcroft again. When I went to take a last look of Miss +Elizabeth, I saw that the white rose which I had placed in her hand was +gone;--he had taken it." + +Mrs. Bickford paused. Her story was ended. In a few minutes she took up +her sickle again, and Bradford stood leaning against the head-stone +till the grass was all cut on the grave. He had no more questions to +ask,--for the journal had told him more of the dead below, than Mrs. +Bickford, with all her love and sympathy, could do. She had fallen into +the well, then, while endeavoring to place the box on the stone. When +Mrs. Bickford's task was done, she walked silently back to Ashcroft +with Bradford. + +Late in the evening he was alone in the library with his Aunt Eleanor. +The picture of Hagar, now so full of interest to him, still hung on the +wall, and the little desk was at the window which looked out upon the +lawn. Should he show the journal to his aunt, or keep it to himself? +Would Elizabeth Purcill wish her Cousin Eleanor to read her written +words as she once read her untold thoughts? + +Wrapped up in his own musings, he started suddenly when Miss Purcill +said to him, "Rosamond tells me that you found a book to-day in the old +well; what was it?"--and answered promptly, "It was Elizabeth Purcill's +journal." + +It was the first time Eleanor had heard the name for years. She showed +no signs of emotion. "I should like to see it," said she; "give it to +me." + +Bradford had been brought up in such habits of obedience, that he never +thought of disputing his aunt's command. He drew the journal from his +pocket and handed it to her without speaking. + +"You have read it?" said she, fixing her keen eyes upon him. + +"Yes." + +She drew the lamp towards her and opened the book. The shade on the +lamp kept the light from her face; but had Bradford seen it, it would +have told him no more of the thoughts beneath it than the stone in the +churchyard had told him of Elizabeth Purcill. + +He watched her turning over the leaves slowly, and thought that her +hand trembled a little at the close. Those pages must have stirred many +a memory and many a grief, as the wind shakes the bare boughs of the +trees, though blossom, fruit, and leaves have long since fallen. + +She closed the book, and spoke at last:--"I think, Bradford, this book +belongs rightfully but to one person,--Mr. Thornton Lee. Shall I send +it to him?" + +Eleanor's question was uttered in a tone that seemed to admit of but +one reply. Bradford assented. If he might not keep the journal himself, +he would rather Thornton Lee should have it than his aunt. + +The next day, Thornton Lee received a small packet, accompanied by a +note which ran thus:-- + +"To do justice to the memory of one who, years ago, came between us, I +send you this little book, found in the old well yesterday. From it you +will learn how she came by her death, and--how much she loved you. +ELEANOR PURCILL." + +As Thornton Lee read the journal, his children climbed his knee and +twined his gray curls around their fingers, and his wife came and +leaned sportively over his shoulder and looked at the yellow leaves. + +In some lives, as in some years, there is an after-summer; but in +others, the hoar-frosts are succeeded by the winter snow. + + +THE DEAD HOUSE. + + Here once my step was quickened, + Here beckoned the opening door, + And welcome thrilled from the threshold + To the foot it had felt before. + + A glow came forth to meet me + From the flame that laughed in the grate, + And shadows a-dance on the ceiling + Danced blither with mine for a mate. + + "I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm-chair,-- + "This corner, you know, is your seat." + "Rest your slippers on me," beamed the fender,-- + "I brighten at touch of your feet." + + "We know the practised finger," + Said the books, "that seems like brain"; + And the shy page rustled the secret + It had kept till I came again. + + Sang the pillow, "My down once quivered + On nightingales' throats that flew + Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz + To gather quaint dreams for you." + + Ah, me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease, + The Present plucks rue for us men! + I come back: that scar unhealing + Was not in the churchyard then. + + But, I think, the house is unaltered; + I will go and beg to look + At the rooms that were once familiar + To my life as its bed to a brook. + + Unaltered! Alas for the sameness + That makes the change but more! + 'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors, + 'Tis his tread that chills the floor! + + To learn such a simple lesson + Need I go to Paris and Rome,-- + That the many make a household, + But only one the home? + + 'Twas just a womanly presence, + An influence unexprest,-- + But a rose she had worn on my grave-sod + Were more than long life with the rest! + + 'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle, + 'Twas nothing that I can phrase,-- + But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, + And put on her looks and ways. + + Were it mine, I would close the shutters, + Like lids when the life is fled, + And the funeral fire should wind it, + This corpse of a home that is dead. + + For it died that autumn morning + When she, its soul, was borne + To lie all dark on the hillside + That looks over woodland and corn. + + + * * * * * + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + +[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks +with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could +into every conversation. That is the reason why you will find some odd, +miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I +should not have a chance to tell them habitually, at our +breakfast-table.--We're very free and easy, you know; we don't read +what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one can't pretend to preach +to all the pews at once. Besides, one can't be all the time trying to +do the best of one's best; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the +firemen needn't be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top +of the flagstaff. Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a +little. Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will +find out when you get through this paper.] + +----Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to +the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am thinking of +travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy. +Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the +brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking. +I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two. There are +certain principles to be assumed,--such as these:--He who is carried by +horses must deal with rogues.--To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual +angle than yesterday's revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me +than the biggest of Dr. Gould's private planets.--Every traveller is a +self-taught entomologist.--Old jokes are dynamometers of mental +tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at +home,--which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, +rather than increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to +your pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows--on the road from +Milan to Venice.--_Coelum, non animum_,--travellers change their +guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating dates +under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans in Beacon +Street.--Parties of travellers have a morbid instinct for "establishing +raws" upon each other.--A man shall sit down with his friend at the +foot of the Great Pyramid and they will take up the question they had +been talking about under "the great elm," and forget all about Egypt. +When I was crossing the Po, we were all fighting about the propriety of +one fellow's telling another that his argument was _absurd_; one +maintaining it to be a perfectly admissible logical term, as proved by +the phrase, "reductio ad absurdum"; the rest badgering him as a +conversational bully. Mighty little we troubled ourselves for _Padus_, +the Po, "a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times +when Hannibal led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants +thrust their trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum +ferry-boat was swinging back and forward every ten minutes! + +----Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or +annexed, or implied. + +Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but +obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in _undress_ often affects +more than one in full costume. + + "Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" + +says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my soul +in the Coliseum did not come. But walking one day in the fields about +the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken masonry, and lo! the +World's Mistress in her stone girdle--_alta maenia Romae_--rose before +me and whitened my cheek with her pale shadow as never before or since. + +I used very often, when coming home from my morning's work at one of +the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of +St. Etienne du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve, surrounded by burning +candles and votive tablets, was there; the mural tablet of Jacobus +Benignus Winslow was there; there was a noble organ with carved +figures; the pulpit was borne on the oaken shoulders of a stooping +Samson; and there was a marvellous staircase like a coil of lace. These +things I mention from memory, but not all of them together impressed me +so much as an inscription on a small slab of marble fixed in one of the +walls. It told how this church of St. Stephen was repaired and +beautified in the year 16**, and how, during the celebration of its +reopening, two girls of the parish (_filles de la paroisse_) fell from +the gallery, carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the +pavement, but by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two young girls, +nameless, but real presences to my imagination, as much as when they +came fluttering down on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the +sharpest treble in the Te Deum! (Look at Carlyle's article on Boswell, +and see how he speaks of the poor young woman Johnson talked with in +the streets one evening.) All the crowd gone but these two "filles de +la paroisse,"--gone as utterly as the dresses they wore, as the shoes +that were on their feet, as the bread and meat that were in the market +on that day. + +Not the great historical events, but the personal incidents that call +up single sharp pictures of some human being in its pang or struggle, +reach us most nearly. I remember the platform at Berne, over the +parapet of which Theobald Weinzaepfli's restive horse sprung with him +and landed him more than a hundred feet beneath in the lower town, not +dead, but sorely broken, and no longer a wild youth, but God's servant +from that day forward. I have forgotten the famous bears, and all +else.--I remember the Percy lion on the bridge over the little river at +Alnwick,--the leaden lion with his tail stretched out straight like a +pump-handle,--and why? Because of the story of the village boy who must +fain bestride the leaden tail, standing out over the water,--which +breaking, he dropped into the stream far below, and was taken out an +idiot for the rest of his life. + +Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, and the guillotine-axe +must have a slanting edge. Something intensely human, narrow, and +definite pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily than +huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will pick a lock that defies +hatchet and hammer. "The Royal George" went down with all her crew, and +Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it; but the leaf that +holds it is smooth, while that which bears the lines on his mother's +portrait is blistered with tears. + +My telling these recollections sets me thinking of others of the same +kind that strike the imagination, especially when one is still young. +You remember the monument in Devizes market to the woman struck dead +with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but it is in the books. Here +is one I never heard mentioned;--if any of the "Note and Query" tribe +can tell the story, I hope they will. Where is this monument? I was +riding on an English stage-coach when we passed a handsome marble +column (as I remember it) of considerable size and pretensions.--What +is that?--I said.--That,--answered the coachman,--is _the hangman's +pillar_. Then he told me how a man went out one night, many years ago, +to steal sheep. He caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope +over his head, and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope +slipped, caught him by the neck, and strangled him. Next morning he was +found hanging dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on the other; +in memory whereof the lord of the manor caused this monument to be +erected as a warning to all who love mutton better than virtue. I will +send a copy of this record to him or her who shall first set me right +about this column and its locality. + +And telling over these old stories reminds me that I have something +that may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I once +ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I +think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully +open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from +falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having +climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. +While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense inane," a strong wind +was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire was rocking. It swayed back +and forward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a +bobolink on it. I mentioned it to the guide, and he said that the spire +did really swing back and forward,--I think he said some feet. + +Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will intersect +it. Long afterwards I was hunting out a paper of Dumeril's in an old +journal,--the "Magazin Encyclopedique" for _l'an troisieme_, (1795,) +when I stumbled upon a brief article on the vibrations of the spire of +Strasburg Cathedral. A man can shake it so that the movement shall be +shown in a vessel of water nearly seventy feet below the summit, and +higher up the vibration is like that of an earthquake. I have seen one +of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some +of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven +cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it) swinging like a reed, +in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a +stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like a +blade of grass? I suppose. + +You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap way;--perhaps we will +have some philosophy by and by;--let me work out this thin mechanical +vein.--I have something more to say about trees, I have brought down +this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in my woods (that +were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth;--nine feet, +where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, going to the +centre, of the general shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and not +opulent family. Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the +growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and +forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the +rings tells the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate +was slow,--then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550 +it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy years. +In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714; then for the most +part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew pretty well and +uniformly until within the last dozen years, when it seems to have got +on sluggishly. + +Look here. Here are some human lies laid down against the periods of +its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's. The tree +was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches when he died. +A little less than ten inches when Milton was born; seventeen when he +died. Then comes a long interval, and this thread marks out Johnson's +life, during which the tree increased from twenty-two to twenty-nine +inches in diameter. Here is the span of Napoleon's career;--the tree +doesn't seem to have minded it. + +I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this +section. I have seen many wooden preachers,--never one like this. How +much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings of one of +those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on earth, and +where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the stolid apathy of +vegetable being, which remembers all human history as a thing of +yesterday in its own dateless existence! + +I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there is +one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some recollections +of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder if the old Seminary +clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My room-mate thought, when he +first came, it was the bell tolling deaths, and people's ages, as they +do in the country. He swore--(ministers' sons get so familiar with good +words that they are apt to handle them carelessly)--that the children +were dying by the dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off +next day in recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught +before the clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down +in town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been hooped +with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (_Credat Hahnemannus_,) +and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in its wood. Of +course, this is not the tree my relative means. + +Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut, telling +me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town. One hundred and +twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end! What do you say to that? +And gentle ladies beneath it, that love it and celebrate its praises! +And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as +Norwich!--Only the dear people there must learn to call it Norridge, +and not be misled by the mere accident of spelling. + + Nor_wich_. + Por_ch_mouth. + Cincinnat_ah_. + +What a sad picture of our civilization! + +I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the Colman +farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for many years, +and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in memory, and +even noted down, as one of the finest trees in symmetry and beauty I +had ever seen. I have received a document, signed by two citizens of a +neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and a selectman, and +these again corroborated, reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that +extraordinary college-class to which it is the good fortune of my +friend the Professor to belong, who, though he has _formerly_ been a +member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree +"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a +real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we +don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm." + +And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows in +Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything +but thanks. + +[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many +communications, in prose and verse, since I began printing these notes. +The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem, +from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public, though sometimes +requested to do so. Some of them have given me great pleasure, and +encouraged me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen. If +you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell +him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who +perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr +very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things to me.] + +----Sometimes very young persons send communications, which they want +forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to +have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, and of +themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, but, +on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not fair to single out +one for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that are in need of +it. + +Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser than I +was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, for +I think, without committing myself to any opinion on my present state, +that I was not a Solomon at that stage of development. + +You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so +common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those +who are thinking about something else,--very rarely to those who say to +themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!" The +struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in notoriety;--that ladder is +easy to climb, but it leads to pillory which is crowded with fools who +could not hold their tongues and rogues who could not hide their +tricks. + +If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it. The +world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true +originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and +newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the +ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an +intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that any +article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame. Nothing +pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having from a new +hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles for a first-rate +journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety are at or below the +sea-level; some have water enough, but no head; some head enough, but +no water; only two or three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill +which is so hard to climb. + +You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is not +demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you want it. +It not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that +shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture +that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends and no +takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-mistake Osiris. + +_Qu'est ce qu'il a fait?_ What has he done? That was Napoleon's test. +What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy! +You need not make mouths at the public because it has not accepted you +at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest thing you can and wait +your time. + +For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I +dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I know +the standard of a some editors. You must not expect to "leap with a +single bound" into the society of those whom it is not flattery to call +your betters. When "The Paetolian" has paid you for a copy of +verses,--(I can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, +beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe Zenith,)--when "The +Ragbag" has stolen your piece, after carefully scratching your name +out,--when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you worth shelling, and strung +the kernel of your cleverest poem,--then, and not till then, you may +consider the presumption against you, from the fact of your rhyming +tendency, as called in question, and let our friends hear from you, if +you think it worth while. You may possibly think me too candid, and +even accuse me of incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half +so plain-spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the +long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try +it like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is +shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes +always get to the bottom. + +Believe me, etc., etc. + + * * * * * + +I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these are +by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless, querulous, +unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with. Is a young man +in the habit of writing verses? Then the presumption is that he is an +inferior person. For, look you, there are at least nine chances in ten +that he writes _poor_ verses. Now the habit of chewing on rhymes +without sense and soul to match them is, like that of using any other +narcotic, at once a proof of feebleness and a debilitating agent. A +young man can get rid of the presumption against him afforded by his +writing verses only by convincing us that they are verses worth +writing. + +All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is not addressed to +any individual, and of course does not refer to any reader of these +pages. I would always treat any given young person passing through the +meteoric showers which rain down on the brief period of adolescence +with great tenderness. God forgive us, if we ever speak harshly to +young creatures on the strength of these ugly truths, and so, sooner or +later, smite some tender-souled poet or poetess on the lips who might +have sung the world into sweet trances, had we not silenced the +matin-song in its first low breathings! Just as my heart yearns over +the unloved, just so it sorrows for the ungifted who are doomed to the +pangs of an undeceived self-estimate. I have always tried to be gentle +with the most hopeless cases. My experience, however, has not been +encouraging. + +----X. Y., aet. 18, a cheaply-got-up youth, with narrow jaws, and +broad, bony, cold, red hands, having been laughed at by the girls in +his village, and "got the mitten" (pronounced mittin) two or three +times, falls to souling and controlling, and youthing and training, in +the newspapers. Sends me some strings of verses, candidates for the +Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, in which I learn for the millionth +time one of the following facts: either that something about a chime is +sublime, or that something about time is sublime, or that something +about a chime is concerned with time, or that something about a rhyme +is sublime or concerned with time or with a chime. Wishes my opinion of +the same, with advice as to his future course. + +What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole truth, and send him a +ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded +Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel,--and yet one hates to lie. +Therefore one softens down the ugly central fact of donkeyism, +--recommends study of good models,--that writing verse should +be an incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the +needle, the lapstone, or the ledger,--and, above all, that there should +be no hurry in printing what is written. Not the least use in all this. +The poetaster who has tasted type is done for. He is like the man who +has once been a candidate for the Presidency. He feeds on the madder of +his delusion all his days, and his very bones grow red with the glow of +his foolish fancy. One of these young brains is like a bunch of India +crackers; once touch fire to it and it is best to keep hands off until +it has done popping,--if it ever stops. I have two letters on file; one +is a pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence. My reply to the +first, containing the best advice I could give, conveyed in courteous +language, had brought out the second. There was some sport in this, but +Dulness is not commonly a game fish, and only sulks after he is struck. +You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that +those who ask your _opinion_ really want your _praise_, and will be +contented with nothing less. + +There is another kind of application to which editors, or those +supposed to have access to them, are liable, and which often proves +trying and painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some person in +needy circumstances who wishes to make a living by the pen. A +manuscript accompanying the letter is offered for publication. It is +not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably deficient. If Rachel's +saying is true, that "fortune is the measure of intelligence," then +poverty is evidence of limited capacity, which it too frequently proves +to be, notwithstanding a noble exception here and there. Now an editor +is a person under a contract with the public to furnish them with the +best things he can afford for his money. Charity shown by the +publication of an inferior article would be like the generosity of +Claude Duval and the other gentlemen highwaymen, who pitied the poor so +much they robbed the rich to have the means of relieving them. + +Though I am not and never was an editor, I know something of the trials +to which they are submitted. They have nothing to do but to develope +enormous calluses at every point of contact with authorship. Their +business is not a matter of sympathy, but of intellect. They must +reject the unfit productions of those whom they long to befriend, +because it would be a profligate charity to accept them. One cannot +burn his house down to warm the hands even of the fatherless and the +widow. + + + +THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. + + +--You haven't heard about my friend the Professor's first experiment in +the use of anaesthetics, have you? + +He was mightily pleased with the reception of that poem of his about +the chaise. He spoke to me once or twice about another poem of similar +character he wanted to read me, which I told him I would listen to and +criticize. + +One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied up, looking very +red in the cheeks and heavy about the eyes.--Hy'r'ye?--he said, and +made for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat and then his +person, going smack through the crown of the former as neatly as they +do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at the explosion as if +he had sat down on one of those small _calthrops_ our grandfathers used +to sow round in the grass when there were Indians about,--iron stars, +each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a half long,--stick through +moccasins into feet,--cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in +a day or two. + +The Professor let off one of those big words which lie at the bottom of +the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in his life,--just +as every man's hair _may_ stand on end, but in most men it never does. + +After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript, +together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just been +writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A certain +suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not quite right, +which was confirmed by the way he talked; but I let him begin. This is +the way he read it:-- + +_Prelude_. + + I'm the fellah that tole one day + The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. + + Wan' to hear another? Say. + --Funny, wasn'it? Made _me_ laugh,-- + I'm too modest, I am, by half,-- + Made me laugh 's _though I sh'd split_,-- + Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit? + --Fellahs keep sayin',--"Well, now that's nice; + Did it once, but cahn' do it twice."-- + Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat; + Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. + Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake,-- + Han' us the props for another shake;-- + Know I'll try, 'n' guess I'll win; + Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in! + +Here I thought it necessary to interpose.--Professor,--I said,--you are +inebriated. The style of what you call your "Prelude" shows that it was +written under cerebral excitement. Your articulation is confused. You +have told me three times in succession, in exactly the same words, that +I was the only true friend you had in the world that you would unbutton +your heart to. You smell distinctly and decidedly of spirits.--I spoke, +and paused; tender, but firm. + +Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Professor's lids,--in +obedience to the principle of gravitation celebrated in that delicious +bit of bladdery bathos, "The very law that moulds a tear," with which +the "Edinburgh Review" attempted to put down Master George Gordon when +that young man was foolishly trying to make himself conspicuous. One of +these tears peeped over the edge of the lid until it lost its +balance,--slid an inch and waited for reinforcements,--swelled +again,--rolled down a little further,--stopped,--moved on,--and at last +fell on the back of the Professor's hand. He held it up for me to look +at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine. + +I couldn't stand it,--I always break down when folks cry in my +face,--so I hugged him, and said he was a dear old boy, and asked him +kindly what was the matter with him, and what made him smell so +dreadfully strong of spirits. + +Upset his alcohol lamp,--he said,--and spilt the alcohol on his legs. +That was it.--But what had he been doing to get his head into such a +state?--had he really committed an excess? What was the matter?--Then +it came out that he had been taking chloroform to have a tooth out, +which had left him in a very queer state, in which he had written the +"Prelude" given above, and under the influence of which he evidently +was still. + +I took the manuscript from his hands and read the following +continuation of the lines he had begun to read me, while he made up for +two or three nights' lost sleep as he best might. + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY: + +OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. + + Facts respecting an old arm-chair. + At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. + Seems but little the worse for wear. + That's remarkable when I say + It was old in President Holyoke's day. + (One of his boys, perhaps you know, + Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.) + _He_ took lodging for rain or shine + Under green bed-clothes in '69. + + Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- + Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. + (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- + Standing still, if you must have proof.-- + "Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg + You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- + First great angle above the hoof,-- + That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) + --Nicest place that ever was seen,-- + Colleges red and Common green, + Sidewalks brownish with trees between. + Sweetest spot beneath the skies + When the canker-worms don't rise,-- + When the dust, that sometimes flies + Into your mouth and ears and eyes, + In a quiet slumber lies, + _Not_ in the shape of unbaked pies + Such as barefoot children prize. + + A kind of harbor it seems to be, + Facing the flow of a boundless sea. + Bows of gray old Tutors stand + Ranged like rocks above the sand; + Rolling beneath them, soft and green, + Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- + One wave, two waves, three waves, four, + Sliding up the sparkling floor; + Then it ebbs to flow no more, + Wandering off from shore to shore + With its freight of golden ore! + --Pleasant place for boys to play;-- + Better keep your girls away; + Hearts get rolled as pebbles do + Which countless fingering waves pursue, + And every classic beach is strown + With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + + But this is neither here nor there;-- + I'm talking about an old arm-chair. + You've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? + Over at Medford he used to dwell; + Married one of the Mather's folk; + Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- + Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, + Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- + One of the oddest of human things, + Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- + But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- + Fit for the worthies of the land,-- + Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, + Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in, + --Parson Turell bequeathed the same + To a certain student,--SMITH by name; + These were the terms, as we are told: + "Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; + When he doth graduate, then to passe + To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe, + On payment of"--(naming a certain sum)-- + "By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; + He to ye oldest Senior next, + And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- + "But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, + That being his Debte for use of same." + + _Smith_ transferred it to one of the BROWNS, + And took his money,--five silver crowns. + _Brown_ delivered it up to MOORE, + Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. + _Moore_ made over the chair to LEE, + Who gave him crowns of silver three. + _Lee_ conveyed it unto DREW, + And now the payment, of course, was two. + _Drew_ gave up the chair to DUNN,-- + All he got, as you see, was one. + _Dunn_ released the chair to HALL, + And got by the bargain no crown at all. + --And now it passed to a second BROWN, + Who took it, and likewise _claimed a crown_. + When _Brown_ conveyed it unto WARE, + Having had one crown, to make it fair, + He paid him two crowns to take the chair; + And _Ware_, being honest, (as all Wares be,) + He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. + Four got ROBINSON; five got DIX; + JOHNSON _primus_ demanded six; + And so the sum kept gathering still + Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. + --When paper money became so cheap, + Folks wouldn't count it, but said "a heap," + A certain RICHARDS, the books declare, + (A.M. in '90? I've looked with care + Through the Triennial,--_name not there_,) + This person, Richards, was offered then + Eight score pounds, but would have ten; + Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- + Not quite certain,--but see the book. + --By and by the wars were still, + But nothing had altered the Parson's will. + The old arm-chair was solid yet, + But saddled with such a monstrous debt! + Things grew quite too bad to bear, + Paying such sums to get rid of the chair! + But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, + And there was the will in black and white, + Plain enough for a child to spell. + What should be done no man could tell, + For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, + And every season but made it worse. + + As a last resort, to clear the doubt, + They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. + The Governor came with his Light-horse Troop + And his mounted trackmen, all cock-a-hoop; + Halberds glittered and colors flew, + French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, + The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth + And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; + So he rode with all his band, + Till the President met him, cap in hand. + --The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- + "A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." + The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- + "There is your p'int. And here's my fee. + These are the terms you must fulfil,-- + On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" + The Governor mentioned what these should be. + (Just wait a minute and then you'll see.) + The President prayed. Then all was still, + And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! + --"About those conditions?" Well, now you go + And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. + Once a year, on Commencement-day, + If you'll only take the pains to stay, + You'll see the President in the CHAIR, + Likewise the Governor sitting there. + The President rises; both old and young + May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, + The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, + Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? + And then his Excellency bows, + As much as to say that he allows. + The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; + He bows like t'other, which means the same. + And all the officers round 'em bow, + As much as to say that _they_ allow. + And a lot of parchments about the chair + Are handed to witnesses then and there, + And then the lawyers hold it clear + That the chair is safe for another year. + + God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give + Money to colleges while you live. + Don't be silly and think you'll try + To bother the colleges, when you die, + With codicil this, and codicil that, + That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; + For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, + And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + + * * * * * + +----Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect. The +shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut; his dwelling is all +door and no walls; everybody can come in. To make a morning call on an +Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through a long tunnel; his house +is all walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a +worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation +between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally +hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this +is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good +deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs +really to mean temperature. + +Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at noon, in a very hot +summer's day, one may realize, by a sudden extension in his sphere of +consciousness, how closely he is shut up for the most part.--Do you not +remember something like this? July, between 1 and 2, P.M. Fahrenheit +96 deg., or thereabout. Windows all gaping, like the mouths of panting +dogs. Long, stinging cry of a locust comes in from a tree, half a mile +off; had forgotten there was such a tree. Baby's screams from a house +several blocks distant;--never knew of any babies in the neighborhood +before. Tinman pounding something that clatters dreadfully,--very +distinct, but don't know of any tinman's shop near by. Horses stamping +on pavement to get off flies. When you hear these four sounds, you may +set it down as a warm day. Then it is that one would like to imitate +the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has +described it: stroll into the market in natural costume,--buy a +watermelon for a halfpenny,--split it, and scoop out the middle,--sit +down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's head, and +feast upon the pulp. + +----I see some of the London journals have been attacking some of +their literary people for lecturing, on the ground of its being a +public exhibition of themselves for money. A popular author can print +his lecture; if he deliver it, it is a case of _quaestum corpore_, or +making profit of his person. None but "snobs" do that. _Ergo_, etc. To +this I reply,--_Negatur minor_. Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen, +exhibits herself to the public as a part of the service for which she +is paid. We do not consider it low-bred in her to pronounce her own +speech, and should prefer it so to hearing it from any other person or +reading it. His Grace and his Lordship exhibit themselves very often +for popularity, and their houses every day for money.--No, if a man +shows himself other than he is, if he belittles himself before an +audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from +the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight +dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an +outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity +to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too +popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of with +a rapier, as in France.--Poh! All England is one great menagerie, and, +all at once, the jackal, who admires the gilded cage of the royal +beast, must protest against the vulgarity of the talking-bird's and the +nightingale's being willing to become a part of the exhibition! + + +THE LONG PATH. + +(_Last of the Parentheses_.) + +Yes, that was my last walk with the _schoolmistress_. It happened to be +the end of a term; and before the next began, a very nice young woman, +who had been her assistant, was announced as her successor, and she was +provided for elsewhere. So it was no longer the school-mistress that I +walked with, but--Let us not be in unseemly haste. I shall call her the +schoolmistress still; some of you love her under that name. + +----When it became known among the boarders that two of their number +had joined hands to walk down the long path of life side by side, there +was, as you may suppose, no small sensation. I confess I pitied our +landlady. It took her all of a suddin,--she said. Had not known that we +was keepin' company, and never mistrusted anything partic'lar. Ma'am +was right to better herself. Didn't look very rugged to take care of a +family, but could get hired haaelp, she calc'lated.--The great maternal +instinct came crowding up in her soul just then, and her eyes wandered +until they settled on her daughter. + +----No, poor, dear woman,--that could not have been. But I am dropping +one of my internal tears for you, with this pleasant smile on my face +all the time. + +The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out of +flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen +and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of scientific cruelties there +is hardly anything quite so painful to think of as that experiment of +putting an animal under the bell of an air-pump and exhausting the air +from it. [I never saw the accursed trick performed. _Laus Deo_] There +comes a time when the souls of human beings, women, perhaps, more even +than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they were +made to breathe. Then it is that Society places its transparent +bell-glass over the young woman who is to be the subject of one of its +fatal experiments. The element by which only the heart lives is sucked +out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through its transparent +walls;--her bosom is heaving; but it is in a vacuum. Death is no +riddle, compared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book +of Martyrs." The "dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the images that +frightened her most. How many have withered and wasted under as slow a +torment in the walls of that larger Inquisition which we call +Civilization! + +Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you foolish, plain, overdressed, +mincing, cheaply-organized, self-saturated young person, whoever you +may be, now reading this,--little thinking you are what I describe, and +in blissful unconsciousness that you are destined to the lingering +asphyxia of soul which is the lot of such multitudes worthier than +yourself. But it is only my surface-thought which laughs. For that +great procession of the UNLOVED, who not only wear the crown of thorns, +but must hide it under the locks of brown or gray,--under the snowy +cap, under the chilling turban,--hide it even from themselves,--perhaps +never know they wear it, though it kills them,--there is no depth of +tenderness in my nature that Pity has not sounded. + +Somewhere,--somewhere,--love is in store for them,--the universe must +not be allowed to fool them so cruelly. What infinite pathos in the +small, half-unconscious artifices by which unattractive young persons +seek to recommend themselves to the favor of those towards whom our +dear sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled by their +God-given instincts! + +Read what the singing-women--one to ten thousand of the suffering +women--tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in +earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the +next churchyard with very commonplace blue slate stones at their head +and feet, for whom it was just as true that "all sounds of life assumed +one tone of love," as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning +said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they could +not.--Will you hear a few stanzas of mine? + + +THE VOICELESS. + + + We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,-- + But o'er their silent sister's breast + The wild flowers who will stoop to number? + A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy Fame is proud to win them;-- + Alas for those that never sing, + But die with all their music in them! + + Nay, grieve not for the dead alone + Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- + Weep for the voiceless, who have known + The cross without the crown of glory! + Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, + But where the glistening night-dews weep + On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + O hearts that break and give no sign + Save whitening lip and fading tresses, + Till Death pours out his cordial wine + Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- + If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + +I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all. +That young man from another city, who made the remark which you +remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at our +table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive to this +young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her while she was +playing the accordion,--indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and +got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting +tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the +basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman +should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston +State-house. He can't be very particular. + +The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free in +his remarks, but very good-natured.--Sorry to have you go,--he +said.--Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't taken +anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of +it.--_Mourning fruit,_--said I,--what's that?--Huckleberries and +blackberries,--said he;--couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, currants, +and such, after a solemn thing like this happening.--The conceit seemed +to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, when we came down +to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it out as follows. You +know those odious little "saaes-plates" that figure so largely at +boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous +attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous +of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into +which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat +dipping her foot into a wash-tub,--(not that I mean to say anything +against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry +many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin +honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of +white silver, with the Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,--as +people in the green stage of millionism will have them,--I can dally +with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a +shiver,)--you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down +the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a +broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn +black huckleberries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was +covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was covered +with a white rose. There was a laugh at this at first, and then a short +silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the old gentleman +opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief. + +--"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for Switzerland, +that season, if we waited much longer."--The hand I held trembled in +mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself before the feet +of Ahasuerus.--She had been reading that chapter, for she looked +up,--if there was a film of moisture over her eyes, there was also the +faintest shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to +accent the dimples,--and said, in her pretty, still way,--"If it please +the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem +right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes"-- + +I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got just +to that point of her soft, humble words,--but I know what I did. That +quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came to a +compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for the last +day of summer. + +In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as you +may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a +certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first +excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters,--but +each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for +instance, when we had chickens, sent the _liver_ instead of the +_gizzard_, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an +accident: the two are _never_ mistaken, though some land-ladies +_appear_ as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the +company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. +There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that +lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally +interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be +considered relevant,--except when the least allusion was made to +matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with +both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun +at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all +behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of +leaving my boarding-house. + +I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's +plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly +fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not what _great +merchants_ call very rich, I was comfortable,--comfortable,--so that +most of those moderate luxuries I described in my verses on +_Contentment_--_most_ of them, I say--were within our reach, if we +chose to have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress had a vein +of charity about her, which had hitherto been worked on a small silver +and copper basis, which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries than +even I did,--modestly as I have expressed my wishes. + +It is rather a pleasant thing to tell a poor young woman, whom one has +contrived to win without showing his rent-roll, that she has found what +the world values so highly, in following the lead of her affections. +That was a luxury I was now ready for. + +I began abruptly:--Do you know that you are a rich young person? + +I know that I am very rich,--she said,--Heaven has given me more than I +ever asked; for I had not thought love was ever meant for me. + +It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell to a whisper as it +threaded the last words. + +I don't mean that,--I said,--you blessed little saint and seraph!--if +there's an angel missing in the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this +boarding-house!--I don't mean that; I mean that I--that is, +you--am--are--confound it!--I mean that you'll be what most people call +a lady of fortune.--And I looked full in her eyes for the effect of the +announcement. + +There wasn't any. She said she was thankful that I had what would save +me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her about +it.--I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce a +sensation. + +So the last day of summer came. It was our choice to go to the church, +but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house. The presents were +all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest +tributes of our fellow-boarders,--for there was not one, I believe, who +did not send something. The landlady would insist on making an elegant +bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin +wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,--namely, +a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags +with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure +you. The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's +Poems. On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate +and careful hand:-- + + Presented to... by... + On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. + May sunshine ever beam o'er her! + +Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy +of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive variegated +sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled. From the divinity-student came the +loveliest English edition of "Keble's Christian Tear." I opened it, +when it came, to the _Fourth Sunday in Lent_, and read that angelic +poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier's "My God, I +love thee."----I am not a Churchman,--I don't believe in planting oaks +in flower-pots,--but such a poem as "The Rose-bud" makes one's heart a +proselyte to the culture it grows from. Talk about it as much as you +like,--one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A +man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for +"scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that-- + + "God only and good angels look + Behind the blissful scene,"-- + +and that other,-- + + "He could not trust his melting soul + But in his Maker's sight,"-- + +that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and profit +by it. + +My laughing and winking young friend undertook to procure and arrange +the flowers for the table, and did it with immense zeal. I never saw +him look happier than when he came in, his hat saucily on one side, and +a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch of tea-roses, which he said +were for "Madam." + +One of the last things that came was an old square box, smelling of +camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, in faded ink, the marks, "Calcutta, +1805." On opening it, we found a white Cashmere shawl, with a very +brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, saying that he had +kept this some years, thinking he might want it, and many more, not +knowing what to do with it,--that he had never seen it unfolded since +he was a young super-cargo,--and now, if she would spread it on her +shoulders, it would make him feel young to look at it. + +Poor Bridget, or Biddy, our red-armed maid of all work! What must she +do but buy a small copper breast-pin and put it under "Schoolma'am's" +plate that morning, at breakfast? And Schoolma'am would wear +it,--though I made her cover it, as well as I could, with a tea-rose. + +It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I could not leave them in +utter silence. + +Good-bye,--I said,--my dear friends, one and all of you! I have been +long with you, and I find it hard parting. I have to thank you for a +thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience and indulgence with +which you have listened to me when I have tried to instruct or amuse +you. My friend the Professor (who, as well as my friend the Poet, is +unavoidably absent on this interesting occasion) has given me reason to +suppose that he would occupy my empty chair about the first of January +next. If he comes among you, be kind to him, as you have been to me. May +the Lord bless you all!--And we shook hands all round the table. + +Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the cloth were gone. I +looked up and down the length of the bare boards, over which I had so +often uttered my sentiments and experiences--and----Yes, I am a man, +like another. + +All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old friends of mine, +whom you know, and others a little more up in the world, perhaps, to +whom I have not introduced you, I took the schoolmistress before the +altar from the hands of the old gentleman who used to sit opposite, and +who would insist on giving her away. + +And now we two are walking the long path in peace together. The +"schoolmistress" finds her skill in teaching called for again, without +going abroad to seek little scholars. Those visions of mine have all +come true. + +I hope you all love me none the less for anything I have told you. +Farewell! + + * * * * * + + + +THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. + + +Just in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph which takes its name +from the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, I read in the September number of that +journal the revelations of an observer who was surprised to find that +he had the power of reading, as they run, the revelations of the wire. +I had the hope that he was about to explain to the public the more +general use of this instrument,--which, with a stupid fatuity, the +public has, as yet, failed to grasp. Because its signals have been +first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and afterwards by means of +the chemical power of electricity, the many-headed people refuses to +avail itself, as it might do very easily, of the same signals, for the +simpler transmission of intelligence,--whatever the power employed. + +The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and alphabet. He +himself eagerly disclaims any pretension to the original conception of +the use of electricity as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought +of that and suggested it; but Morse was the first to give the +errand-boy such a written message, that he could not lose it on the +way, nor mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, +as he deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he +probably cares very little. Nor do I care more. But the public does not +thank him for what he did originate,--this invaluable and simple +alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see +every hour how the public might use it, if it chose, I am really sorry +for this negligence,--both on the score of his fame, and of general +convenience. + +Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that this curious alphabet +reduces all the complex machinery of Cadmus and the rest of the +writing-masters to characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a +space, and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks [Morse code: +.-.] designate the letter A. The marks [Morse code: -...] designate the +letter B. All the other letters are designated in as simple a manner. + +Now I am stripping myself of one of the private comforts of my life, +(but what will one not do for mankind?) when I explain that this simple +alphabet need not be confined to electrical signals. _Long_ and _short_ +make it all,--and wherever long and short can be combined, be it in +marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-fits, canes, or children, ideas can be +conveyed by this arrangement of the long and short together. Only last +night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at a summer party at +the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The +Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she +could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." + +Mrs. Wilberforce had never heard that opera,--indeed, had never heard +of it. My angel-wife was surprised,--stood thrumming at the +piano,--wondered she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant +accord at all,--but checked herself in her effort, as soon as I +observed that her long notes and short notes, in their tum-tee, +tee,--tee-tee, tee-tum tum, meant, "He's her brother." The conversation +on her side turned from "The Butcher of Turin," and I had just time, on +the hint thus given me by Mrs. I., to pass a grateful eulogium on the +distinguished statesman whom Mrs. Wilberforce, with all a sister's +care, had rocked in his baby-cradle,--whom, but for my wife's long and +short notes, I should have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of +the day. + +You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the +business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know this Morse +alphabet, but your business, and that of every man and woman. If our +school-committees understood the times, it would be taught, even before +phonography or physiology, at school. I believe both these sciences now +precede the old English alphabet. + +As I write these words, the bell of the South Congregational strikes +dong, dong, dong;--dong, dong, dong, dong,--dong,--dong. Nobody has +unlocked the church-door. The old tin sign, "In case of fire, the key +will be found at the opposite house," has long since been taken down, +and made into the nose of a water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Two-Shoes +locked in. No! But, thanks to Dr. Channing's Fire-Alarm, the bell is +informing the South End that there is a fire in District +Dong-dong-dong,--that is to say, District No. 3. Before I have +explained to you so far, the "Eagle" engine, with a good deal of noise, +has passed the house on its way to that fated district. An immense +improvement this on the old system, when the engines radiated from +their houses in every possible direction, and the fire was extinguished +by the few machines whose lines of quest happened to cross each other +at the particular place where the child had been building cob-houses +out of lucifer-matches in a paper-warehouse. Yes, it is a very great +improvement. All those persons, like you and me, who have no property +in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit at home at ease,--and little +need we think upon the mud above the knees of those who have property +in that district and are running to look after it. But for them the +improvement only brings misery. You arrive wet, hot or cold, or both, +at the large District No. 3, to find that the lucifer-matches were half +a mile from your store,--and that your own private watchman, even, had +not been waked by the working of the distant engines. Wet +property-holder, as you walk home, consider this. When you are next in +the Common Council, vote an appropriation for applying Morse's alphabet +of long and short to the bells. Then they can be made to sound +intelligibly. Daung ding ding,--ding,--ding daung,--daung daung daung, +and so on, will tell you, as you wake in the night, that it is Mr. B.'s +store which is on fire, and not yours, or that it is yours, and not +his. This is not only a convenience to you and a relief to your wife +and family, who will thus be spared your excursions to unavailable and +unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated return,--it will be a +great relief to the Fire Department. How placid the operations of a +fire where none attend except on business! The various engines arrive, +but no throng of distant citizens, men and boys, fearful of the +destruction of their all. They have all roused on their pillows to +learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street which is in flames. All but the +owner of No. 530 Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He alone has +rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who stands in the uncrowded +street with the Chief Engineer, on the deck of No. 18, as she plays +away. His property destroyed, the engines retire,--he mentions the +amount of his insurance to those persons who represent the daily press, +they all retire to their homes,--and the whole is finished as simply, +almost, as was his private entry in his day-book the afternoon before. + +This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only struck _long_ and +_short_, and we had all learned Morse's alphabet. Indeed, there is +nothing the bells could not tell, if you would only give them time +enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But, +without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and +every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail +Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard +should report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town +for his country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to +speak articulately, in language regarding which the dullest imagination +need not be at loss, + + "Turn again, Higginbottom, + Lord Mayor of Boston!" + +I have suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the +primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own +children,--and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head, +against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it +does;--an alphabet of two characters matched against one of +twenty-six,--or of forty-odd, as the very odd one of the phono-typists +employs! On the Franklin-medal-day I went to the Johnson-School +examination. One of the committee asked a nice girl, what was the +capital of Brazil. The child looked tired and pale, and, for an +instant, hesitated. But, before she had time to commit herself, all +answering was rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-cough +which one of my own sons was seized with,--who had gone to the +examination with me. Hawm, hem hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem;--hawm, hem +hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem,--barked the poor child, who was at the +opposite extreme of the school-room. The spectators and the committee +looked to see him fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I confess that +I felt no alarm, after I observed that some of his gasps were long and +some very staccato;--nor did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered +her color,--and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, +answered, "_Rio_ is the capital of Brazil,"--as modestly and properly +as if she had been taught it in her cradle. They are nothing but +children, any of them,--but that afternoon, after they had done all the +singing the city needed for its annual entertainment of the singers, I +saw Bob and Mabel start for a long expedition into West Roxbury,--and +when he came back, I know it was a long featherfew, from her prize +school-bouquet, that he pressed in his Greene's "Analysis," with a +short frond of maiden's hair. + +I hope nobody will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these +are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is +never trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from +mortification on examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he +is not elected President. If, however, the reader is distressed, +because these illustrations do not seem to his more benighted +observation to belong to the big bow-wow strain of human life, let him +consider the arrangement which ought to have been made years since, for +lee shores, railroad collisions, and that curious class of maritime +accidents where one steamer runs into another under the impression that +she is a light-house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a +steam-whistle, which is often heard five miles. It needs only _long_ +and _short_ again. "_Stop Comet_," for instance, when you send it down +the railroad line, by the wire, is expressed thus: ... - .. .... .. . +.. -- . - Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph +station when it comes! But what if Comet has gone by? Much good will +your trumpery message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound +your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus:--Scre scre, scre; +screeee; scre scre; scre scre scre scre; scre scre--scre, scre scre, +screeeee scrceeee; scre; screeeee;--why, then the whole neighborhood, +for five miles round, will know that Comet must stop, if only they +understand spoken language,--and, among others, the engineman of Comet +will understand it; and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds +which gives the order,--with his nucleus of hot iron and his tail of +five hundred tons of coal.--So, of the signals which fog-bells +can give, attached to light-houses. How excellent to have them +proclaim through the darkness, "I am Wall"! Or of signals for +steamship-engineers. When our friends were on board the "Arabia" the +other day, and she and the "Europa" pitched into each other,--as if, on +that happy week, all the continents were to kiss and join hands all +round,--how great the relief to the passengers on each, if, through +every night of their passage, collision had been prevented by this +simple expedient! One boat would have screamed, "Europa, Europa, +Europa," from night to morning,--and the other, "Arabia, Arabia, +Arabia,"--and neither would have been mistaken, as one unfortunately +was, for a light-house. + +The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark distinctions of time +can use this alphabet of long-and-short, however he may mark them. It +is, therefore, within the compass of all intelligent beings, except +those who are no longer conscious of the passage of time, having +exchanged its limitations for the wider sweep of eternity. The +illimitable range of this alphabet, however, is not half disclosed when +this has been said. Most articulate language addresses itself to one +sense, or at most to two, sight and sound. I see, as I write, that the +particular illustrations I have given are all of them confined to +signals seen or signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the +few years of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted +to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, +of course, is heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the +sounds of its ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he +sees it. As he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing +message without striking a light to see it. But this is only what may +be said of any written language. You can read this article to your +wife, or she can read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether +it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of +Morse and his imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses +whichever of the five senses the listener chooses. This fact is +illustrated by a curious set of anecdotes--never yet put in print, I +think--of that critical dispatch which in one night announced General +Taylor's death to this whole land. Most of the readers of these lines +probably read that dispatch in the morning's paper. The compositors and +editors had read it. To them it was a dispatch to the eye. But half the +operators at the stations _heard_ it ticked out, by the register +stroke, and knew it before they wrote it down for the press. To them it +was a dispatch to the ear. My good friend Langenzunge had not that +resource. He had just been promised, by the General himself, (under +whom he served at Palo Alto,) the office of Superintendent of the +Rocky-Mountain Lines. He was returning from Washington over the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a freight-train, when he heard of the +President's danger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready,--and he felt +badly about his own office, too. But his extempore train chose to stop +at a forsaken shanty-village on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at +midnight. What does he do, but walk down the line into the darkness, +climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and apply the two ends to his +tongue, to _taste_, at the fatal moment, the words, "Died at half past +ten." Poor Langenzunge! he hardly had nerve to solder the wire again. +Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the Naguadavick stations with +Bain's chemical revolving disc. This disc is charged with a salt of +potash, which, when the electric spark passes through it, is changed to +Prussian blue. Your dispatch is noiselessly written in dark blue dots +and lines. + +Just as the disc started on that fatal dispatch, and Cogs bent over it +to read, his spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were +beside themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were +fumbling for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet +blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South +Boston, bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of +potash, as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. +Almost anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed +Morse messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all +the midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where +the companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of +acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where +the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So +universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same +principle as Morse's. + +The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can +be employed by any being who has command of any long and short +symbols,--be they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept +his accounts with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as +these which Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland Bay, so +prophetically and appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope +the reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent +being who has any one of the five senses left him,--by all rational +men, that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both +taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's +telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or +who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the +_Gymnotus electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales +in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only +note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can +listen, too. If they will only note the difference between long and +short, the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the +smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness, +look fearless on the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or +insect, which can discriminate between long and short, may use the +telegraphic alphabet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which can +hear, smell, taste, feel, or see, may take note of its signals, if he +can understand them. A tired listener at church, by properly varying +his long yawns and his short ones, may express his opinion of the +sermon to the opposite gallery before the sermon is done. A dumb +tobacconist may trade with his customers in an alphabet of short-sixes +and long-nines. A beleaguered Sebastopol may explain its wants to the +relieving army beyond the line of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its +short Paixhans and its long twenty-fours. + + + + * * * * * + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Etudes sur Pascal_. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN. Cinqieme Edition, revue et +augmentee. Paris: 1857. pp. 566. 8vo. + +We render hearty thanks to M. Cousin for this new edition of a favorite +work. No library which contains Pascal's "Provinciales" and "Pensees" +should be without it. + +"Of all the monuments of the French language," says M. Cousin, in the +_Avant-propos_ to this new edition, "none is more celebrated than the +work 'Les Pensees,' and French literature possesses no artist more +consummate than Pascal. Do not expect to find in this young +geometrician, so soon consumed by disease and passion, the breadth, +surface, and infinite variety of Bossuet, who, supported by vast and +uninterrupted study, rose and rose until he gained the loftiest reaches +of intellect and art, and commanded at pleasure every tone and every +style. Pascal did not fulfil all his destiny. Besides the mathematics +and natural philosophy he knew scarcely more than a little theology, +and he barely passed through good society. It is true, Pascal passed +away from earth quickly; but during his short life he discerned +glimpses of the _beau ideal_, he attached himself to it with all his +heart and soul and strength, and he never allowed anything to leave his +hands unless it bore its lively impress. So great was his passion for +perfection, that unchallenged tradition tells us he wrote the +seventeenth 'Provinciale' thirteen times over. 'Les Pensees' are merely +fragments of the great work on which he consumed the last years of his +life; but these fragments sometimes present so finished a beauty, that +we do not know which most to admire, the grandeur and vigor of the +sentiments and ideas, or the delicacy and depth of the art." + +This praise is unexaggerated. What a career was run by this genius! +Discovering the science of geometry at twelve years of age,--next +inventing the arithmetical machine,--discovering atmospheric pressure, +while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a +vacuum,"--inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains +of the toothache, and succeeding,--inventing the theory of +probabilities,--establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the +public,--then writing the "Provinciales,"--dying at thirty-three, +leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your +pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, +the favorite works of Gibbon, Voltaire, Macaulay, and Cousin! Where +else can so crowded and so short a career be found? + +It is scarcely possible to repress a smile in reading this work and +discovering the patient care with which M. Cousin avoids speaking of +the "Provinciales." And it is strange to say (no contemptible proof of +the influence exercised by the Church of Rome, even when checked as it +is in France) that no decent edition of the "Provinciales" can be found +in the French language. While we possess M. Cousin's "Etudes sur +Pascal," and M. Havet's edition of "Les Pensees," the only editions of +"Les Provinciales" of recent date are the miserable publications of +Charpentier and the Didots. Editions of Voltaire and Rousseau are +numerous, elaborate, and elegant; for atheism is pardoned much more +easily than abhorrence of the Jesuits. + +The volume named at the head of this article contains a great many +valuable documents relating to Pascal and his family: all of Pascal's +correspondence known to exist, including his celebrated letter on the +death of Etienne Pascal, his father, which is usually printed in "Les +Pensees," being cut up into short sentences to fit it for that work, a +large part of it being omitted; his singular essay on Love; curious +details concerning the De Roanner family; an essay on the true text of +the "Pensees"; a curious fac-simile of a page of that work; and a +discussion (perhaps M. Cousin would say a refutation) of Pascal's +philosophy. But we must protest against the easy manner in which M. +Cousin wears his honors. When a book has reached its fifth edition and +is evidently destined to a good many more during the author's lifetime, +he lies under an obligation to place the new information he may have +collected, and the additional thoughts which may have occurred to him, +during the intervals between the different editions, in a form more +convenient to the render than new prefaces and new notes. To master the +information contained in this work is no recreation, but a severe task, +and one not to be accomplished except upon repeated perusals of the +book. This is the more inexcusable because M. Cousin is now free from +all official and professional cares; and it would involve the less +labor to him, as he never writes, but dictates all his compositions. + + * * * * * + +_Belle Brittan on a Tour; at Newport, and Here and There._ New York: +Derby & Jackson. 1858. + +The compulsion of hunger, or the request of friends, was the excuse for +the printing of sorry books in Pope's time; and it has not become +obsolete yet. The writer of the book, the title of which we have given +above, pleads the latter alternative as the occasion of this +publication. He says it was "a few friends" that preferred this +request. It is unfortunate for him that he had any so void of judgment +and empty of taste. He thinks his Letters will "receive unjust +censure," as well as "undue praise." We think that he may relieve his +mind of any such apprehension. We cannot think his book at all likely +to receive more dispraise than it richly merits. A more discreditable +one, not absolutely indictable, we hope, has seldom issued from the +American press. + +What motive the author had in assuming a female character, we know not. +He certainly has been very unfortunate in his female acquaintance, if +he accurately imitates their tone of thought and style of talk, in his +letters. Should they happen to fall in the way of any foreigners, we +beg them to believe that this is not the way in which American women +converse. But we think that there can scarcely be a cockney so spoony +as not to "spy a great peard under her muffler," and know that it is a +man awkwardly masquerading in women's clothes. It is a libel on the +women of the country, to put such balderdash into the mouth of one who +may be supposed to have been finished at a fifth-rate boarding-school. + +The letters are in the worst style of the "Own Correspondents" of +third-rate papers. The "_deadhead_" perks itself in your face at every +turn, in flunkeyish gratitude for invitations, drinks, dinners, and +free passes,--from "the gentlemanly Lord Napier," down to "intelligent +and gentlemanly" railway-conductors, "gentlemanly and attentive" +hotel-clerks, "gracious, gentlemanly, and gallant" tavern-keepers, and +their "lovely and accomplished brides." The soul of a footman is +expressed by the pen of an abigail,--and the one not a Humphrey +Clinker, nor the other a Winifred Jenkins,--and we are expected to +admire the result as a good imitation of a lively, intelligent, +well-bred American young lady! We protest against the profanation. + +The letters take a wide range of subject, and treat of "Shakspeare, +taste, and the musical glasses," in a vein that would have done no +discredit to Lady Blarney and Miss Arabella Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs +themselves. We might divert our readers with some specimens of +criticism, or opinion, did our limits admit of such entertainment. We +can only inform them, on Belle Brittan's authority, that worthy Dr. +Charles Mackay, who suffers throughout the book from intermittent--nay, +chronic--attacks of puffery, is "one of the best living poets of +England"; Mademoiselle Lamoureux, the _danseuse_, is "better than +Ellsler"; and pretty Mrs. John Wood, the lively _soubrette_ of the +Boston Theatre, "possesses many of the rarest requisites of a great +actress"! But these are inanities which an inexperienced and +half-taught girl might possibly utter in a familiar letter. Not so, we +trust, as to the belief expressed by Belle Brittan, in puffing "Jim +Parton's, Fanny Fern's Jim's," Life of Burr,--"more charming than a +novel," because, as she implies, of the successful libertinism of its +hero,--when she says, speaking in the name of the maidens of America, +"We all, I suppose, must fall, like our first parents, when the hour of +_our_ temptation comes"! + +We should not have given the space we have bestowed on this worthless +book, had it not been made the occasion of newspaper puffs innumerable, +recommending it to the public as something worthy of their time and +money. It is one of the worst signs of our time that a false +good-nature or imperfect taste should lead respectable papers to give +currency to books destitute of all merit, by the application to them of +stereotyped phrases of commendation. These letters, without a grace of +style, without a flash of wit, without a genial ray of humor, deformed +by coarse breeding, vulgar self-conceit, and ignorant assumption, are +bepraised as if they were fresh from the mint of genius, and bore the +image and superscription of Madame de Sevigne or Lady Mary Wortley! +This evil must be cured, or the daily press may find that it will cure +itself. + +We know nothing of the author of this book, excepting what he has here +shown us of himself. He may be capable of better things, and when they +come before us, we shall rejoice to do them justice. But we advise him, +first of all, to discard his disguise, which becomes him as ill as the +gown of Mrs. Ford's "maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford," did Sir +John Falstaff. Or, if he will persist in playing the part of a woman, +let him bear in mind that to be unmanly is not necessarily to be +womanly, and that it does not follow that one writes like a lady +because he does _not_ write like a gentleman. + +_Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Drawing_. Designed as a Text-book for the +Mechanic, Architect, Engineer, and Surveyor. Comprising Geometrical +Projection, Mechanical, Architectural, and Topographical Drawing, +Perspective, and Isometry. Edited by W.E. WORTHEN. New York: D. +Appleton & Co. 1857. + +Mr. Worthen has given us in this book a most judicious and complete +compilation of the best works on the various branches of "practical" +drawing,--having, with real thoughtfulness and knowledge of what was +needed in a handbook, condensed all the most important rules and +directions to be found in the works of MM. Le Brun and Armengaud on +geometrical and mechanical drawing, Ferguson and Garbett on +architectural, and Williams, Gillespie, Smith, and Frome, on +topographical drawing. + +It includes a very full chapter of geometrical definitions, a complete +and minute description of all the implements of mechanical drawing, and +solutions of all the useful problems of geometrical drawing,--a part of +the work especially needed by practical mechanics, and hitherto to be +found, so far as we know, only in the form of results in the +pocket-books of tables, or in the lengthy and elaborate treatises of +the heavy cyclopaedias, or works specially devoted to the topic. + +There is an admirably condensed treatise on the mechanical powers, +containing all the problems of use in construction, with tables of the +mechanical properties of materials. In mechanical drawing there are +directions for the most complicated drawings, going up to the last +improvements in the steam-engine. The same completeness of elementary +instruction marks the section on architectural drawing, though in this +department we should have liked a fuller and better-chosen series of +examples, especially of domestic architecture,--an Italian villa +planned by Mr. Upjohn being the only really tasteful and appropriate +dwelling-house given. The designs by Downing, rarely much more than +commodious residences with great neatness rather than artistic beauty, +stand very well for that style of building which consults comfort and +attains it, but it is a misuse of words to call them artistic. +Picturesque they may be at times, but often the affectation of external +style puts Downing's designs into the category of Gothic follies and +Grecian villanies, in which the outside gives the lie to the +inside,--emulating in wood the forms of stone, giving to cottages on +whose roof snow will never lie three inches deep all the pitch a Swiss +_chalet_ would need. We are especially sorry to see a plate of Thomas's +house in Fifth Avenue, New York,--the most absurd and ludicrous pile of +building material which can be found on the avenue,--and to find such +evidence of taste as is shown by the editor's commendation of it as +"uniting richness and grandeur of effect," "admirably suited," etc. Mr. +Worthen, however, generally abstains from much expression of opinion as +to styles or the respective merits of works. + +His examples of the steam-engine are nearly all from American models, +and include the oscillating engines of the "Golden Gate," the last +important advance in the construction of the marine engine; for, +although the form of the oscillator has been known for years, it had +never been applied to marine uses until the success of the "Golden +Gate" proved its applicability to the heaviest engines. The examples of +architectural details and ornaments are copious, and represent all +styles with great fairness; but there is much confusion in the +numbering of the plates, so that it is a problem at times to find the +illustration desired. + +The tinted illustrations, though answering their proposed purpose, are +a disgrace to the art of lithotinting,--coarse, ineffective, and cheap. +The publishers, we think, would have profited by a little more +liberality in this respect. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, +ISSUE 12, OCTOBER, 1858*** + + +******* This file should be named 10435.txt or 10435.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/3/10435 + + +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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