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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/10854-0.txt b/10854-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b26a1a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/10854-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8817 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10854 *** + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. VI.--OCTOBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVI. + + * * * * * + + +SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS. + +BY A TOURIST WITHOUT IMAGINATION OR ENTHUSIASM. + +We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour +were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a +flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, +where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after +their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up +to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called +mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at +the station there. + +Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully +hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily +adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring +our way to the residence of Burns. The street leading from the station +is called Shakspeare Street; and at its farther extremity we read +"Burns Street" on a corner house,--the avenue thus designated having +been formerly known as "Mill Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with +small, hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean +houses of white-washed stone, joining one to another along the whole +length of the street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass +between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and +reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed +children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some +women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their +wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a +poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man +of cleanly predilections to spend his days. + +We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street +to a two-story house, built of stone, and white-washed, like its +neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most +of them, though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate +structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was +an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but +indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial +school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who +smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low +and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. + +A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon +appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room, +and that he had written many of his songs here. + +She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bed-chamber over +the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or +windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber +itself was the one where he slept in his latter life-time, and in +which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable +place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more +unsatisfactory than Shakspeare's house, which has a certain homely +picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness +of the abode before us. The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the +contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the +steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the +poet's memory less fragrant. + +As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the +house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, +it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched +outskirt above described. Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries +guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,) +we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the +mausoleum of Burns. + +Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and, +scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was +crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are +peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other +stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling +the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these +sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty +feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed +with names of small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to +ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the +custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner," +"Shoemaker," "Flesher") on his tombstone. As another peculiarity, +wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of their husbands; +thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have +bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave. + +There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently +well-worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed +behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was +privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian +temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty +feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the +Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares +of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the +structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the +interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of +Burns,--the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, +before this monument was built. Stuck against the surrounding wall is +a marble statue of Burns at the plough, with the Genius of Caledonia +summoning the ploughman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very +successful piece of work; for the plough was better sculptured than +the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, was more effective +than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who +knew Burns, certifies, this statue to be very like the original. + +The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their +children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was +intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) +said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of +the burial of the eldest son of Burns. The poet's bones were +disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful +thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for +several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a +new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. We learned that there is +a surviving daughter of Burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of +the two younger sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity +by the eldest son, who appears to have been of disreputable life in +his younger days. He inherited his father's failings, with some faint +shadow, I have also understood, of the great qualities which have made +the world tender of his father's vices and weaknesses. + +We listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it +robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due. +Indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and +effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just +previously. Beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings, +and picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these, +one does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have +failed to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a +disreputable, drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man, +consorting with associates of damaged character, and, as his only +ostensible occupation, gauging the whiskey which he too often tasted. +Siding with Burns, as we needs must, in his plea against the world, +let us try to do the world a little justice too. It is far easier to +know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape in the +spotlessness of marble than when the actual man comes staggering +before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily life. For my +part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while +he was still living. There must have been something very grand in his +immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his +natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon. + +As we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly +four hundred inhabitants of Dumfries were buried during the cholera +year; and also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the +inscriptions on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to +puzzle them out; but, I believe, they mark the resting-places of old +Covenanters, some of whom were killed by Claverhouse and his +fellow-ruffians. + +St. Michael's Church is of red freestone, and was built about a +hundred years ago, on an old Catholic foundation. Our guide admitted +us into it, and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble +figure of a child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from +beneath which appeared its two baby feet. It was truly a sweet little +statue; and the woman told us that it represented a child of the +sculptor, and that the baby (here still in its marble infancy) had +died more than twenty-six years ago. "Many ladies," she said, +"especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." It +was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his +genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the +representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion +of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities. +A gentleman from London had seen the statue, and was so much delighted +with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain +above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. So this was not the +real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold +that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy +to replace it. The first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and +spiritual innocence. The copy, as I have said above, has a drapery +over the lower limbs. But, after all, if we come to the truth of the +matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly reposited in the +drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch. + +We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without +altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly +wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the +side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family-pew, +showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so +situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the +minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers," +said she. This touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself +nodding in sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought +him before us to the life. In the corner seat of the next pew, right +before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on +whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has +immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's +name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing +which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted +that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, +because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient. + +At the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for +the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got +into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile +to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, +one of the veriest country-inns which we have found in Great Britain. +The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any +other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly +white-washed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural +in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could +contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy +generations. The fashion of paving the village-street, and patching +one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all +verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a +more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's +time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about +midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in +its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred +edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most +characteristic productions,--"The Holy Fair." + +Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village-street, stands +Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter +is a two-story, redstone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means +venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned +windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or +eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it +might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole +town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses, +of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general +aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little +dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm +summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most +familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled +uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of +our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the +whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping +their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on +Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the +street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. Except in +some remote little town of Italy, (where, besides, the inhabitants had +the intelligible stimulus of beggary,) I have never been honored with +nearly such an amount of public notice. + +The next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church, +after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and, it being Sacrament +Sunday, and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a +closely filled pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of +four several sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate. +He was somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a +spectacle of Scotch manners identical with that of Burns's "Holy +Fair," on the very spot where the poet located that immortal +description. By way of further conformance to the customs of the +country, we ordered a sheep's head and the broth, and did penance +accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a fly, and set out for +Burns's farm of Moss Giel. + +Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends +over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes +on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to +point out a hawthorn, growing by the way-side, which he said was +Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, although I +have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been +celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately +came to the farm-house of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed +from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably +overshadowed by trees. The house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like +thousands of others in England and Scotland, with a thatched roof, on +which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien +growth. There is a door and one window in front, besides another +little window that peeps out among the thatch. Close by the cottage, +and extending back at right angles from it, so as to inclose the +farm-yard, are two other buildings of the same size, shape, and +general appearance as the house: any one of the three looks just as +fit for a human habitation as the two others, and all three look still +more suitable for donkey-stables and pig-sties. As we drove into the +farm-yard, bounded on three sides by these three hovels, a large dog +began to bark at us; and some women and children made their +appearance, but seemed to demur about admitting us, because the master +and mistress were very religious people, and had not yet come back +from the Sacrament at Mauchline. + +However, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of +Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling +visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we +went into the back-door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. +It showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there +were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years +old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the +people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about +us. Thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage +into the only other apartment below-stairs, a sitting-room, where we +found a young man eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did +not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way +home from church. This room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor +one, and, besides being all that the cottage had to show for a parlor, +it was a sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained +off, on occasion. The young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him +lay) to go upstairs. Up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought +us to the top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the +wretchedest little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof +under the thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. This, most +probably, was Burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of +his mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at +one time or another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight +tread. On the opposite side of the passage was the door of another +attic-chamber, opening which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses +on the floor. + +The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a +dunghill-odor, and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of +such a dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than +it appeared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe +about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics +into this narrowness and filth. Such a habitation is calculated to +make beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism +which I did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that a tiller of broad +fields, like the farmer of Mauchline, should have his abode in a +pig-sty. It is sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any +human being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his +home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, I never in the least +knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's genius, nor his heroic +merit for being no worse man, until I thus learned the squalid +hindrances amid which he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere, +and cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human +virtue. + +The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and +unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it +should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, +enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and +sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high +hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant +aspect enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the +interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall +remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it. + +Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told +us was that in which Burns turned up the mouse's nest. It is the +inclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a +rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was +whitened with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies, +everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was +the field where Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. If so, the +soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he +bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole +handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be +precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's +farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he +turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. + +From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of +which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. We skirted, +too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs +to the Boswell family,--the present possessor being Sir James Boswell, +[Sir James Boswell is now dead.] a grandson of Johnson's friend, and +son of the Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel. Our driver spoke of +Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and +similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that +poor Bozzy's booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his +ancient line. There is no male heir to the estate of Auchinleck. The +portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much +undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over +a large number of acres, is the income very considerable. + +By-and-by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass +of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge +that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from +bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the +young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth +and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest +truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her +womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. + +Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, +through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it +seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no +such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could +desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river +flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, +sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the +foot of high and precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of +Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's +song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people +ever attained it. How slight the tenure seems! A young lady happened +to walk out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a +neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in four or five +warm, rude,--at least, not refined, though rather ambitious,--and +somewhat ploughman-like verses. Burns has written hundreds of better +things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance +into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and all her race are +famous! I should like to know the present head of the family, and +ascertain what value, if any, they put upon the celebrity thus won. + +We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of +Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly +the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing +anything else worth writing about. + +There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the +rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while +frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days +past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a +stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found, +after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by, +and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely +ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through +the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief +business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are +perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell +only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of +village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an +extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the +churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead +people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular +and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless +there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by +her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline. + +Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely +gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to +be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of +Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy +of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old +gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old +family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a +fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed +proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named +Whitefoord. + +Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a +cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a +woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we +see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly +direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to +the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the +town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; +although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking +houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. +The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and +stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows +directly down into the passing tide. + +I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and +recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four +gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the +early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," +whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other +auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream +among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved +like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at +the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the +pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless +I mention, that, during the rain, the women and girls went about the +streets of Ayr barefooted to save their shoes. + +The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined +to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch +breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and +started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at +about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a road-side cottage, on which +was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its +walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and +entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a +neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls +are much over-scribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of +a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the +room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two +tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the +inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of +furniture. I have never (though I do not personally adopt this mode of +illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural +impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of +poets and heroes. + +On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait +of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of +this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute +for the ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one +other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is +the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, +even ruder than those of Shakspeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so +strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of +Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been +opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is +the little original window, of only four small panes, through which +came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side +of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, +which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in +the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest +human life which mankind then had within its circumference. + +These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance +of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; +and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and +sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The +cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and +description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a +splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began +to draw visitors to the way-side ale-house. The old woman of the house +led us through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast +dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splendid as +compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the +cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with +pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and +poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant +with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whiskey is here +quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed to draw so much of +his inspiration from that potent liquor. + +We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the +Monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A +very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and +to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds +within which the former is inclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of +the inclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because +the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to +assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared +anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at +the concluding ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns. + +The inclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an +ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and +shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an +elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, +above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,--a mere dome, +supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The +edifice is beautiful in itself; though I know not what peculiar +appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet. + +The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a +bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so +warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness +cannot be good. In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which +were reposited the two volumes of the little Pocket-Bible that Burns +gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. +It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring +to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of +each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers +is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried +to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly +treasured here. + +There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the +top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam +O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered +through the inclosed garden, and came to a little building in a +corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor +Wat,--ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable +degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the +garden, too, we again beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam +galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in +the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed +all over and around with foliage. + +When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us +that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of +the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out +from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, +which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few +steps ascend from the road-side, through a gate, into the old +graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is +wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, +though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was +there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural +pretension; no New England meeting-house has more simplicity in its +very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so +wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually +exists. By-the-by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of +witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but +the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative +faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of +rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some +priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the +consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus +made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils. + +The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent +a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for +it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each +compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on +one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is +impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, +had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs +to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they +sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from +our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns +bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth +and annexing it to the domain of imagination. And here these wretched +squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of +the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! May their rest be +troubled, till they rise and let us in! + +Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it +fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside +of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more +than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few +windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with +mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the +eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with +devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is +a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he +might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have +looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been +walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the +gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that +I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are +gray and irregular. + +The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a +modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach +the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing +the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new +bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, +and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing +wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a +lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a +kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its +high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green +banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet +and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded +banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at +this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning +some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody. + +It was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of Tam's +adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road, +and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from +that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily as might be to +Ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a +pyramid out of the sea. Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in +sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side. +But a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding +intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost +of one, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. We shall appreciate +him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as +a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary +light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a +personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his +countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had +shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. + + + * * * * * + +PASQUIN AND PASQUINADES. + +At an angle of the palace which Pius VI., (Braschi,) with paternal +liberality, built for the residence of his family, before the French +Revolution put an end to such beneficence, stands the famous statue of +Pasquin, giving its name to the square upon which it looks. It is +little more now than a mere trunk of marble, bearing the marks of +blows and long hard usage. But even in this mutilated condition it +shows traces of excellent workmanship and of pristine beauty. The +connoisseurs in sculpture praise it,[1] and the antiquaries have +embittered their ignorance in regard to it by discussions as to +whether it was a statue of Hercules, of Alexander the Great, or of +Menelaus bearing the body of Patroclus. Disabled and maimed as it is, +it is thus only the more fitting type of the Roman people, of which it +has been so long the acknowledged mouthpiece; and the epigrams and +satires which have made its name famous have gained an additional +point and a sharper sting from the patent resemblance in the condition +of their professed author to that of those for whom he spoke. + +It is said to have been about the beginning of the sixteenth century +that the statue was discovered and dug up near the place where it now +stands, and the earliest account of it seems to be that given by +Castelvetro, in 1553, in his discourse upon a _canzone_ by Annibal +Caro. He says, that Antonio Tibaldeo of Ferrara, a venerable and +lettered man, relates concerning this statue, that there used to be in +Rome a tailor, very skilful in his trade, by the name of Pasquin, who +had a shop which was much frequented by prelates, courtiers, and other +people, so that he employed a great number of workmen, who, like +worthless fellows, spent their time in speaking ill of one person or +another, sparing no one, and finding opportunity for jests in +observing those who came to the shop. This custom became so notorious +that the very persons who were hit by these sharp speeches joined in +the laugh at them, and felt no resentment; so that, if any one wished +to say a hard thing of another, he did it under cover of the person of +Master Pasquin, pretending that he had heard it said at his shop,--at +which pretence every one laughed, and no one bore a grudge. But, +Master Pasquin dying, it happened, that, in improving the street, this +broken statue, which lay half imbedded in the ground, serving as a +stepping-stone for passengers, was taken up and set at the side of the +shop. Making use of this good chance, satirical people began to say +that Master Pasquin had come back. The custom soon arose of attaching +to the statue bits of writing; and as it had been allowed to the +tailor to say everything, so by means of the statue any one might +publish what he would not have ventured to speak.[2] + +Thus did Hercules or Alexander change his name for that of Pasquin, +and soon became almost as well known throughout Europe under his new +designation as under his old. If the statue were not dug up, as is +said, until the sixteenth century, its fame spread rapidly; for, +before Luther had made himself feared at Rome, Pasquin was already +well known as the satirist of the vices of Pope and Cardinals, and as +a bold enemy of the abuses of the Church. + +But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is +its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected +series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the +popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording +indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and +of the regard in which they held their rulers. The free speech, which +was prohibited and dangerous to the living subjects of the temporal +power of the Popes, was a privilege which, in spite of prohibition, +Pasquin insisted upon exercising. Whatever precautions might be taken, +whatever penalties imposed, means were always found, when occasion +arose, to affix to the battered marble papers bearing stinging +epigrams or satirical verses, which, once read, fastened themselves in +the memory, and spread quickly by repetition. He could not be +silenced. "Great sums," said he one day, in an epigram addressed to +Paul III., who was Pope from 1534 to 1549, "great sums were formerly +given to poets for singing: how much will you give me, O Paul, to be +silent?" + + "Ut canerent data multa olim sunt vatibus aera: + Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis?" + +In his life of Adrian VI., the successor of Leo X., Paulus Jovius, not +indeed the most trustworthy of authorities, tells a story which, if +not true, might well be so. He says, that the Pope, being vexed at the +free speech of Pasquin, proposed to have him thrown into the Tiber, +thinking thus to stop his tongue; but the Spanish legate dissuaded +him, by suggesting, with grave Spanish wisdom, that all the frogs of +the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of +speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the +assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the +fatal secret about King Midas? + +Pasquin was by no means the only figure in Rome who gave expression to +thoughts and feelings which it would have been dangerous to the living +subjects of the ecclesiastical rule to utter aloud. His most +distinguished companion was Marforio, a colossal statue of an ocean or +river god, which was discovered in the sixteenth century near the +forum of Mars, from which he derived his name. Toward the end of the +same century, he was placed in the lower court of the Palazzo de' +Conservatori, on the Capitol, and here he has since remained. +Dialogues were often carried on between him and his friend Pasquin, +and a share in their conversation was sometimes taken by the Facchino, +or so called Porter of the Palazzo Piombino. In his "Roma Nova," +published in 1660, Sprenger says that Pasquin was assigned to the +nobles, Marforio to the citizens, and the Facchino to the common +people. But besides these there were the Abate Luigi of the Palazzo +Valle,--Madama Lucrezia, who still sits behind the Venetian palace +near the Church of St. Mark,--the Baboon, from which the Via Babbuino +takes its name,--and the marble portrait of Scanderbeg, the great +enemy of the Turks, on the _façade_ of the house which he at one time +occupied in Rome. Each of these personages now and then issued an +epigram or took part in the satirical talk of his companions. Such a +number of cold and secure censors is not surprising in a city like +Rome, where the checks upon open speech are so many, and where priests +and spies exercise so close a scrutiny over the thoughts and words of +men. Oppression begets hypocrisy, and a tyrant adds to the faults of +his subjects the vices of cowardice and secrecy. Caustic Forsyth, +speaking of the Romans, begins with the bitter remark, that "the +national character is the most ruined thing at Rome"; and in the same +section he adds, "Their humor is naturally caustic; but they lampoon, +as they stab, only in the dark. The danger attending open attacks +forces them to confine their satire within epigram; and thus +pasquinade is but the offspring of hypocrisy, the only resource of +wits who are obliged to be grave on so many absurdities in religion, +and respectful to so many upstarts in purple." Thus if the Romans +lampoon only in the dark, the fault is to be charged against their +rulers rather than themselves. The talent for sarcastic epigram is +hereditary with the people. The pointed style of Martial was handed +down through successive generations. The epigram in his hands was no +longer a mere inscription, an idyl, or an elegy; it had lost its +ancient grace, but it took on a new energy, and it set the model, +which the later Romans knew well how to copy, of satire condensed into +wit, in lines each of whose words had a sting. + +The first true Pasquinades--that is, the first of the epigrams which +were affixed to Pasquin, and hence derived their name--are perhaps +those which belong to the reign of Leo X. We at least have found no +earlier ones of undoubted genuineness; but satires similar to those of +Pasquin, and possibly originating with him, as they now go under the +general name of Pasquinades, were published against the Popes who +preceded Leo. The infamous Alexander VI., the Pope who has made his +name synonymous with the worst infamies that disgrace mankind, was not +spared the attacks of the subjects whom he and his children, not +unworthy of such a father, degraded and abused. Two lines could say +much:-- + + "Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit." + +"Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, this also a Sextus" (Alexander +Sextus, that is, Alexander the Sixth): "always under the Sextuses has +Rome been ruined." And as if this were not enough, another distich +struck with more directness at the vices of the Pope:-- + + "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum: + Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest." + +"Alexander sells the keys, the altars, Christ. He bought them first, +and has good right to sell."[3] + +Alexander had gained his election by bribes which he did not pay, and +promises which he did not keep; and Guicciardini tells in a few words +what use he made of his holy office, declaring, that, "with his +immoderate ambition and poisoned infidelity, together with all the +horrible examples of cruelty, luxury and monstrous covetousness, +selling without distinction both holy things and profane things, he +infected the whole world."[4] + +In 1503, after a pontificate of eleven years, Alexander died. Rome +rejoiced. Peace, which for a long time had been banished from her +borders, returned, and she enjoyed for a few days unwonted freedom +from alarm and trouble. Her happiness found expression in verse:-- + + "Dic unde, Alecto, pax haec effulsit, et unde + Tam subito reticent proelia? Sextus obit." + + "Say whence, Alecto, has this peace + shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has + the noise of battle ceased? Alexander + is dead." + +The rule of Borgia's successor, Pius III., lasting only twenty-seven +days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but +the nine years' reign of Julius II., which followed, was a period +whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and +satires to which it gave birth. The impulsive and passionate vigor of +the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises, +the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the +Papal city, are all more or less minutely told. The Pope began his +reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather +sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of +which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the +Papal state. It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he +threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of +Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that +henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul. The story was too good +to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the +one preserved by Bayle is the best:-- + + "Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves, + Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit." + + "Since the keys of Peter profit not for + battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul, + the sword will answer."[5] + +Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard +to grow, and Raphael's noble portrait of him shows what dignity it +gave to his strongly marked face. The beard was also regarded +traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul. "For me," the Pope was +represented as saying, "for me the beard of Paul, the sword of Paul, +all things of Paul: that key-bearer, Peter, is no way to my liking." + + "Huc barbam Pauli, gladium Pauli, omnia Pauli: + Claviger ille nihil ad mea vota Petrus." + +But the most savage epigram against Julius was one that recalled the +name of the great Roman, which the Pope was supposed to have adopted +in emulation of that of Alexander, borne by his predecessor:-- + + "Julius est Romae. Quid abest? Date, numina, Brutum. + Nam quoties Romae est Julius, illa perit." + + "Julius is at Rome. What is wanting? + Ye gods, give us a Brutus! For + when Julius is at Rome, the city is lost." + +Pasquin became a recognized institution, as we have said, under Leo +X., and was taken under the protection of the Roman people.[6] His +popularity was such as to lead to consequences of which he himself +complained. He was made the vehicle of the effusions of worthless +versifiers, and he was forced to cry out, "Woe is me! even the copyist +fixes his verses upon me, and every one bestows on me his silly +trifles." + +The application of these verses was alike appropriate to the life of +the Pope, or to the reigns of Alexander VI., Julius II., and the one +just beginning. + + "Me miserum! Copista etiam mihi carmina figit; + Et tribuit nugas jam mihi quisque suas." + +He seems to have been successful in putting a stop to this injurious +treatment; for not long after he declared, with a sarcasm directed +against the prominent qualities of his fellow-citizens, "There is no +better man at Rome than I. I seek nothing from any one. I am not +wordy. I sit here and am silent." + + "Non homo me melior Rome est. Ego nil peto ab ullo. + Non sum verbosus. Hic sedeo et taceo." + +It had become the custom, upon occasions of public festivity, to adorn +Pasquin with suits of garments, and with paint, forcing him to assume +from time to time different characters according to the fancy of his +protectors. Sometimes he appeared as Neptune, sometimes as Chance or +Fate, as Apollo or Bacchus. Thus, in the year 1515, he became Orpheus, +and, while adorned with the _plectrum_ and the lyre of the poet, +Marforio addressed a distich to him in his new character, which hints +at the popular appreciation of the Pope. The year 1515 was that of the +descent of Francis I, into Italy, and of the bloody battle of +Marignano. "In the midst of war and slaughter and the sound of +trumpets," said Marforio, "you sing and strike your lyre: this is to +understand the temper of your Lord." + + "Inter bella, tubas, caedes, canis ipse, lyramque + Percutis. Hoc sapere est ingenium Domini."[7] + +But the character of most of those pasquinades which belong to the +pontificate of Leo is so coarse as to render them unfit for +reproduction. A general licentiousness pervaded Rome, and the vices of +the Pope and the higher clergy, veiled, but not hidden, under the +displays of sensual magnificence and the pretended refinements of +degraded art, were readily imitated by a people taught to follow and +obey the teachings of their ecclesiastical rulers. Corruption of every +sort was common. Virtue and vice, profane and sacred things, were +alike for sale. The Pope made money by the sale of cardinalates and +traffic in indulgences. "Give me gifts, ye spectators," begged +Pasquin; "bring me not verses: divine Money alone rules the ethereal +gods." + + "Dona date, astantes; versus ne reddite: sola + Imperat aethereis alma Moneta deis." + +Leo's fondness for buffoons, with whom he mercilessly amused himself +by tormenting them and exciting them to make themselves ridiculous, is +recorded in a question put to Pasquin on one of his changes of figure. +"Why have you not asked, O Pasquil, to be made a buffoon? for at Rome +everything is now permitted to the buffoons." + + "Cur non te fingi scurram, Pasquille, rogâsti? + Cum Romae scurris omnia jam liceant." + +Leo died in 1521. His death was sudden, and not without suspicion of +poison. It was said that the last offices of the Church were not +performed for the dying man, and an epigram sharply embodied the +report. "Do you ask why at his last hour Leo could not take the sacred +things? He had sold them." + + "Sacra sub extremâ, si forte requiritis, horâ + Cur Leo non potuit sumere: Vendiderat." + +The spirit of Luther had penetrated through the walls of Rome; and +though all tongues but those of statues might be silenced, eyes were +not blinded, nor could ears be made deaf. Nowhere was the need of +reform so felt as at Rome, but nowhere was there so little hope for +it; for the people stood in equal need of it with the Church, whose +ministers had corrupted them, and whose rulers tyrannized over them. +"Farewell, Rome!" said Pasquin. + + "Roma, vale! Satis est vidisse. Revertar + Quum leno, meretrix, scurra, cinaedus ero." + +When Leo's short-lived successor, the gloomy Fleming, Adrian VI., who +was the author of the proposal to destroy Pasquin, despatched his +nuncio to the diet of Nuremberg to oppose the progress of Luther, he +told him in his instructions to "avow frankly that God has permitted +this schism and this persecution on account of the sins of men, and, +above all, of those of the priests and the prelates of the Church." +Pasquin could not have improved on these words. And when, twenty +months after his elevation to the papacy, this hard old man died, the +inscription--which he ordered to be put upon his tomb was in words fit +to disarm the satirist:--"Here lies Adrian VI., who esteemed nothing +in his life more unhappy than that he had been called to rule": +"_Adrianus VI. hîc situs est, qui nil sibi infelicius in vitâ quam +quod imperaret duxit." + +During the pontificate of Clement VII., Rome suffered under calamities +too terrible and too depressing to admit of the frequent display of +the humor or the satire of Pasquin. The siege and sack of the city by +the army of the Constable de Bourbon wrought too much misery to be set +in verse or to be sharpened in epigram. One shrewd jest of this time +has, indeed, been preserved. Clement was for months a prisoner in the +Castle of Sant' Angelo, unable to stir abroad. "_Papa non potest +errare_" said Pasquin, or one of his friends, with a play on the +double meaning of the last word, and a scoff at Papal pretension: "The +Pope cannot err": he is too well guarded to stray. But when the Pope +died in 1534, Pasquin did not spare his memory. He had lately changed +his physician, and taken one named Matteo Curzio or Curtius; and when +his death took place, not without suspicion of malpractice, the +satisfaction of the people was expressed by the appearance of a +portrait of this new doctor, with the inscription, in words borrowed +from the Vulgate, "_Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi!_" +"Curtius has killed Clement," said Pasquin. "Curtius, who has secured +the public health, should be rewarded." + + "Curtis occidit Clementem. Curtius auro + Donandus, per quem publica parta salus." + +Nor was this all. Pasquin declared, that, on occasion of Clement's +death, a bitter strife arose between Pluto and Saint Peter as to which +should receive the Pope:-- + + "Noluit hunc coelum, noluit hunc barathrum." + +The Saint has no place for him, and the ruler of the lower regions +fears the disturbance that he will make in hell. The quarrel is cut +short by the arrival of Clement himself upon the spot, who, finding no +entrance into heaven, declares that he will force himself into hell:-- + + "Tartara tentemus, facilis descensus Averni." + +The fifteen years of the pontificate of Clement's successor, Paul +III.,--years, for the most part, of quiet and prosperity at +Rome,--afforded ample opportunities for the display of Pasquin's +spirit. The personal character of the Pope, the exactions which he +laid upon the Romans for the profit of his favorites and his family, +and his unblushing nepotism were the subjects of frequent satire. The +Farnese palace, built in great part with stone taken from the +Colosseum, is a standing monument of the justice of Pasquin's rebukes, +the sharpness of which is concentrated in a single telling epigram. +"Let us pray for Pope Paul," said Pasquin, "for zeal for his house is +consuming him":-- + + "Oremus pro Papâ Paulo, quia zelus + Domus suae comedit illum." + +At another time Marforio addressed a letter to Pasquin, in which he +tells him of the Pope's reply to an angel who had been sent to him +with the message, "Feed my sheep" "Charity begins at home," had been +the answer of the Pope. And when the Roman people had prayed Paul to +have pity on his people, Paul had replied, "It is not right to take +the children's bread and give it to dogs." + +But Pasquin was now to be brought into greater notoriety than ever. In +spite of the efforts of the successors of Adrian, the Reformation had +rapidly advanced, and the Reformers, scorning no weapons that might +serve their cause, determined to turn the wit of Pasquin to their +account. In the year 1544, a little, but thick, volume appeared, with +the title, "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." It bore no name of editor or +printer, and professed to be published at Eleutheropolis, the City of +Freedom, or, as it might be rendered in a free translation, the City +of _Luther_. Its 637 pages were filled with satire; it was not merely +a collection of Pasquin's sayings, but it contained epigrams and +dialogues derived from other sources as well. The book was of a kind +to be popular, as well as to excite the bitterest aversion of the +adherents of the Roman Church. It long since became a volume of +excessive rarity, most of the copies having been destroyed by zealous +Romanists. The famous scholar, Daniel Heinsius, within a century after +its publication, believed that a copy which he purchased, at a cost of +a hundred ducats, was the only one remaining in the world, and he +inscribed the following lines upon one of its blank pages:-- + + "Roma meos fratres igni dedit. Unica Phoenix + Vivo, aureis venio centum Heinsio." + + "Rome gave my brothers to the fire. + A solitary Phoenix, I survive, and at cost + of a hundred gold pieces I come to Heinsius." + +But Heinslus was mistaken in supposing his copy to be unique; and +bibliographers of later date, while marking the rarity of the book, +have recorded its existence in various libraries. At this moment two +copies are lying before us, probably the only copies in America.[8] + +The editor of this publication was the Piedmontese scholar and +Reformer, Coelius Secundus Curio. His early life had been eventful, +and he had experienced the tender mercies of the Roman Church. He had +been persecuted, his property had been seized, he himself compelled to +fly, on account of his liberal views. He had been in the prisons of +the Inquisition, from which he had escaped only by a successful and +ingenious stratagem. At length, wearied with contention, he took up +his abode in Protestant Switzerland, where he passed in quiet the +latter years of his useful and honored life.[9] It was while here that +he compiled this book, and sent it as a missile into the camp of his +opponents, the enemies of freedom of thought and of the right of +private judgment. From this time Pasquin's fame became universal. The +words _pasquil_ or _pasquinade_ were adopted info almost every +European tongue, and soon embraced in their widening signification all +sorts of satiric epigrams. A great part of the volume published by +Curio is made up, indeed, of attacks on the Roman Church which have no +connection with Pasquin as their author. The style and the subject of +many of them betray a German origin; and some of the longer pieces so +closely resemble, in point, in humor, and in expression, the +celebrated "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," that there can be little +doubt that Ulrich von Hutten, or some one of his coadjutors in that +clever satire on the monks and clergy, had a hand in their +composition.[10] + +But, leaving the pasquinades of other people, let us come back to the +sayings of Pasquin himself. No one has surpassed him in his own way, +and his store of epigrams, illustrating life and manners at Rome, is +abundant. The pontificate of Sixtus V., from 1585 to 1590, was full of +material for his wit. The only man in Rome who did not tremble under +the rod with which this hard old monk ruled his people and the Church +was the free-spoken marble jester. The very morning after the election +of Sixtus, Pasquin appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the +question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am +taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three +cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new +Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his +adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been +deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick their teeth at +leisure. + +Leti, in his entertaining and gossipping life of this most merciless +of Popes, tells a story of another pasquinade, which exhibits the +temper of Sixtus. One morning Pasquin appeared clothed in a very dirty +shirt, and, upon being asked by Marforio, why he wore such foul linen, +replied, he could get no other, for the Pope had made his washerwoman +a princess,--meaning thereby the Pope's sister, Donna Camilla, who had +formerly been a laundress, but was now established with a fortune and +a palace. "This stinging piece of raillery was carried directly to his +Holiness, who ordered a strict search to be made for the author, but +to no purpose. Upon which he stuck up printed papers in all the public +places of the city, promising, upon the word of a Pope, to give the +author of the pasquinade a thousand pistoles and his life, provided he +would discover himself, but threatened to hang him, if he was found +out by any one else, and offered the thousand pistoles to the +informer." Upon this the author was simple enough to make confession +and to demand the money. Sixtus paid him the sum, and then, saying +that he had indeed promised him his life, but not freedom from +punishment, ordered his hands to be cut off, and his tongue to be +bored, "to prevent him from being so witty for the future." This act, +says Leti, "filled every one with terror and amazement." And well +might such a piece of Oriental barbarity excite the horror of the +Romans.[11] Pasquin, however, was not alarmed, and a few days +afterward he appeared holding a wet shirt to dry in the sun. It was a +Sunday morning, and Marforio, naturally surprised at such a violation +of the day, asked him why he could not wait till Monday before drying +it Pasquin answered, that there was no time to lose; for, if he waited +till to-morrow to dry his shirt, he might have to pay for the +sunshine;--hinting at the heavy taxes which Sixtus had laid upon the +necessaries of life, and from which the sunshine itself might not long +be exempt. + +It was near about this time that a caricature was circulated in Rome, +representing Sixtus as King Stork and the Romans as frogs vainly +attempting to escape from his devouring beak. _Merito haec patimur_, +"We suffer deservedly," was the legend of the picture, and the moral +it conveyed was a true one. Rome was in such a state as to require the +harshest applications, and the despotic severity of Sixtus did much to +restore decency and security to life. He left the Romans in a far +better condition than he found them; and it would have been well for +Rome, if among his successors there had been more to follow his +example in repressing vice and violence,--in a word, had there been +more King Storks and fewer King Logs. + +The most poetic of pasquinades, and one in which wit rises into +imagination, belongs to the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1623-1644.) +This Pope issued a bull excommunicating all persons who took snuff in +the churches of Seville; whereupon Pasquin quoted the following verse +from Job (xiii. 25):--"_Contra folium_ _quod vento rapitur ostendis +potentiam tuam? et stipulam siccam persequeris?_" + +This is a very model of satire in its kind, and of a higher kind than +the pasquil, which Coleridge quotes as an example of wit, upon the +Pope who had employed a committee to rip up the errors of his +predecessors. + +"Some one placed a pair of spurs on the statue of St. Peter, and a +label from the opposite statue of St. Paul. + +"_St. Paul_. Whither, then, are you bound? + +"_St. Peter_. I apprehend danger here;--they'll soon call me in +question for denying my Master. + +"_St. Paul_. Nay, then, I had better be off, too; for they'll question +me for having persecuted the Christians before my conversion."[12] + +In his distinction between the wit of thoughts, of words, and of +images, Coleridge asserts that the first belongs eminently to the +Italians. Such broad assertions are always open to exceptions, and +Pasquin shows that the Romans at least are not less clever in the wit +of words than in that of thoughts. Take, for example, the jest on +Innocent X. which Howel reports in one of his entertaining letters. +This Pope, who, says the candid historian, Mosheim, "to a profound +ignorance of all those things which it was necessary for a Christian +bishop to know, joined the most shameless indolence and the most +notorious profligacy," abandoned his person, his dignity, and his +government to the disposal of Donna Olympia Maldachini, the widow of +his brother. The portrait of the Pope may be seen in the Doria Gallery +at Rome; for it is still esteemed an honor by the noble family to +which the gallery belongs to be able to trace a relationship to a +Pope, even though so vile a one as Innocent "_Magis amat papa Olympiam +quam Olympum_" said Pasquin; and the pun still clings to the memory of +him whom his authorized biographer calls "_religiosissimo nelle cose +divine e prudentissimo nelle umane."_ But superlatives often have a +value in inverse ratio to their intention. There is a curious story +told by the Catholic historian, Novaes, that, after the death of +Innocent, which took place in 1655, no one could be found willing to +assume the charge of burying him. Word was sent to Donna Olympia that +she should provide a coffin for the corpse; but she replied that she +was only a poor widow. Of the cardinals he had made, of the relations +he had enriched, none was to be found who had charity enough to treat +his remains with decency. His body was taken to a room where some +masons were at work, and one of them out of compassion put a tallow +candle at its head, while another, fearing lest the mice, of which +there were many in the apartment, might disturb the corpse, secured a +person to watch it through the night. At length one of the officers of +the court procured a cheap coffin, and one of the canons of Saint +Peter's gave five crowns to pay the expenses of the burial.[13] A +moralist might comment on this story, and might compare it with +another which is told in a life of Innocent, written during the reign +of his successor, and published with approval at Rome. In this we are +told that at the time of his death a marvellous prodigy was observed; +for that, when his corpse was borne on a bier from Monte Cavallo to +the Vatican, at the moment of a violent storm of wind and rain, not a +drop of water fell upon it, but the bier remained perfectly dry, and +the torches with which it was accompanied were none of them +extinguished. What wonder, that, after this, it is added, "that his +memory is venerated in many places at Rome"?[14] Of all the +troublesome race of panegyrists, the Roman variety is the most +ingenious and the least to be trusted. + +When Bishop Burnet was travelling in Italy, in the year 1686, the +doctrines of the Spanish priest Molinos, the founder of the famous +sect of Quietists, had lately become the object of attack of the +Jesuits and of suspicion at the Papal Court. His system of mystical +divinity is still of interest from its connection with the lives of +Fénelon and Madame Guyon, if not from its intrinsic character. Like +most other mystical doctrines, his teachings seem to have been open to +the charge, that, while professedly based on the highest spirituality, +they had a direct tendency to encourage sensuality in its most +dangerous form. Molinos was at first much favored at Rome and by the +Pope himself; but at the time of Burnet's journey he was in the +custody of the Holy Office, while his books were undergoing the +examination which finally led to the formal condemnation of +sixty-eight propositions contained in them, to the renunciation of +these propositions by their author, and to his being sentenced to +perpetual imprisonment Burnet relates that it happened "in one week +that one man had been condemned to the galleys for somewhat he had +said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos +was clapt in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in this, that +men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness. The +Pasquinade upon all this was, "_Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo, +impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all' Sant Uffizio. Eh! che bisogna +fare?_" "If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we +stay quiet, the Inquisition. Eh! what must we do, then?" + +With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material +was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar +talent. Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for +rebuke. Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained. "Do you +wonder," said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his +changes of character, "do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a +new figure? It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the +falling back of men. He who would be pious must depart from Rome." + + "Praeteriens, forsan miraris, turba, quotannis + Cur me Roma novam mutet in effigiem. + Hoc urbis mores varios, hominumque recessus + Indicat: ergo abeat qui cupit esse pius." + +During the eighteenth century Italy did not abound in poets or wits, +and Master Pasquin seems to have shared in the dulness of the times. +Toward its end, however, when Pius VI. was building the palace under +the corner of which the statue was to find shelter, the marble +representative of the tailor watched his proceedings with sharp +observation. Long ago he had rebuked the nepotism of the Popes, but +Pius had forgotten his epigrams. "Cerberus," he had said, "had three +mouths with which he barked; but you have three, or even four, which +bark not, but devour." + + "Tres habuit fauces, et terno Cerberus ore + Latratus intra Tartara nigra dabat. + Et tibi plena fame tria sunt vel quatuor ora + Quae nulli latrant, quemque sed illa vorant." + +Every one who has been in Rome remembers how often, on the repairs of +ancient monuments, and on the pedestals of statues or busts, are to be +seen the words, "_Munificentiâ Pii Sexti_" thrusting themselves into +notice, and occupying the place which should be filled with some +nobler inscription. The bad taste and impertinence of this epigraph +are often enhanced by the slightness of the work or the gift which it +commemorates. During a season of dearth at Rome, in the time of Pius, +when the bakers had reduced the size of their loaves, Pasquin took the +opportunity to satirize the selfishness and vanity of the Pope, by +exhibiting one of these diminished loaves bearing the familiar words, +"_Munificentiâ Pii VI._" + +The French Revolution, the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, the +brilliant essays of liberalism of Pius IX., the Republic, the siege of +Rome, the reactionary government of late years, have alike supplied +matter for Master Pasquin, which he has shaped according to the +fashion of the times. He still pursues his ancient avocation. _Res acu +tetigit._ But the point of the needle is not the means by which the +rents in the garment of Rome are to be mended,--much less by which her +wounds are to be cauterized and healed. The sharp satiric tongue may +prick her moral sense into restlessness, but the Roman spirit is not +thus to be roused to action. Still Pasquin deserves credit for his +efforts; and while other liberty is denied, the Romans may be glad +that there is a single voice that cannot be silenced, and a single +censor who is not to be corrupted. + +[Footnote 1: Bernini, being asked what was the most beautiful statue +in Rome, replied, "That of Pasquin." This reply the sensible Milizia +taxes with affectation,--saying, that, although an artist may discover +in the work some marks of good design, it is now too maimed to pass +for a beautiful statue. Possibly Bernini was thinking of his own works +in comparison with it.] + +[Footnote 2: Andreas Schott,--who published an Itinerary of Italy +about the beginning of the seventeenth century, copies this account, +and adds,--"At present this custom is prohibited under the heaviest +penalties."] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Piozzi, in her amusing _Journey through Italy_, ii. +113, quotes these verses and gives a translation of them which shows +that she quite mistook their point. In spite of her quoting Latin, +Greek, and even on occasion Hebrew, her scholarship was not very +accurate or deep.] + +[Footnote 4: The Historie of Guicciardin, reduced into English by +Geffray Fenton. 1579. p. 308. Another epigram of barbarous bitterness +against Alexander refers, if we understand it aright, to one of the +gloomiest events of his pontificate, the murder of his son Giovanni, +Duca di Gandia, by his other son, Caesar Borgia. Giovanni was killed +at night, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, from which it was +recovered the next morning. + + Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sexte, putemus, + Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum." + + "Lest we should not fancy you, O Sextus, + a fisher of men, you fish for your own son + with nets."] + +[Footnote 5: Vasari relates, that Michel Angelo, when he was making +the bronze statue of Julius, at Bologna, having asked the Pope if he +should put a book in his left hand,--"No," replied the fiery old man, +"put a sword in it, for I know not letters": "_Mettivi una spada, che +io non so lettere._"] + +[Footnote 6: At the beginning of his pontificate, upon occasion of +Leo's taking possession of the Lateran with a solemn procession, an +arch of triumph was erected at the bridge of Sant' Angelo, which bore +an inscription worthy of the tailor's successor:-- + + "Olim habuit Cypria sua tempera, tempora Mavors + Olim habuit, sua nunc tempora Pallas habet." + + "Venus once had her time, Mars also has + had his, but now Minerva rules."] + +[Footnote 7: In Murray's _Handbook for Rome_, a book for the most part +of great accuracy, there is a curious blunder in the account of +Pasquin. It is said, that, "on the election of Pope Leo X., in 1440, +the following satirical acrostic appeared, to mark the date +MCCCCXL:--'_Multi caeci cardinales creaverunt caecum decimum (X) +Leonem:_ 'Many blind cardinals have created a tenth blind Lion.'" Now +in 1440 Leo was not born, and no Pope was chosen in that year. Leo was +not made Pope till 1513, and the acrostic has apparently nothing to do +with the date of his accession to the pontificate.] + +[Footnote 8: One of those copies was formerly in the Royal Library at +Munich, and sold as a duplicate. The other has the bookplate of the +Baron de Warenghien. Colonel Stanley's copy sold for £11 lls. The book +was printed at Basle, by Jean Oporin. See Clément, _Bibl. Cur. Hist, +et Crit._, vii. 371. See also, for an account of it, Salleugre, _M.m. +de Litt._, ii. 6, 203; and Schelhorn, _Amoen. Lit._, iii. 151.] + +[Footnote 9: An entertaining and curious account of Curio and his +family is to be found in a commemorative oration delivered in 1570 +before the Academy of Basle by Stupanus, and printed by Schelhorn in +_Amoen. Lit._, Tom. xiv.] + +[Footnote 10: In two or three of the dialogues Hutten is introduced as +one of the speakers; and several of the poetic epigrams are ascribed +to him by name.] + +[Footnote 11: In Luther's _Table-Talk_, he says, "Whoso in Rome is +heard to speak one word against the Pope received either a +Strappecordo or is punished with death, for his name is _Noli me +tangere._" Pasquin himself has hardly said a shrewder saying than +this. _Noli me tangere_ is the name under which Pius IX. pleads +against the diminution of his temporal power, while he threatens his +opponents with the Strappecorde.] + +[Footnote 12: _Lectures upon Shakespeare and other Dramatists_, ii. +90.] + +[Footnote 13: Novaes, x. 56. Artaud de Montor, _Hist. des Pont. Rom._, +v. 523.] + +[Footnote 14: _Vita d' Innocenzio X._, dal Cav. Ant. Bagatta.] + + * * * * * + + +THE SUMMONS. + + My ear is full of summer sounds, + With summer sights my languid eye; + Beyond the dusty village bounds + I loiter in my daily rounds, + And in the noon-time shadows lie. + + The wild bee winds his drowsy horn, + The bird swings on the ripened wheat, + The long, green lances of the corn + Are tilting in the winds of morn, + The locust shrills his song of heat. + + Another sound my spirit hears, + A deeper sound that drowns them all,-- + A voice of pleading choked with tears, + The call of human hopes and fears, + The Macedonian cry to Paul! + + The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; + I know the word and countersign; + Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, + Where stand or fall her friends or foes, + I know the place that should be mine. + + Shamed be the hands that idly fold, + And lips that woo the reed's accord, + When laggard Time the hour has tolled + For true with false and new with old + To fight the battles of the Lord! + + O brothers! blest by partial Fate + With power to match the will and deed, + To him your summons comes too late, + Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, + And has no answer but God-speed! + + * * * * * + + +DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. + +The origin of species, like all origination, like the institution of +any other natural state or order, is beyond our immediate ken. We see +or may learn how things go on; we can only frame hypotheses as to how +they began. + +Two hypotheses divide the scientific world, very unequally, upon the +origin of the existing diversity of the plants and animals which +surround us. One assumes that the actual kinds are primordial; the +other, that they are derivative. One, that all kinds originated +supernaturally and directly as such, and have continued unchanged in +the order of Nature; the other, that the present kinds appeared in +some sort of genealogical connection with other and earlier kinds, +that they became what they now are in the course of time and in the +order of Nature. + +Or, bringing in the word _species_, which is well defined as "the +perennial succession of individuals," commonly of very like +individuals,--as a close corporation of individuals perpetuated by +generation, instead of election,--and reducing the question to +mathematical simplicity of statement: species are lines of individuals +coming down from the past and running on to the future,--lines +receding, therefore, from our view in either direction. Within our +limited view they appear to be parallel lines, as a general thing +neither approaching to nor diverging from each other. The first +hypothesis assumes that they were parallel from the unknown beginning +and will be to the unknown end. The second hypothesis assumes that the +apparent parallelism is not real and complete, at least aboriginally, +but approximate or temporary; that we should find the lines convergent +in the past, if we could trace them far enough; that some of them, if +produced back, would fall into certain fragments of lines, which have +left traces in the past, lying not exactly in the same direction, and +these farther back into others to which they are equally unparallel. +It will also claim that the present lines, whether on the whole really +or only approximately parallel, sometimes fork or send off branches on +one side or the other, producing new lines, (varieties,) which run for +a while, and for aught we know indefinitely, when not interfered with, +near and approximately parallel to the parent line. This claim it can +establish; and it may also show that these close subsidiary lines may +branch or vary again, and that those branches or varieties which are +best adapted to the existing conditions may be continued, while others +stop or die out. And so we may have the basis of a real _theory_ of +the _diversification_ of species; and here, indeed, there is a real, +though a narrow, established ground to build upon. But, as systems of +organic Nature, both are equally _hypotheses_, are suppositions of +what there is no proof of from experience, assumed in order to account +for the observed phenomena, and supported by such indirect evidence as +can be had. Even when the upholders of the former and more popular +system mix up revelation with scientific discussion,--which we decline +to do,--they by no means thereby render their view other than +hypothetical. Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by +Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we +call secondary causes. The record of the fiat--"Let the earth bring +forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "and it was so"; "let the +earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and +creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was +so"--seems even to imply them. Agreeing that they were formed of "the +dust of the ground" and of thin air only leads to the conclusion that +the pristine individuals were corporeally constituted like existing +individuals, produced through natural agencies. To agree that they +were created "after their kinds" determines nothing as to what were +the original kinds, nor in what mode, during what time, and in what +connections it pleased the Almighty to introduce the first individuals +of each sort upon the earth. Scientifically considered, the two +opposing doctrines are equally hypothetical. + +The two views very unequally divide the scientific world; so that +believers in "the divine right of majorities" need not hesitate which +side to take, at least for the present. Up to a time within the memory +of a generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the nature of +light very unequally divided the scientific world. But the small +minority has already prevailed: the emission theory has gone out; the +undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation, has reached high +tide, and is now the pervading, the fully established system. There +was an intervening time during which most physicists held their +opinions in suspense. + +The adoption of the undulatory theory of light called for the +extension of the same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and +this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material +connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute +suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not +already established as a system, it promises soon to become so. At +least, it is generally received as a tenable and probably true +hypothesis. + +Parallel to this, however less cogent the reasons, Darwin and others, +having shown it likely that some varieties of plants or animals have +diverged in time into cognate species, or into forms as different as +species, are led to infer that all species of a genus may have thus +diverged from a common stock, and thence to suppose a higher community +of origin in ages still farther back, and so on. Following the safe +example of the physicists, and acknowledging the fact of the +diversification of a once homogeneous species into varieties, we may +receive the theory of the evolution of these into species, even while +for the present we hold the hypothesis of a further evolution in cool +suspense or in grave suspicion. In respect to very many questions a +wise man's mind rests long in a state neither of belief nor of +unbelief. But your intellectually short-sighted people are apt to be +preternaturally clear-sighted, and to find their way very plain to +positive conclusions upon one side or the other of every mooted +question. + +In fact, most people, and some philosophers, refuse to hold questions +in abeyance, however incompetent they may be to decide them. And, +curiously enough, the more difficult, recondite, and perplexing the +questions or hypotheses are, such, for instance, as those about +organic Nature, the more impatient they are of suspense. Sometimes, +and evidently in the present case, this impatience grows out of a fear +that a new hypothesis may endanger cherished and most important +beliefs. Impatience under such circumstances is not unnatural, though +perhaps needless, and, if so, unwise. + +To us the present revival of the derivative hypothesis, in a more +winning shape than it ever before had, was not unexpected. We wonder +that any thoughtful observer of the course of investigation and of +speculation in science should not have foreseen it, and have learned +at length to take its inevitable coming patiently; the more so as in +Darwin's treatise it comes in a purely scientific form, addressed only +to scientific men. The notoriety and wide popular perusal of this +treatise appear to have astonished the author even more than the book +itself has astonished the reading world. Coming, as the new +presentation does, from a naturalist of acknowledged character and +ability, and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not +always been reciprocated, we have thought it simply right to set forth +the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could. There are plenty +to decry it, and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack. For the +arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse +publications which Darwin's volume has already called out, and +especially to those reviews which propose directly to refute it. +Taking various lines and reflecting very diverse modes of thought, +these hostile critics may be expected to concentrate and enforce the +principal objections which can be brought to bear against the +derivative hypothesis in general, and Darwin's new exposition of it in +particular. + +Upon the opposing side of the question we have read with attention, 1. +an article in the "North American Review" for April last; 2. one in +the "Christian Examiner," Boston, for May; 3. M. Pictet's article in +the "Bibliothèque Universelle," which we have already made +considerable use of, which seems throughout most able and correct, and +which in tone and fairness is admirably in contrast with, 4. the +article in the "Edinburgh Review" for May, attributed--although +against a large amount of internal presumptive evidence--to the most +distinguished British comparative anatomist; 5. an article in the +"North British Review" for May; 6. finally, Professor Agassiz has +afforded an early opportunity to peruse the criticisms he makes in the +forthcoming third volume of his great work by a publication of them in +advance in the "American Journal of Science" for July. + +In our survey of the lively discussion which has been raised, it +matters little how our own particular opinions may incline. But we may +confess to an impression, thus far, that the doctrine of the permanent +and complete immutability of species has not been established, and may +fairly be doubted. We believe that species vary, and that "Natural +Selection" works; but we suspect that its operation, like every +analogous natural operation, may be limited by something else. Just as +every species by its natural rate of reproduction would soon fill any +country it could live in, but does not, being checked by some other +species or some other condition,--so it may be surmised that Variation +and Natural Selection have their Struggle and consequent Check, or are +limited by something inherent in the constitution of organic beings. +We are disposed to rank the derivative hypothesis in its fulness with +the nebular hypothesis, and to regard both as allowable, as not +unlikely to prove tenable in spite of some strong objections, but as +not therefore demonstrably true. Those, if any there be, who regard +the derivative hypothesis as satisfactorily proved must have loose +notions as to what proof is. Those who imagine it can be easily +refuted and cast aside must, we think, have imperfect or very +prejudiced conceptions of the facts concerned and of the questions at +issue. + +We are not disposed nor prepared to take sides for or against the new +hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to +watch the discussion, and criticize those objections which are +seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who +have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed +with a sense of their great inequality. Some strike us as excellent +and perhaps unanswerable; some, as incongruous with other views of the +same writers; others, when carried out, as incompatible with general +experience or general beliefs, and therefore as proving too much; +still others, as proving nothing at all: so that, on the whole, the +effect is rather confusing and disappointing. We certainly expected a +stronger adverse case than any which the thorough-going opposers of +Darwin appear to have made out. Wherefore, if it be found that the new +hypothesis has grown upon our favor as we proceeded, this must be +attributed not so much to the force of the arguments of the book +itself as to the want of force of several of those by which it has +been assailed. Darwin's arguments we might resist or adjourn; but some +of the refutations of it give us more concern than the book itself +did. + +These remarks apply mainly to the philosophical and theological +objections which have been elaborately urged, almost exclusively by +the American reviewers. The "North British" reviewer, indeed, roundly +denounces the book as atheistical, but evidently deems the case too +clear for argument. The Edinburgh reviewer, on the contrary, scouts +all such objections,--as well he may, since he records his belief in +"a continuous creative operation," "a constantly operating secondary +creational law," through which species are successively produced; and +he emits faint, but not indistinct, glimmerings of a transmutation +theory of his own;[1] so that he is equally exposed to all the +philosophical objections advanced by Agassiz, and to most of those +urged by the other American critics, against Darwin himself. + +Proposing now to criticize the critics, so far as to see what their +most general and comprehensive objections amount to, we must needs +begin with the American reviewers, and with their arguments adduced to +prove that a derivative hypothesis _ought not to be true_, or is not +possible, philosophical, or theistic. + +It must not be forgotten that on former occasions very confident +judgments have been pronounced by very competent persons, which have +not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth +century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as +philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other +objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. +The nebular hypothesis--a natural consequence of the theory of +gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and +astronomical discovery--has been denounced as atheistical even down to +our own day. But it is now largely adopted by the most theistical +natural philosophers as a tenable and perhaps sufficient hypothesis, +and where not accepted is no longer objected to, so far as we know, on +philosophical or religious grounds. + +The gist of the philosophical objections urged by the two Boston +reviewers against an hypothesis of the derivation of species--or at +least against Darwin's particular hypothesis--is, that it is +incompatible with the idea of any manifestation of design in the +universe, that it denies final causes. A serious objection this, and +one that demands very serious attention. + +The proposition, that things and events in Nature were not designed to +be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism. +Yet most people believe that some were designed and others were not, +although they fall into a hopeless maze whenever they undertake to +define their position. So we should not like to stigmatize as +atheistically disposed a person who regards certain things and events +as being what they are through designed laws, (whatever that +expression means,) but as not themselves specially ordained, or who, +in another connection, believes in general, but not in particular +Providence. We could sadly puzzle him with questions; but in return he +might equally puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially +designed to be what it is is one proposition; while to deny that the +Designer supernaturally or immediately made it so is another: though +the reviewers appear not to recognize the distinction. + +Also, "scornfully to repudiate" or to "sneer at the idea of any +manifestation of design in the material universe"[2] is one thing; +while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which +attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to +certain instances is quite another thing: yet the Boston reviewers, we +regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference. +Whatever be thought of Darwin's doctrine, we are surprised that he +should be charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of others, +upon such a subject. Perhaps Darwin's view is incompatible with final +causes;--we will consider that question presently;--but as to the +"Examiner's" charge, that he "sneers at the idea of any manifestation +of design in the material universe," though we are confident that no +misrepresentation was intended, we are equally confident that it is +not at all warranted by the two passages cited in support of it. Here +are the passages:-- + +"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not know that there +were many black and pied kinds, I dare say that we should have thought +that the green color was a beautiful adaptation to hide this +tree-frequenting bird from its enemies." + +"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of +inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though +we may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less +perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as +perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be +withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes +the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?" + +If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the detached extracts, +(one of them wanting the end of the sentence,) it is, if possible, +more imperceptible when read with the context. Moreover, this perusal +inclines us to think that the "Examiner" has misapprehended the +particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, of the author in +these passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against +the inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration +of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty +assumption is apt to involve,--considerations probably analogous to +those which induced Lord Bacon rather disrespectfully to style final +causes "sterile virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that +"sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section +from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary +question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, but, we +suppose, wholly unconscious of denying "any manifestation of design in +the material universe." He concludes the first sentence:-- + + ----"and consequently that it was a character of importance, and + might have been acquired through natural selection; as it is, I + have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct cause, + probably to sexual selection." + +After an illustration from the vegetable creation, Darwin adds:-- + + "The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked at as a + _direct_ adaptation for wallowing in putridity; _and so it may be_, + or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid matter; but + we should be very cautious in drawing any such inference, when we + see that the skin on the head of the clean-feeding male turkey is + likewise naked. The sutures in the skulls of young mammals have been + advanced as a beautiful adaptation for aiding parturition, and no + doubt they facilitate or may be indispensable for this act; but as + sutures occur in the skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have + only to escape from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure + has arisen from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage + of in the parturition of the higher animals." + +All this, simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain +scientifically how any designed result is accomplished savors of +impropriety. + +In the other place, Darwin is contemplating the patent fact, that +"perfection here below" is relative, not absolute,--and illustrating +this by the circumstance, that European animals, and especially +plants, are now proving to be better adapted for New Zealand than many +of the indigenous ones,--that "the correction for the aberration of +light is said, on high authority, not to be quite perfect even in that +most perfect organ, the eye." And then follows the second extract of +the reviewer. But what is the position of the reviewer upon his own +interpretation of these passages? If he insists that green woodpeckers +were specifically created so in order that they might be less liable +to capture, must he not equally hold that the black and pied ones were +specifically made of these colors in order that they might be more +liable to be caught? And would an explanation of the mode in which +those woodpeckers came to be green, however complete, convince him +that the color was undesigned? + +As to the other illustration, is the reviewer so complete an optimist +as to insist that the arrangement and the weapon are wholly perfect +(_quoad_ the insect) the normal use of which often causes the animal +fatally to injure or to disembowel itself? Either way it seems to us +that the argument here, as well as the insect, performs _hari-kari_. + +The "Examiner" adds:--"We should in like manner object to the word +_favorable_, as implying that some species are placed by the Creator +under _unfavorable_ circumstances, at least under such as might be +advantageously modified." But are not many individuals and some races +of men placed by the Creator "under unfavorable circumstances, at +least under such as might be advantageously modified"? Surely these +reviewers must be living in an ideal world, surrounded by "the +faultless monsters which _our_ world ne'er saw," in some elysium where +imperfection and distress were never heard of! Such arguments resemble +some which we often hear against the Bible, holding that book +responsible as if it originated certain facts on the shady side of +human nature or the apparently darker lines of Providential dealing, +though the facts are facts of common observation and have to be +confronted upon any theory. + +The "North American" reviewer also has a world of his own,--just such +a one as an idealizing philosopher would be apt to devise,--that is, +full of sharp and absolute distinctions: such, for instance, as the +"absolute invariableness of instinct"; an absolute want of +intelligence in any brute animal; and a complete monopoly of instinct +by the brute animals, so that this "instinct is a great matter" for +them only, since it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion +of organic Nature from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from +man on the other: most convenient views for argumentative purposes, +but we suppose not borne out in fact. + +In their scientific objections the two reviewers take somewhat +different lines; but their philosophical and theological arguments +strikingly coincide. They agree in emphatically asserting that +Darwin's hypothesis of the origination of species through variation +and natural selection "repudiates the whole doctrine of final causes," +and "all indication of design or purpose in the organic world,"--"is +neither more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that +of a blind chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or +instincts of created beings." "It is in vain that the apologists of +this hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode +and time to the Divine agency,--that all the qualities subsequently +appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, and remained +latent in the original pair." Such a view, the Examiner declares, "is +nowhere stated in this book, and would be, we are sure, disclaimed by +the author." We should like to be informed of the grounds of this +sureness. The marked rejection of spontaneous generation,--the +statement of a belief that all animals have descended from four or +five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number, or, +perhaps, if constrained to it by analogy, "from some one primordial +form into which life was first breathed."--coupled with the +expression, "To my mind it accords better with what we know of the +laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and +extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should +have been due to secondary causes," than "that each species has been +independently created,"--those and similar expressions lead us to +suppose that the author probably does accept the kind of view which +the "Examiner" is sure he would disclaim. At least, we see nothing in +his scientific theory to hinder his adoption of Lord Bacon's +Confession of Faith in this regard,--"that, notwithstanding God hath +rested and ceased from creating, [in the sense of supernatural +origination,] yet, nevertheless, He doth accomplish and fulfil His +divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as +fully and exactly by providence as He could by miracle and new +creation, though His working be not immediate and direct, but by +compass; not violating Nature, which is His own law upon the +creature." + +However that may be, it is undeniable that Mr. Darwin has purposely +been silent upon the philosophical and theological applications of his +theory. This reticence, under the circumstances, argues design, and +raises inquiry as to the final cause or reason why. Here, as in higher +instances, confident as we are that there is a final cause, we must +not be overconfident that we can infer the particular or true one. +Perhaps the author is more familiar with natural-historical than with +philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided which particular +theory about efficient cause is best founded, he meanwhile argues the +scientific questions concerned--all that relates to secondary +causes--upon purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case. +Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will finally be +adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction in hearing it denounced +as sheer atheism by the inconsiderate, and afterwards, when it takes +its place with the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment +reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event. + +Whatever Mr. Darwin's philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a +matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important +questions, whether a theory to account for the origination and +diversification of animal and vegetable forms through the operation of +secondary causes does or does not exclude design; and whether the +establishment by adequate evidence of Darwin's particular theory of +diversification through variation and natural selection would +essentially alter the present scientific and philosophical grounds for +theistic views of Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment +rendered by the two Boston reviewers--evidently able and practised +reasoners--"must give us pause." We hesitate to advance our +conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious +consideration, we are constrained to say, that, in our opinion, the +adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwin's particular +hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final +causes, utility, and special design just where they were before. We do +not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every +view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it +removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we +cannot perceive that Darwin's theory brings in any new kind of +scientific difficulty, that is, any with which philosophical +naturalists were not already familiar. + +Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the +scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species--no less than of +a theory of dynamics--must needs be the same to the theist as to the +atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to +the question of primary cause--a question which belongs to philosophy. +Wherefore, Darwin's reticence about efficient cause does not disturb +us. He considers only the scientific questions. As already stated, we +think that a theistic view of Nature is implied in his book, and we +must charitably refrain from suggesting the contrary until the +contrary is logically deduced from his positions. If, however, he +anywhere maintains that the natural causes through which species are +diversified operate without an ordaining and directing intelligence, +and that the orderly arrangements and admirable adaptations we see all +around us are fortuitous or blind, undesigned results,--that the eye, +though it came to see, was not designed for seeing, nor the hand for +handling,--then, we suppose, he is justly chargeable with denying, and +very needlessly denying, all design in organic Nature; otherwise we +suppose not. Why, if Darwin's well-known passage about the +eye[3]--equivocal or unfortunate though some of the language be--does +not imply ordaining and directing intelligence, then he refutes his +own theory as effectually as any of his opponents are likely to do. He +asks,-- + + "May we not believe that"--under variation proceeding long enough, + generation multiplying the better variations times enough, and + natural selection securing the improvements--"a living optical + instrument might be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the + works of the Creator are to those of man?" + +This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument +was made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an +intelligent First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is +asserted; and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why +must we believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a +living instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be +originated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the +fitting way? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that +by the Creator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or +necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it. +For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptations of +means to specific ends,--which is absurd enough,--but better adjusted +and more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, +human intellect) can contrive and human skill execute,--which no sane +person will believe. + +On the other hand, if Darwin even admits--we will not say adopts--the +theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the +endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate +form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be +derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite +number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and +purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born +only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his +theory,--rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,--the theistic +view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do +not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor +produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason +for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, +failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur; +but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as +upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even +over-strictly insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws, +namely, that successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at +all, from their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and +impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe that the species were +designed, and that natural propagation was designed, how can we say +that the actual varieties of the species were not equally designed? +Have we not similar grounds for inferring design in the supposed +varieties of a species, that we have in the case of the supposed +species of a genus? When a naturalist comes to regard as three +closely-related species what he before took to be so many varieties of +one species, how has he thereby strengthened our conviction that the +three forms were designed to have the differences which they actually +exhibit? Wherefore, so long as gradated, orderly, and adapted forms in +Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of +variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. +Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation +has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a +sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural +selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet +their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them +forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner +unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should +believe that the distribution was designed. + +To insist, therefore, that the new hypothesis of the derivative origin +of the actual species is incompatible with final causes and design is +to take a position which we must consider philosophically untenable. +We must also regard it as unwise or dangerous, in the present state +and present prospects of physical and physiological science. We should +expect the philosophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground; also, +until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical believer; but +we should think that the thoughtful theistic philosopher would take +the other side. Not to do so seems to concede that only supernatural +events can be shown to be designed, which no theist can admit,--seems +also to misconceive the scope and meaning of all ordinary arguments +for design in Nature. This misconception is shared both by the +reviewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses expressions +which seem to imply that the natural forms which surround us, because +they have a history or natural sequence, could have been only +generally, but not particularly designed,--a view at once superficial +and contradictory; whereas his true line should be, that his +hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the _how_ and not the +_why_ of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just +where it was before. + +To illustrate this first from the theist's point of view. Transfer the +question for a moment from the origination of species to the +origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. +Because natural, that is, "stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the +less designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our +maker,--not merely the originator of the race, but _our_ maker as +individuals,--and none the less so because it pleased Him to make us +in the way of ordinary generation. If any of us were born unlike our +parents and grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, +would the case be altered in this regard? The whole argument in +natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a +final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the +veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural +generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, +supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the +supposition of the descent of men from Chimpanzees and Gorillas, since +those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more +supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is +convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland +dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from +similar parents, would it be at all weakened, if, in tracing his +genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the +mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came +(as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for +design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the +supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary +wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is +from some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this +post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf? +And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our +present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single +organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous +natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a +cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any +dogs? Again, suppose we have two well-known and very decidedly +different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their +structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as +valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever +presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B +and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is +the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted +to, at all weakened by the discovered intermediate forms? Rather does +not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that +all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of +intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations +to be closer yet, as close as those between the various sorts of dogs, +or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as +shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any +weaker than it was in the case of A and D? Whoever contends that it +would be should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals +by generation is incompatible with design, and so take a consistent +atheistical view of Nature. Perhaps we might all have confidently +thought so, antecedently to experience of the fact of reproduction. +Let our experience teach us wisdom. + +These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from +structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual +animal or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the +history of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and +takes nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and +results; and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, +unless infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. +Testimony is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to +purpose is. Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but +may leave us in doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are +notable examples, compel belief with a force not appreciably short of +demonstration. Clearly to settle that these must have been designed +goes far towards proving that other organs and other seemingly less +explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and +clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is +a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange +contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of +certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift deposits, prove +design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to +use in animals and vegetables do not _a fortiori_ argue design. + +We could not affirm that the arguments for design in Nature are +conclusive to all minds. But we may insist, upon grounds already +intimated, that whatever they were good for before Darwin's book +appeared, they are good for now. To our minds the argument from design +always appeared conclusive of the being and continued operation of an +intelligent First Cause, the Ordainer of Nature; and we do not see +that the grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted by the +adoption of Darwin's hypothesis. We are not blind to the philosophical +difficulties which the thorough-going implication of design in Nature +has to encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them. It suffices +us to know that they are not new nor peculiar difficulties,--that, as +Darwin's theory and our reasonings upon it did not raise these +perturbing spirits, they are not bound to lay them. Meanwhile, that +the doctrine of design encounters the very same difficulties in the +material that it does in the moral world is just what ought to be +expected. + +So the issue between the skeptic and the theist is only the old one, +long ago argued out,--namely, whether organic Nature is a result of +design or of chance. Variation and natural selection open no third +alternative; they concern only the question, How the results, whether +fortuitous or designed, may have been brought about. Organic Nature +abounds with unmistakable and irresistible indications of design, and, +being a connected and consistent system, this evidence carried the +implication of design throughout the whole. On the other hand, chance +carries no probabilities with it, can never be developed into a +consistent system; but, when applied to the explanation of orderly or +beneficial results, heaps up improbabilities at every step beyond all +computation. To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The +alternative is a designed Cosmos. + +It is very easy to assume, that, because events in Nature are in one +sense accidental, and the operative forces which bring them to pass +are themselves blind and unintelligent, (all forces are,) therefore +they are undirected, or that he who describes these events as the +results of such forces thereby assumes that they are undirected. This +is the assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agassiz, who +insists that the only alternative to the doctrine, that all organized +beings were supernaturally created as they are, is, that they have +arisen _spontaneously_ through the _omnipotence of matter_.[4] + +As to all this, nothing is easier than to bring out in the conclusion +what you introduce in the premises. If you import atheism into your +conception of variation and natural selection, you can readily exhibit +it in the result. If you do not put it in, perhaps there need be none +to come out. While the mechanician is considering a steamboat or +locomotive engine as a material organism, and contemplating the fuel, +water, and steam, the source of the mechanical forces and how they +operate, he may not have occasion to mention the engineer. But, the +orderly and special results accomplished, the _why_ the movement is in +this or that particular direction, etc., are inexplicable without him. +If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have +occurred and the results we behold were undirected and undesigned, or +if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers +phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show +that such belief is atheism. But the admission of the phenomena and of +these natural processes and forces does not necessitate any such +belief, nor even render it one whit less improbable than before. + +Surely, too, the accidental element may play its part in Nature +without negativing design in the theist's view. He believes that the +earth's surface has been very gradually prepared for man and the +existing animal races, that vegetable matter has through a long series +of generations imparted fertility to the soil in order that it may +support its present occupants, that even beds of coal have been stored +up for man's benefit. Yet what is more accidental, and more simply the +consequence of physical agencies, than the accumulation of vegetable +matter in a peat-bog, and its transformation into coal? No scientific +person at this day doubts that our solar system is a progressive +development, whether in his conception he begins with molten masses, +or aëriform or nebulous masses, or with a fluid revolving mass of vast +extent, from which the specific existing worlds have been developed +one by one. What theist doubts that the actual results of the +development in the inorganic worlds are not merely compatible with +design, but are in the truest sense designed results? Not Mr. Agassiz, +certainly, who adopts a remarkable illustration of design directly +founded on the nebular hypothesis, drawing from the position and times +of revolution of the worlds so originated "direct evidence that the +physical world has been ordained in conformity with laws which obtain +also among living beings." But the reader of the interesting +exposition [5] will notice that the designed result has been brought +to pass through what, speaking after the manner of men, might be +called a chapter of accidents. A natural corollary of this +demonstration would seem to be, that a material connection between a +series of created things--such as the development of one of them from +another, or of all from a common stock--is highly compatible with +their intellectual connection, namely, with their being designed and +directed by one mind. Yet, upon some ground, which is not explained, +and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the +contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists, that, because the +members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot +be the result of a material differentiation of the objects +themselves,"[6] that is, they cannot have had a genealogical +connection. But is there not as much intellectual connection between +successive generations of any species as there is between the several +species of a genus or the several genera of an order? As the +intellectual connection here is realized through the material +connection, why may it not be so in the case of species and genera? On +all sides, therefore, the implication seems to be quite the other way. + +Returning to the accidental element, it is evident that the strongest +point against the compatibility of Darwin's hypothesis with design in +Nature is made when natural selection is referred to as picking out +those variations which are improvements from a vast number which are +not improvements, but perhaps the contrary, and therefore useless or +purposeless, and born to perish. But even here the difficulty is not +peculiar; for Nature abounds with analogous instances. Some of our +race are useless, or worse, as regards the improvement of mankind; yet +the race may be designed to improve, and may be actually improving. +The whole animate life of a country depends absolutely upon the +vegetation; the vegetation upon the rain. The moisture is furnished by +the ocean, is raised by the sun's heat from the ocean's surface, and +is wafted inland by the winds. But what multitudes of rain-drops fall +back into the ocean, are as much without a final cause as the +incipient varieties which come to nothing! Does it, therefore, follow +that the rains which are bestowed upon the soil with such rule and +average regularity were not designed to support vegetable and animal +life? Consider, likewise, the vast proportion of seeds and pollen, of +ova and young,--a thousand or more to one,--which come to nothing, and +are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and only in the same +sense, as are Darwin's unimproved and unused slight variations. The +world is full of such cases; and these must answer the argument,--for +we cannot, except by thus showing that it proves too much. + +Finally, it is worth noticing, that, though natural selection is +scientifically explicable, variation is not. Thus far the cause of +variation, or the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike the +parents, is just as mysterious as the reason why it is generally like +the parents. It is now as inexplicable as any other origination; and +if ever explained, the explanation will only carry up the sequence of +secondary causes one step farther, and bring us in face of a somewhat +different problem, which will have the same element of mystery that +the problem of variation has now. Circumstances may preserve or may +destroy the variations; man may use or direct them; but selection, +whether artificial or natural, no more originates them than man +originates the power which turns a wheel, when he dams a stream and +lets the water fall upon it. The origination of this power is a +question about efficient cause. The tendency of science in respect to +this obviously is not towards the omnipotence of matter, as some +suppose, but towards the omnipotence of spirit. + +So the real question we come to is as to the way in which we are to +conceive intelligent and efficient cause to be exerted, and upon what +exerted. Are we bound to suppose efficient cause in all cases exerted +upon nothing to evoke something into existence,--and this thousands of +times repeated, when a slight change in the details would make all the +difference between successive species? Why may not the new species, or +some of them, be designed diversifications of the old? + +There are, perhaps, only three views of efficient cause which may +claim to be both philosophical and theistic. + +1. The view of its exertion at the beginning of time, endowing matter +and created things with forces which do the work and produce the +phenomena. + +2. This same view, with the theory of insulated interpositions, or +occasional direct action, engrafted upon it,--the view that events and +operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at +the first, but that now and then, and only now and then, the Deity +puts his hand directly to the work. + +3. The theory of the immediate, orderly, and constant, however +infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause. + +It must be allowed, that, while the third is preëminently the +Christian view, all three are philosophically compatible with design +in Nature. The second is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most +thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view towards the first or +the third,--adopting the first on some occasions, the third on others. +Those philosophers who like and expect to settle all mooted questions +will take one or the other extreme. The "Examiner" inclines towards, +the "North American" reviewer fully adopts, the third view, to the +logical extent of maintaining that "_the origin of an individual_, as +well as the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained only by +the _direct_ action of an intelligent creative cause." This is the +line for Mr. Darwin to take; for it at once and completely relieves +his scientific theory from every theological objection which his +reviewers have urged against it. + +At present we suspect that our author prefers the first conception, +though he might contend that his hypothesis is compatible with either +of the three. That it is also compatible with an atheistic or +pantheistic conception of the universe is an objection which, being +shared by all physical science, and some ethical or moral, cannot +specially be urged against Darwin's system. As he rejects spontaneous +generation, and admits of intervention at the beginning of organic +life, and probably in more than one instance, he is not wholly +excluded from adopting the middle view, although the interventions he +would allow are few and far back. Yet one interposition admits the +principle as well as more. Interposition presupposes particular +necessity or reason for it, and raises the question, When and how +often it may have been necessary. It would be the natural supposition, +if we had only one set of species to account for, or if the successive +inhabitants of the earth had no other connections or resemblances than +those which adaptation to similar conditions might explain. But if +this explanation of organic Nature requires one to "believe, that, at +innumerable periods in the earth's history, certain elemental atoms +have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues," and when +the results are seen to be all orderly, according to a few types, we +cannot wonder that such interventions should at length be considered, +not as interpositions or interferences, but rather as "exertions so +frequent and beneficent that we come to regard them as the ordinary +action of Him who laid the foundations of the earth, and without whom +not a sparrow falleth to the ground."[7] + +What does the difference between Mr. Darwin and his reviewer now +amount to? If we say that according to one view the origination of +species is _natural_, according to the other _miraculous_, Mr. Darwin +agrees that "what is natural as much requires and presupposes an +intelligent mind to render it so,--that is, to effect it continually +or at stated times,--as what is supernatural does to effect it for +once."[8] He merely inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind +us that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation of matter) +were transformations or actions in and upon natural things, and will +ask how many times and how frequently may the origination of +successive species be repeated before the supernatural merges in the +natural. + +In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of a species, no less +than that of an individual, is natural. The reviewer, that the natural +origination of an individual, no less than the origination of a +species, requires and presupposes Divine power. _A fortiori_, then, +the origination of a variety requires and presupposes Divine power. +And so between the scientific hypothesis of the one and the +philosophical conception of the other no contrariety remains. "A +proper view of the nature of causation.... places the vital doctrine +of the being and the providence of a God on ground that can never be +shaken."[9] A true and worthy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to +the denunciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far as +philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If a writer must needs +use his own favorite dogma as a weapon with which to give _coup de +grace_ to a pernicious theory, he should be careful to seize it by the +handle, and not by the blade. + +We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical objection of the +"North American" reviewer, which the "Examiner" also raises, though +less explicitly. Like all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time in +the most unlimited manner. He is not peculiar in this regard. Mr. +Agassiz tells us that the conviction is "now universal among +well-informed naturalists, that this globe has been in existence for +innumerable ages, and that the length of time elapsed since it first +became inhabited cannot be counted in years." Pictet, that the +imagination refuses to calculate the immense number of years and of +ages during which the faunas of thirty or more epochs have succeeded +one another, and developed their long succession of generations. Now +the reviewer declares that such indefinite succession of ages is +"virtually infinite," "lacks no characteristic of eternity except its +name,"--at least, that "the difference between such a conception and +that of the strictly infinite, if any, is not appreciable." But +infinity belongs to metaphysics. Therefore, he concludes, Darwin +supports his theory, not by scientific, but by metaphysical evidence; +his theory is "essentially and completely metaphysical in character, +resting altogether upon that idea of 'the infinite' which the human +mind can neither put aside nor comprehend."[10] And so a theory which +will be generally objected to as much too physical is transposed by a +single syllogism to metaphysics. + +Well, physical geology must go with it: for, even on the soberest +view, it demands an indefinitely long time antecedent to the +introduction of organic life upon our earth. _A fortiori_ is physical +astronomy a branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still larger +"instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls them, both as to time +and number. Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now +relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural +philosopher informs us, "we have to regard as the results of an +infinite number of infinitely small material particles, acting on each +other at infinitely small distances,"--a triad of infinites,--and so +_physics_ becomes the most _metaphysical_ of sciences. + +Verily, on this view, + + "Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, + And nought is everything, and everything is + nought." + +The leading objection of Mr. Agassiz is likewise of a philosophical +character. It is, that species exist only "as categories of +thought,"--that, having no material existence, they can have had no +material variation, and no material community of origin. Here the +predication is of species in the subjective sense, while the inference +is applied to them in the objective sense. Reduced to plain terms, the +argument seems to be: Species are ideas; therefore the objects from +which the idea is derived cannot vary or blend, cannot have had a +genealogical connection. + +The common view of species is, that, although they are +generalizations, yet they have a direct objective ground in Nature, +which genera, orders, etc., have not. According to the succinct +definition of Jussieu,--and that of Linnaeus is identical in +meaning,--a species is the perennial succession of similar individuals +in continued generations. The species is the chain of which the +individuals are the links. The sum of the genealogically connected +similar individuals constitutes the species, which thus has an +actuality and ground of distinction not shared by genera and other +groups which were not supposed to be genealogically connected. How a +derivative hypothesis would modify this view, in assigning to species +only a temporary fixity, is obvious. Yet, if naturalists adopt this +hypothesis, they will still retain Jussieu's definition, which leaves +untouched the question as to how and when the "perennial successions" +were established. The practical question will only be, How much +difference between two sets of individuals entitles them to rank under +distinct species; and that is the practical question now, on whatever +theory. The theoretical question is--as stated at the beginning of +this long article--whether these specific lines were always as +distinct as now. + +Mr. Agassiz has "lost no opportunity of urging the idea, that, while +species have no material existence, they yet exist as categories of +thought in the same way [and only in the same way] as genera, +families, orders, classes," etc. He "has taken the ground, that all +the natural divisions in the animal kingdom are primarily distinct, +founded upon different categories of characters, and that all exist in +the same way, that is, as categories of thought, embodied in +individual living forms. I have attempted to show that branches in the +animal kingdom are founded upon different plans of structure, and for +that very reason have embraced from the beginning representatives +between which there could be no community of origin; that classes are +founded upon different modes of execution of these plans, and +therefore they also embrace representatives which could have no +community of origin; that orders represent the different degrees of +complication in the mode of execution of each class, and therefore +embrace representatives which could not have a community of origin any +more than the members of different classes or branches; that families +are founded upon different patterns of form, and embrace +representatives equally independent in their origin; that genera are +founded upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, embracing +representatives which, from the very nature of their peculiarities, +could have no community of origin; and that, finally, species are +based upon relations and proportions that exclude, as much as all the +preceding distinctions, the idea of a common descent. + +"As the community of characters among the beings belonging to these +different categories arises from the intellectual connection which +shows them to be categories of thought, they cannot be the result of a +gradual material differentiation of the objects themselves. The +argument on which these views are founded may be summed up in the +following few words: Species, genera, families, etc., exist as +thoughts, individuals as facts."[11] + +An ingenious dilemma caps the argument:-- + +"It seems to me that there is much confusion of ideas in the general +statement of the variability of species so often repeated lately. If +species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation +theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, +how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the +variability of species?" + +Now we imagine that Mr. Darwin need not be dangerously gored by either +horn of this curious dilemma. Although we ourselves cherish +old-fashioned prejudices in favor of the probable permanence, and +therefore of a more stable objective ground of species, yet we +agree--and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with Mr. Agassiz--that species, +and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, +as cognizable distinctions,--which is all that we can make of the +phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. +Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts +or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material +things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify +the present almost innumerable categories of thought, or embodiments +of Divine thoughts in material forms, or--viewed on the human side--in +forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and +differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, +orders, etc., and to our reason the inference of a Divine original? We +have no clear idea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in +saying that branches are founded upon different plans of structure, +classes upon different modes of execution of these plans, orders on +different degrees of complication in the mode of execution, families +upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities of +structure, and species upon relations and proportions. That is, we do +not perceive how these several "categories of thought" exclude the +possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or +suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of origin. Moreover, +Mr. Darwin would insinuate that the particular philosophy of +classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely +hypothetical and as little accepted as his own doctrine. If both are +pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the +one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, +there is no use in making the attempt. + +As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it upon that category of +thought which we call _chair_. This is a genus, comprising the common +chair, (_Sella vulgaris_,) the arm or easy chair, (_S. cathedra_,) the +rocking chair, (_S. oscillans_,) widely distributed in the United +States, and some others,--each of which has _sported_, as the +gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the +_species_ have no material existence, how can they vary? If +individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed +among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by +asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or +the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that +our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest +manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are +manifested in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can +we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what has no material +existence can have had no material connection and no material +variation, we should yet infer that what had intellectual existence +and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the +individuals which represent the species, we do not see how all this +shows that they may not vary. Observation shows us that they do. +Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do vary, we +safely infer that the idea or intention must have varied, and that +this variation of the individual representatives proves the +variability of the species, whether subjectively or objectively +regarded. + +Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and +one species shades off by gradations into another. And--note it +well--these numerous and successively slight variations and +gradations, far from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to +their forms, are very proofs of design. + +Again, _edifice_ is a generic category of thought. Egyptian, Grecian, +Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are well-marked species, of which each +individual building of the sort is a material embodiment. Now the +question is, whether these categories of thought may not have been +evolved, one from another, in succession, or from some primal, less +specialized, edificial category. What better evidence for such +hypothesis could we have than the variations and grades which connect +one of these species with another? We might extend the parallel, and +get some good illustrations of natural selection from the history of +architecture, the probable origin of the different styles, and their +adaptation to different climates and conditions. Two qualifying +considerations are noticeable. One, that houses do not propagate, so +as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is +of small moment on Agassiz's view, he holding that genealogical +connection is not of the essence of species at all. The other, that +the formation and development of the ideas upon which human works +proceed is gradual; or, as the same great naturalist well states it, +"while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." +But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action. + +We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general +scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, +after all, we are not so anxious just now to know whether the new +theory is well founded on facts as whether it would be harmless, if it +were. Besides, we feel quite unable to answer some of these +objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he +can. + +Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is +that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the +intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. Here all +that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of +the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, +withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his +opponents urge it,--so much so, indeed, that two of his English +critics turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with +actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar +difficulties,--as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not +in spite of them;--a handsome return for his candor! + +As to this imperfection of the geological record, perhaps we should +get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the +existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and +products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and +that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by +the New Zealand fleet on its way to explore the ruins of London, +undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a +catalogue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close of +the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a +surface exploration, what a beggarly account it must be! How many of +the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts +official reports would it be likely to contain? + +Another unanswerable question asked by the Boston reviewers is, Why, +when structure and instinct or habit vary,--as they must have varied, +on Darwin's hypothesis,--they vary together and harmoniously, instead +of vaguely. We cannot tell, because we cannot tell why either should +vary at all. Yet, as they both do vary in successive generations,--as +is seen under domestication,--and are correlated, we can only adduce +the fact. Darwin may be precluded from this answer, but we may say +that they vary together because designed to do so. A reviewer says +that the chance of their varying together is inconceivably small; yet, +if they do not, the variant individuals must perish. Then it is well +that it is not left to chance. As to the fact: before we were born, +nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took place in a certain +way. But the moment we were ushered into this breathing world, our +actions promptly conformed, both as to respiration and nourishment, to +the before unused structure and to the new surroundings. + +"Now," says the "Examiner," "suppose, for instance, the gills of an +aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a +continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?" No doubt. +But--simply contemplating the facts, instead of theorizing--we notice +that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to +be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without +supernatural interposition,--just as Darwin would have it, if the +development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as +natural as a metamorphosis. + +"Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly +inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a +cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the +animal would be no better supported than the objection. Darwin makes +very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even +poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an +elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a +squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; but might +not the length of the leap be increased by practice? + +The "North American" reviewer's position, that the higher brute +animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a +heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and +monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as +they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of +knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to +contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that +instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the +scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate +proportions,[12] we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an +animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes +himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his partner's +eggs,--which he tends and regulates the heat of about as carefully and +skilfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobion.[13] As to the +real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a +far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we +yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of +dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable portion of poor +humanity," nor indulge the hope, or, indeed, the desire, of a renewed +acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.[14] + +The assertion, that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired +structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can +refute. + +That "the human mind has become what it is out of a developed +instinct"[15] is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we +presume, would not accept. As to his having us believe that individual +animals acquire their instincts gradually,[16] this statement must +have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of +instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book. + +It has been attempted to destroy the very foundation of Darwin's +hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, +for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to +prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary +to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot +be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not +essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, we could +show, if our space permitted. + +As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as +absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and +varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. +That it subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so +designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this +sterility proves nothing against the derivative origin of the actual +species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those +forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence as those which +were always thus distinct. + +The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity +with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals, preserved in +Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St. +Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a +gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against +Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the +perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent +breed. For Darwin clearly maintains--what the facts warrant--that the +mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it +may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede +the parent form, but it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the +least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, +unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be +expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long +as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to +occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the +fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their +tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the +permanence of the common sort of fowl. + +As to the objection, that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's +theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, replaced by +higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave +below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization +is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the +contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given +space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the +conditions, seems to be aimed at, and this is effected by +diversification. + +Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative +theory, as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never +will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in +a blind faith that species--that the manifold sorts and forms of +existing animals and vegetables--"have no secondary cause." The +contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become +more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative +hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic +ground. + +Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial,--an +hypothesis thus far not untenable,--a trial just now very useful to +science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious +assailants temporarily make it so. + +One good effect is already manifest: its enabling the advocates of the +hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double +insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be +of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be +expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must +admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent +varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian +hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize a +diversity of human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such +species were primordial and supernatural in the common sense of the +word. + +The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of +materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to +be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, +but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a +line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into +the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The +wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis +leaves the argument for design, and therefore for a Designer, as valid +as it ever was;--that to do any work by an instrument must require, +and therefore presuppose, the exertion rather of more than of less +power than to do it directly;--that whoever would be a consistent +theist should believe that Design in the natural world is coextensive +with Providence, and hold fully to the one as he does to the other, in +spite of the wholly similar and apparently insuperable difficulties +which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to develop the idea +into a complete system, either in the material and organic, or in the +moral world. It is enough, in the way of obviating objections, to show +that the philosophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only +the same, as of the other. + +[Footnote 1: Whatever it may be, it is not "the homoeopathic form of +the transmutative hypothesis," as Darwin's is said to be, (p. 252, +Amer. reprint,) so happily that the prescription is repeated in the +second (p. 259) and third (p. 271) dilutions, no doubt, on Hahnemann's +famous principle, with an increase of potency at each dilution. +Probably the supposed transmutation is _per saltus_. "Homoeopathic +doses of transmutation," indeed! Well, if we really must swallow +transmutation in some form or other, as this reviewer intimates, we +might prefer the mild homoeopathic doses of Darwin's formula to the +allopathic bolus which the Edinburgh general practitioner appears to +be compounding.] + +[Footnote 2: Vide _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 475, +and _Christian Examiner_, for May, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 3: Page 188, English ed.] + +[Footnote 4: In _American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, pp. 148, +149.] + +[Footnote 5: In _Contributions to the Nat. Hist. of U. S._, Vol. i. +pp. 128, 129.] + +[Footnote 6: _Contr. Nat. Hist. U.S._, Vol. i. p. 130; and _Amer. +Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + + +[Footnote 7: _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 506.] + +[Footnote 8: _Vide_ mottoes to the second edition of Darwin's work.] + +[Footnote 9: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 504.] + +[Footnote 10: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 487, _et passim._] + +[Footnote 11: _In American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + +[Footnote 12: _Vide_ article by Mr. C. Wright, in the _Mathematical +Monthly_ for May last.] + +[Footnote 13: Vide _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1860, article on +"Acclimatization," etc.] + +[Footnote 14: _Contributions; Essay on Classification_, etc., Vol. i. +pp. 60-66.] + +[Footnote 15: _North Amer. Review_, April, 1860, p. 475.] + +[Footnote 16: _Amer. Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 146.] + + * * * * * + + +A MODERN CINDERELLA: + +OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE. + +HOW IT WAS LOST. + +Among green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, +mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the +eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it +about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the +slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had +stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and +found them young. + +One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers +in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the +hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain +humble history began. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Di." + +And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the +open door in answer to the call. + +"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,'--there's a dear. +It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm +once fairly laid." + +As she spoke, Di pushed up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the +couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page +of her book. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for +the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon +the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a +certain plain sinner. + +"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's +the only thing fit for me this hot weather." + +And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more +gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she +was drawing. + +"Little daughter!" + +"Yes, father." + +"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at +three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I +shall be in the lower garden." + +The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that +domestic purgatory on a summer day,--the kitchen. There were vines +about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it +was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied +incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which +such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the +priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories +of wasted temper, time, and toil. + +Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,--hurried, having many +cares those happy little housewives never know,--and disappointed in a +hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to +make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too +patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too +light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe +holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly +of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service +of less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward +enough. + +To and fro she went, silent and diligent, giving the grace of +willingness to every humble or distasteful task the day had brought +her; but some malignant sprite seemed to have taken possession of her +kingdom, for rebellion broke out everywhere. The kettles would boil +over most obstreperously,--the mutton refused to cook with the meek +alacrity to be expected from the nature of a sheep,--the stove, with +unnecessary warmth of temper, would glow like a fiery furnace,--the +irons would scorch,--the linens would dry,--and spirits would fail, +though patience never. + +Nan tugged on, growing hotter and wearier, more hurried and more +hopeless, till at last the crisis came; for in one fell moment she +tore her gown, burnt her hand, and smutched the collar she was +preparing to finish in the most unexceptionable style. Then, if she +had been a nervous woman, she would have scolded; being a gentle girl, +she only "lifted up her voice and wept." + +"Behold, she watereth her linen with salt tears, and bewaileth herself +because of much tribulation. But, lo! help cometh from afar: a strong +man bringeth lettuce wherewith to stay her, plucketh berries to +comfort her withal, and clasheth cymbals that she may dance for joy." + +The voice came from the porch, and, with her hope fulfilled, Nan +looked up to greet John Lord, the house-friend, who stood there with a +basket on his arm; and as she saw his honest eyes, kind lips, and +helpful hands, the girl thought this plain young man the comeliest, +most welcome sight she had beheld that day. + +"How good of you, to come through all this heat, and not to laugh at +my despair!" she said, looking up like a grateful child, as she led +him in. + +"I only obeyed orders, Nan; for a certain dear old lady had a motherly +presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me +as a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and +came to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment in the tent of +friendship." + +As he spoke, John gave his own gift in his mother's name, and bestowed +himself in the wide window-seat, where morning-glories nodded at him, +and the old butternut sent pleasant shadows dancing to and fro. + +His advent, like that of Orpheus in Hades, seemed to soothe all +unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The fire began to slacken, +the kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to +cool, the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the +collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the +change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take +compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to +lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul. He +took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish +from the closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries' +blood. + +"Oh, John, you needn't do that; I shall have time when I've turned the +meat, made the pudding, and done these things. See, I'm getting on +finely now;--you're a judge of such matters; isn't that nice?" + +As she spoke, Nan offered the polished absurdity for inspection with +innocent pride. + +"Oh that I were a collar, to sit upon that hand!" sighed +John,--adding, argumentatively, "As to the berry question, I might +answer it with a gem from Dr. Watts, relative to 'Satan' and 'idle +hands,' but will merely say, that, as a matter of public safety, you'd +better leave me alone; for such is the destructiveness of my nature, +that I shall certainly eat something hurtful, break something +valuable, or sit upon something crushable, unless you let me +concentrate my energies by knocking off these young fellows' hats, and +preparing them for their doom." + +Looking at the matter in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went +cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought +ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the blessings of her +lot. + +"Where's Sally?" asked John, looking vainly for the energetic +functionary who usually pervaded that region like a domestic +police-woman, a terror to cats, dogs, and men. + +"She has gone to her cousin's funeral, and won't be back till Monday. +There seems to be a great fatality among her relations; for one dies, +or comes to grief in some way, about once a month. But I don't blame +poor Sally for wanting to get away from this place now and then. I +think I could find it in my heart to murder an imaginary friend or +two, if I had to stay here long." + +And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her. + +"Where's Di?" asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all +at once. + +"She is in Germany with 'Wilhelm Meister'; but, though 'lost to sight, +to memory dear'; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how +clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don't understand at +all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight. Yes, +she's a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a +crowbar, and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when +the 'divine afflatus' descends upon her, I'm afraid." + +And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di's forlorn hose and inky +pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"Where is Laura?" proceeded the inquisitor. + +"Well, I might say that _she_ was in Italy; for she is copying some +fine thing of Raphael's, or Michel Angelo's, or some great creature's +or other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting +before her easel, that it's really a sight to behold, and I've peeped +two or three times to see how she gets on." + +And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish wherewith her +picturesque sister desired to prolong her artistic existence. + +"Where is your father?" John asked again, checking off each answer +with a nod and a little frown. + +"He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the +beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition +in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the +middle of each. Why, bless the dear man! I forgot it was time for the +cider. Wouldn't you like to take it to him, John? He'd love to consult +you; and the lane is so cool, it does one's heart good to look at it." + +John glanced from the steamy kitchen to the shadowy path, and answered +with a sudden assumption of immense industry,-- + +"I couldn't possibly go, Nan,--I've so much on my hands. You'll have +to do it yourself. 'Mr. Robert of Lincoln' has something for your +private ear; and the lane is so cool, it will do one's heart good to +see you in it. Give my regards to your father, and, in the words of +'Little Mabel's' mother, with slight variations,-- + + 'Tell the dear old body + This day I cannot run, + For the pots are boiling over + And the mutton isn't done.'" + +"I will; but please, John, go in to the girls and be comfortable; for +I don't like to leave you here," said Nan. + +"You insinuate that I should pick at the pudding or invade the cream, +do you? Ungrateful girl, leave me!" And, with melodramatic sternness, +John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass +like a poisoned goblet. + +Nan took it, and went smiling away. But the lane might have been the +Desert of Sahara, for all she knew of it; and she would have passed +her father as unconcernedly as if he had been an apple-tree, had he +not called out,-- + +"Stand and deliver, little woman!" + +She obeyed the venerable highway-man, and followed him to and fro, +listening to his plans and directions with a mute attention that quite +won his heart. + +"That hop-pole is really an ornament now, Nan; this sage-bed needs +weeding,--that's good work for you girls; and, now I think of it, +you'd better water the lettuce in the cool of the evening, after I'm +gone." + +To all of which remarks Nan gave her assent; though the hop-pole took +the likeness of a tall figure she had seen in the porch, the sage-bed, +curiously enough, suggested a strawberry ditto, the lettuce vividly +reminded her of certain vegetable productions a basket had brought, +and the bob-o-link only sung in his cheeriest voice, "Go home, go +home! he is there!" + +She found John--he having made a freemason of himself, by assuming her +little apron--meditating over the partially spread table, lost in +amaze at its desolate appearance; one half its proper paraphernalia +having been forgotten, and the other half put on awry. Nan laughed +till the tears ran over her cheeks, and John was gratified at the +efficacy of his treatment; for her face had brought a whole harvest of +sunshine from the garden, and all her cares seemed to have been lost +in the windings of the lane. + +"Nan, are you in hysterics?" cried Di, appearing, book in hand. "John, +you absurd man, what are you doing?" + +"I'm helpin' the maid of all work, please marm." And John dropped a +curtsy with his limited apron. + +Di looked ruffled, for the merry words were a covert reproach; and +with her usual energy of manner and freedom of speech she tossed +"Wilhelm" out of the window, exclaiming, irefully,-- + +"That's always the way; I'm never where I ought to be, and never think +of anything till it's too late; but it's all Goethe's fault. What does +he write books full of smart 'Phillinas' and interesting 'Meisters' +for? How can I be expected to remember that Sally's away, and people +must eat, when I'm hearing the 'Harper' and little 'Mignon'? John, how +dare you come here and do my work, instead of shaking me and telling +me to do it myself? Take that toasted child away, and fan her like a +Chinese mandarin, while I dish up this dreadful dinner." + +John and Nan fled like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of +remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the +potatoes' jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair. +Laura had a vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost +among the lights and shadows of Minerva's helmet, forgot to appear +till dinner had been evoked from chaos and peace was restored. + +At three o'clock, Di performed the coronation-ceremony with her +father's best hat; Laura re-tied his old-fashioned neck-cloth, and +arranged his white locks with an eye to saintly effect; Nan appeared +with a beautifully written sermon, and suspicious ink-stains on the +fingers that slipped it into his pocket; John attached himself to the +bag; and the patriarch was escorted to the door of his tent with the +triumphal procession which usually attended his out-goings and +in-comings. Having kissed the female portion of his tribe, he ascended +the venerable chariot, which received him with audible lamentation, as +its rheumatic joints swayed to and fro. + +"Good-bye, my dears! I shall be back early on Monday morning; so take +care of yourselves, and be sure you all go and hear Mr. Emerboy preach +to-morrow. My regards to your mother, John. Come, Solon!" + +But Solon merely cocked one ear, and remained a fixed fact; for long +experience had induced the philosophic beast to take for his motto the +Yankee maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" He knew things +were not right; therefore he did not go ahead. + +"Oh, by-the-way, girls, don't forget to pay Tommy Mullein for bringing +up the cow: he expects it to-night. And, Di, don't sit up till +daylight, nor let Laura stay out in the dew. Now, I believe, I'm off. +Come, Solon!" + +But Solon only cocked the other ear, gently agitated his mortified +tail, as premonitory symptoms of departure, and never stirred a hoof, +being well aware that it always took three "comes" to make a "go." + +"Bless me! I've forgotten my spectacles. They are probably shut up in +that volume of Herbert on my table. Very awkward to find myself +without them ten miles away. Thank you, John. Don't neglect to water +the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little 'Martha.' +Come"---- + +At this juncture, Solon suddenly went off, like "Mrs. Gamp," in a sort +of walking swoon, apparently deaf and blind to all mundane matters, +except the refreshments awaiting him ten miles away; and the benign +old pastor disappeared, humming "Hebron" to the creaking accompaniment +of the bulgy chaise. + +Laura retired to take her _siesta_; Nan made a small _carbonaro_ of +herself by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of +penance for past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in +which she soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping +every third stitch, and seaming _ad libitum_. If John had been a +gentlemanly creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his +feet and made a nuisance of himself by indulging in a "weed"; but +being only an uncultivated youth, with a rustic regard for pure air +and womankind in general, he kept his head uppermost, and talked like +a man, instead of smoking like a chimney. + +"It will probably be six months before I sit here again, tangling your +threads and maltreating your needles, Nan. How glad you must feel to +hear it!" he said, looking up from a thoughtful examination of the +hard-working little citizens of the Industrial Community settled in +Nan's work-basket. + +"No, I'm very sorry; for I like to see you coming and going as you +used to, years ago, and I miss you very much when you are gone, John," +answered truthful Nan, whittling away in a sadly wasteful manner, as +her thoughts flew back to the happy times when a little lad rode a +little lass in the big wheelbarrow, and never spilt his load,--when +two brown heads bobbed daily side by side to school, and the favorite +play was "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to +cover the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. +Nan sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the +battered thimble on his fingertip with increased benignity of aspect +as he heard the sound. + +"When are you going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that +disagreeable hardware concern?" demanded Di, pausing after an exciting +"round," and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a +veritable pugilistic encounter. + +"I intend to make it by plunging still deeper into 'that disagreeable +hardware concern'; for, next year, if the world keeps rolling, and +John Lord is alive, he will become a partner, and then--and then"---- + +The color sprang up into the young man's cheek, his eyes looked out +with a sudden shine, and his hand seemed involuntarily to close, as if +he saw and seized some invisible delight. + +"What will happen then, John?" asked Nan, with a wondering glance. + +"I'll tell you in a year, Nan,--wait till then." And John's strong +hand unclosed, as if the desired good were not to be his yet. + +Di looked at him, with a knitting-needle stuck into her hair, saying, +like a sarcastic unicorn,-- + +"I really thought you had a soul above pots and kettles, but I see you +haven't; and I beg your pardon for the injustice I have done you." + +Not a whit disturbed, John smiled, as if at some mighty pleasant fancy +of his own, as he replied,-- + +"Thank you, Di; and as a further proof of the utter depravity of my +nature, let me tell you that I have the greatest possible respect for +those articles of ironmongery. Some of the happiest hours of my life +have been spent in their society; some of my pleasantest associations +are connected with them; some of my best lessons have come to me from +among them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to show my gratitude +by taking three flat-irons rampant for my coat of arms." + +Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns on her hand; but Di +elevated the most prominent feature of her brown countenance, and +sighed despondingly,-- + +"Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this is! I no sooner build a +nice castle in Spain, and settle a smart young knight therein, than +down it comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth, who might fight +dragons, if he chose, insists on quenching his energies in a saucepan, +and making a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life on a series +of gridirons. Ah, if _I_ were only a man, I would do something better +than that, and prove that heroes are not all dead yet. But, instead of +that, I'm only a woman, and must sit rasping my temper with +absurdities like this." And Di wrestled with her knitting as if it +were Fate, and she were paying off the grudge she owed it. + +John leaned toward her, saying, with a look that made his plain face +handsome,-- + +"Di, my father began the world as I begin it, and left it the richer +for the useful years he spent here,--as I hope I may leave it some +half-century hence. His memory makes that dingy shop a pleasant place +to me; for there he made an honest name, led an honest life, and +bequeathed to me his reverence for honest work. That is a sort of +hardware, Di, that no rust can corrupt, and which will always prove a +better fortune than any your knights can achieve with sword and +shield. I think I am not quite a clod, or quite without some +aspirations above money-getting; for I sincerely desire that courage +which makes daily life heroic by self-denial and cheerfulness of +heart; I am eager to conquer my own rebellious nature, and earn the +confidence of innocent and upright souls; I have a great ambition to +become as good a man and leave as green a memory behind me as old John +Lord." + +Di winked violently, and seamed five times in perfect silence; but +quiet Nan had the gift of knowing when to speak, and by a timely word +saved her sister from a thunder-shower and her stocking from +destruction. + +"John, have you seen Philip since you wrote about your last meeting +with him?" + +The question was for John, but the soothing tone was for Di, who +gratefully accepted it, and perked up again--with speed. + +"Yes; and I meant to have told you about it," answered John, plunging +into the subject at once. "I saw him a few days before I came home, +and found him more disconsolate than ever,--'just ready to go to the +Devil,' as he forcibly expressed himself. I consoled the poor lad as +well as I could, telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposed +expedition, and go on as steadily as he had begun,--thereby proving +the injustice of your father's prediction concerning his want of +perseverance, and the sincerity of his affection. I told him the +change in Laura's health and spirits was silently working in his +favor, and that a few more months of persistent endeavor would conquer +your father's prejudice against him, and make him a stronger man for +the trial and the pain. I read him bits about Laura from your own and +Di's letters, and he went away at last as patient as Jacob, ready to +serve another 'seven years' for his beloved Rachel." + +"God bless you for it, John!" cried a fervent voice; and, looking up, +they saw the cold, listless Laura transformed into a tender girl, all +aglow with love and longing, as she dropped her mask, and showed a +living countenance eloquent with the first passion and softened by the +first grief of her life. + +John rose involuntarily in the presence of an innocent nature whose +sorrow needed no interpreter to him. The girl read sympathy in his +brotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendly voice that asked, +half playfully, half seriously,-- + +"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, even for an Apollo? that +Laura the artist has not conquered Laura the woman? and predict that +the good daughter will yet prove the happy wife?" + +With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to +bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with +hope deferred. + +"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things, and that I never can +forget." + +Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving the prints of two loving, +but grimy hands upon her shoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, +though rather stony-hearted regarding the cause, she fully appreciated +the effect; and John, turning to the window, received the +commendations of a robin swaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on its +ruddy breast. + +The clock struck five, and John declared that he must go; for, being +an old-fashioned soul, he fancied that his mother had a better right +to his last hour than any younger woman in the land,--always +remembering that "she was a widow, and he her only son." + +Nan ran away to wash her hands, and came back with the appearance of +one who had washed her face also: and so she had; but there was a +difference in the water. + +"Play I'm your father, girls, and remember it will be six months +before 'that John' will trouble you again." + +With which preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as +heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished +him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate. But +times were changed now; for Di grew alarmingly rigid during the +ceremony; Laura received the salute like a grateful queen; and Nan +returned it with heart and eyes and tender lips, making such an +improvement on the childish fashion of the thing, that John was moved +to support his paternal character by softly echoing her father's +words,--"Take care of yourself, my little 'Martha.'" + +Then they all streamed after him along the garden-path, with the +endless messages and warnings girls are so prone to give; and the +young man, with a great softness at his heart, went away, as many +another John has gone, feeling better for the companionship of +innocent maidenhood, and stronger to wrestle with temptation, to wait +and hope and work. + +"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dear old 'Mrs. Gummage' did +after 'David' and the 'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always have +old shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'" cried Di, with one of +her eccentric inspirations. + +Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along the dusty road, with a +sudden longing to become that auspicious article of apparel, that the +omen might not fail. + +Looking backward from the hill-top, John answered the meek shout +cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the +shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over +the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her +brown hair with gold. He waved his hat and turned away; but the music +seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer +landscape his eye saw nothing but the little figure at the gate. + +"Bless and save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a +toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines +will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm. + +Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of +mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating +themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the +squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," +and, being used to ground-and-lofty tumbling, didn't mind it. + +When the pedestrians passed, the door was decorously closed, and no +one visible but a young man, who snatched something out of the road, +and marched away again, whistling with more vigor of tone than +accuracy of tune, "Only that, and nothing more." + + * * * * * + +HOW IT WAS FOUND. + +Summer ripened into autumn, and something fairer than + + "Sweet-peas and mignonette + In Annie's garden grew." + +Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-side grove, where as a +child she had read her fairy tales, and now as a woman turned the +first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the +many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the +little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and +full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and +there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped +their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the +moss that kissed the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full +of vernal odors for the grateful sense, silvery birches shimmered like +spirits of the wood, larches gave their green tassels to the wind, and +pines made airy music sweet and solemn, as they stood looking +heavenward through veils of summer sunshine or shrouds of wintry snow. +Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood; for when she came into +its precincts, once so full of solitude, all things seemed to wear one +shape, familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in the grass, +familiar words sounded in the whisper of the leaves, and she grew +conscious that an unseen influence filled the air with new delights, +and touched earth and sky with a beauty never seen before. Slowly +these May-flowers budded in her maiden heart, rosily they bloomed, and +silently they waited till some lover of such lowly herbs should catch +their fresh aroma, should brush away the fallen leaves, and lift them +to the sun. + +Though the eldest of the three, she had long been overtopped by the +more aspiring maids. But though she meekly yielded the reins of +government, whenever they chose to drive, they were soon restored to +her again; for Di fell into literature, and Laura into love. Thus +engrossed, these two forgot many duties which even blue-stockings and +_innamoratas_ are expected to perform, and slowly all the homely +humdrum cares that housewives know became Nan's daily life, and she +accepted it without a thought of discontent. Noiseless and cheerful as +the sunshine, she went to and fro, doing the tasks that mothers do, +but without a mother's sweet reward, holding fast the numberless +slight threads that bind a household tenderly together, and making +each day a beautiful success. + +Di, being tired of running, riding, climbing, and boating, decided at +last to let her body rest and put her equally active mind through what +classical collegians term "a course of sprouts." Having undertaken to +read and know _everything_, she devoted herself to the task with great +energy, going from Sue to Swedenborg with perfect impartiality, and +having different authors as children have sundry distempers, being +fractious while they lasted, but all the better for them when once +over. Carlyle appeared like scarlet-fever, and raged violently for a +time; for, being anything but a "passive bucket," Di became prophetic +with Mahomet, belligerent with Cromwell, and made the French +Revolution a veritable Reign of Terror to her family. Goethe and +Schiller alternated like fever and ague; Mephistopheles became her +hero, Joan of Arc her model, and she turned her black eyes red over +Egmont and Wallenstein. A mild attack of Emerson followed, during +which she was lost in a fog, and her sisters rejoiced inwardly when +she emerged informing them that + + "The Sphinx was drowsy, + Her wings were furled." + +Poor Di was floundering slowly to her proper place; but she splashed +up a good deal of foam by getting out of her depth, and rather +exhausted herself by trying to drink the ocean dry. + +Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream" that often comes to girls +of seventeen, woke up to find that youth and love were no match for +age and common sense. Philip had been flying about the world like a +thistle-down for five-and-twenty years, generous-hearted, frank, and +kind, but with never an idea of the serious side of life in his +handsome head. Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismay of the +enamored thistle-down, when the father of his love mildly objected to +seeing her begin the world in a balloon with a very tender but very +inexperienced aeronaut for a guide. + +"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, and you are too unstable to +assume the part of lord and master, Philip. Go and prove that you have +prudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and I will give you my +girl,--but not before. I must seem cruel, that I may be truly kind; +believe this, and let a little pain lead you to great happiness, or +show you where you would have made a bitter blunder." + +The lovers listened, owned the truth of the old man's words, bewailed +their fate, and--yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for +love of her. He went away to build a firm foundation for his castle in +the air, and Laura retired into an invisible convent, where she cast +off the world, and regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate +of superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she +worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers. +She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly +fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane +matter, but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons, +bread-crusts, and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her +one pleasure was to sit pale and still before her easel, day after +day, filling her portfolios with the faces he had once admired. Her +sisters observed that every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or Dying Gladiator +bore some likeness to a comely countenance that heathen god or hero +never owned; and seeing this, they privately rejoiced that she had +found such solace for her grief. + +Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newly written page in her +son's heart,--his first chapter of that romance, begun in Paradise, +whose interest never flags, whose beauty never fades, whose end can +never come till Love lies dead. With womanly skill she divined the +secret, with motherly discretion she counselled patience, and her son +accepted her advice, feeling, that, like many a healthful herb, its +worth lay in its bitterness. + +"Love like a man, John, not like a boy, and learn to know yourself +before you take a woman's happiness into your keeping. You and Nan +have known each other all your lives; yet, till this last visit, you +never thought you loved her more than any other childish friend. It is +too soon to say the words so often spoken hastily,--so hard to be +recalled. Go back to your work, dear, for another year; think of Nan +in the light of this new hope; compare her with comelier, gayer girls; +and by absence prove the truth of your belief. Then, if distance only +makes her dearer, if time only strengthens your affection, and no +doubt of your own worthiness disturbs you, come back and offer her +what any woman should be glad to take,--my boy's true heart." + +John smiled at the motherly pride of her words, but answered with a +wistful look. + +"It seems very long to wait, mother. If I could just ask her for a +word of hope, I could be very patient then." + +"Ah, my dear, better bear one year of impatience now than a lifetime +of regret hereafter. Nan is happy; why disturb her by a word which +will bring the tender cares and troubles that come soon enough to such +conscientious creatures as herself? If she loves you, time will prove +it; therefore let the new affection spring and ripen as your early +friendship has done, and it will be all the stronger for a summer's +growth. Philip was rash, and has to bear his trial now, and Laura +shares it with him. Be more generous, John; make _your_ trial, bear +_your_ doubts alone, and give Nan the happiness without the pain. +Promise me this, dear,--promise me to hope and wait." + +The young man's eye kindled, and in his heart there rose a better +chivalry, a truer valor, than any Di's knights had ever known. + +"I'll try, mother," was all he said; but she was satisfied, for John +seldom tried in vain. + +"Oh, girls, how splendid you are! It does my heart good to see my +handsome sisters in their best array," cried Nan, one mild October +night, as she put the last touches to certain airy raiment fashioned +by her own skilful hands, and then fell back to survey the grand +effect. + +Di and Laura were preparing to assist at an "event of the season," and +Nan, with her own locks fallen on her shoulders, for want of sundry +combs promoted to her sisters' heads, and her dress in unwonted +disorder, for lack of the many pins extracted in exciting crises of +the toilet, hovered like an affectionate bee about two very full-blown +flowers. + +"Laura looks like a cool Undine, with the ivy-wreaths in her shining +hair; and Di has illuminated herself to such an extent with those +scarlet leaves, that I don't know what great creature she resembles +most," said Nan, beaming with sisterly admiration. + +"Like Juno, Zenobia, and Cleopatra simmered into one, with a touch of +Xantippe by way of spice. But, to my eye, the finest woman of the +three is the dishevelled young person embracing the bed-post; for she +stays at home herself, and gives her time and taste to making homely +people fine,--which is a waste of good material, and an imposition on +the public." + +As Di spoke, both the fashion-plates looked affectionately at the +gray-gowned figure; but, being works of art, they were obliged to nip +their feelings in the bud, and reserve their caresses till they +returned to common life. + +"Put on your bonnet, and we'll leave you at Mrs. Lord's on our way. It +will do you good, Nan; and perhaps there may be news from John," added +Di, as she bore down upon the door like a man-of-war under full sail. + +"Or from Philip," sighed Laura, with a wistful look. + +Whereupon Nan persuaded herself that her strong inclination to sit +down was owing to want of exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a +freak of imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffled plumage, she +ran down to tell her father of the new arrangement. + +"Go, my dear, by all means. I shall be writing; and you will be +lonely, if you stay. But I must see my girls; for I caught glimpses of +certain surprising phantoms flitting by the door." + +Nan led the way, and the two pyramids revolved before him with the +rigidity of lay-figures, much to the good man's edification; for with +his fatherly pleasure there was mingled much mild wonderment at the +amplitude of array. + +"Yes, I see my geese are really swans, though there is such a cloud +between us that I feel a long way off, and hardly know them. But this +little daughter is always available, always my 'cricket on the +hearth.'" + +As he spoke, her father drew Nan closer, kissed her tranquil face, and +smiled content. + +"Well, if ever I see picters, I see 'em now, and I declare to goodness +it's as interestin' as play-actin', every bit. Miss Di, with all them +boughs in her head, looks like the Queen of Sheby, when she went +a-visitin' What's-his-name; and if Miss Laura a'n't as sweet as a +lally-barster figger, I should like to know what is." + +In her enthusiasm, Sally gambolled about the girls, flourishing her +milk-pan like a modern Miriam about to sound her timbrel for excess of +joy. + +Laughing merrily, the two Mont Blancs bestowed themselves in the +family ark, Nan hopped up beside Patrick, and Solon, roused from his +lawful slumbers, morosely trundled them away. But, looking backward +with a last "Good night!" Nan saw her father still standing at the +door with smiling countenance, and the moonlight falling like a +benediction on his silver hair. + +"Betsey shall go up the hill with you, my dear, and here's a basket of +eggs for your father. Give him my love, and be sure you let me know +the next time he is poorly," Mrs. Lord said, when her guest rose to +depart, after an hour of pleasant chat. + +But Nan never got the gift; for, to her great dismay, her hostess +dropped the basket with a crash, and flew across the room to meet a +tall shape pausing in the shadow of the door. There was no need to ask +who the new-comer was; for, even in his mother's arms, John looked +over her shoulder with an eager nod to Nan, who stood among the ruins +with never a sign of weariness in her face, nor the memory of a care +at her heart,--for they all went out when John came in. + +"Now tell us how and why and when you came. Take off your coat, my +dear! And here are the old slippers. Why didn't you let us know you +were coming so soon? How have you been? and what makes you so late +to-night? Betsey, you needn't put on your bonnet. And--oh, my dear +boy, _have_ you been to supper yet?" + +Mrs. Lord was a quiet soul, and her flood of questions was purred +softly in her son's ear; for, being a woman, she _must_ talk, and, +being a mother, _must_ pet the one delight of her life, and make a +little festival when the lord of the manor came home. A whole drove of +fatted calves were metaphorically killed, and a banquet appeared with +speed. + +John was not one of those romantic heroes who can go through three +volumes of hairbreadth escapes without the faintest hint of that +blessed institution, dinner; therefore, like "Lady Leatherbridge," he +"partook copiously of everything," while the two women beamed over +each mouthful with an interest that enhanced its flavor, and urged +upon him cold meat and cheese, pickles and pie, as if dyspepsia and +nightmare were among the lost arts. + +Then he opened his budget of news and fed _them_. + +"I was coming next month, according to custom; but Philip fell upon +and so tempted me, that I was driven to sacrifice myself to the cause +of friendship, and up we came to-night. He would not let me come here +till we had seen your father, Nan; for the poor lad was pining for +Laura, and hoped his good behavior for the past year would satisfy his +judge and secure his recall. We had a fine talk with your father; and, +upon my life, Phil seemed to have received the gift of tongues, for he +made a most eloquent plea, which I've stored away for future use, I +assure you. The dear old gentleman was very kind, told Phil he was +satisfied with the success of his probation, that he should see Laura +when he liked, and, if all went well, should receive his reward in the +spring. It must be a delightful sensation to know you have made a +fellow-creature as happy as those words made Phil to-night." + +John paused, and looked musingly at the matronly tea-pot, as if he saw +a wondrous future in its shine. + +Nan twinkled off the drops that rose at the thought of Laura's joy, +and said, with grateful warmth,-- + +"You say nothing of your own share in the making of that happiness, +John; but we know it, for Philip has told Laura in his letters all +that you have been to him, and I am sure there was other eloquence +beside his own before father granted all you say he has. Oh, John, I +thank you very much for this!" + +Mrs. Lord beamed a whole midsummer of delight upon her son, as she saw +the pleasure these words gave him, though he answered simply,-- + +"I only tried to be a brother to him, Nan; for he has been most kind +to me. Yes, I said my little say to-night, and gave my testimony in +behalf of the prisoner at the bar, a most merciful judge pronounced +his sentence, and he rushed straight to Mrs. Leigh's to tell Laura the +blissful news. Just imagine the scene when he appears, and how Di will +open her wicked eyes and enjoy the spectacle of the dishevelled lover, +the bride-elect's tears, the stir, and the romance of the thing. +She'll cry over it to-night, and caricature it to-morrow." + +And John led the laugh at the picture he had conjured up, to turn the +thoughts of Di's dangerous sister from himself. + +At ten Nan retired into the depths of her old bonnet with a far +different face from the one she brought out of it, and John, resuming +his hat, mounted guard. + +"Don't stay late, remember, John!" And in Mrs. Lord's voice there was +a warning tone that her son interpreted aright. + +"I'll not forget, mother." + +And he kept his word; for though Philip's happiness floated temptingly +before him, and the little figure at his side had never seemed so +dear, he ignored the bland winds, the tender night, and set a seal +upon his lips, thinking manfully within himself, "I see many signs of +promise in her happy face; but I will wait and hope a little longer +for her sake." + +"Where is father, Sally?" asked Nan, as that functionary appeared, +blinking owlishly, but utterly repudiating the idea of sleep. + +"He went down the garding, miss, when the gentlemen cleared, bein' a +little flustered by the goin's on. Shall I fetch him in?" asked Sally, +as irreverently as if her master were a bag of meal. + +"No, we will go ourselves." And slowly the two paced down the +leaf-strewn walk. + +Fields of yellow grain were waving on the hill-side, and sere +corn-blades rustled in the wind, from the orchard came the scent of +ripening fruit, and all the garden-plots lay ready to yield up their +humble offerings to their master's hand. But in the silence of the +night a greater Reaper had passed by, gathering in the harvest of a +righteous life, and leaving only tender memories for the gleaners who +had come so late. + +The old man sat in the shadow of the tree his own hands planted; its +fruitful boughs shone ruddily, and its leaves still whispered the low +lullaby that hushed him to his rest. + +"How fast he sleeps! Poor father! I should have come before and made +it pleasant for him." + +As she spoke, Nan lifted up the head bent down upon his breast, and +kissed his pallid cheek. + +"Oh, John, this is not sleep!" + +"Yes, dear, the happiest he will ever know." + +For a moment the shadows flickered over three white faces and the +silence deepened solemnly. Then John reverently bore the pale shape +in, and Nan dropped down beside it, saying, with a rain of grateful +tears,-- + +"He kissed me when I went, and said a last 'good night!'" + +For an hour steps went to and fro about her, many voices whispered +near her, and skilful hands touched the beloved clay she held so fast; +but one by one the busy feet passed out, one by one the voices died +away, and human skill proved vain. Then Mrs. Lord drew the orphan to +the shelter of her arms, soothing her with the mute solace of that +motherly embrace. + + * * * * * + +"Nan, Nan! here's Philip! come and see!" + +The happy call reëchoed through the house, and Nan sprang up as if her +time for grief were past. + +"I must tell them. Oh, my poor girls, how will they bear it?--they +have known so little sorrow!" + +But there was no need for her to speak; other lips had spared her the +hard task. For, as she stirred to meet them, a sharp cry rent the air, +steps rang upon the stairs, and two wild-eyed creatures came into the +hush of that familiar room, for the first time meeting with no welcome +from their father's voice. + +With one impulse, Di and Laura fled to Nan, and the sisters clung +together in a silent embrace, far more eloquent than words. John took +his mother by the hand, and led her from the room, closing the door +upon the sacredness of grief. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, we are poorer than we thought; but when everything is settled, +we shall get on very well. We can let a part of this great house, and +live quietly together until spring; then Laura will be married, and Di +can go on their travels with them, as Philip wishes her to do. We +shall be cared for; so never fear for us, John." + +Nan said this, as her friend parted from her a week later, after the +saddest holiday he had ever known. + +"And what becomes of you, Nan?" he asked, watching the patient eyes +that smiled when others would have wept. + +"I shall stay in the dear old house; for no other place would seem +like home to me. I shall find some little child to love and care for, +and be quite happy till the girls come back and want me." + +John nodded wisely, as he listened, and went away prophesying within +himself,-- + +"She shall find something more than a child to love; and, God willing, +shall be very happy till the girls come home and--cannot have her." + +Nan's plan was carried into effect. Slowly the divided waters closed +again, and the three fell back into their old life. But the touch of +sorrow drew them closer; and, though invisible, a beloved presence +still moved among them, a familiar voice still spoke to them in the +silence of their softened hearts. Thus the soil was made ready, and in +the depth of winter the good seed was sown, was watered with many +tears, and soon sprang up green with the promise of a harvest for +their after years. + +Di and Laura consoled themselves with their favorite employments, +unconscious that Nan was growing paler, thinner, and more silent, as +the weeks went by, till one day she dropped quietly before them, and +it suddenly became manifest that she was utterly worn out with many +cares and the secret suffering of a tender heart bereft of the +paternal love which had been its strength and stay. + +"I'm only tired, dear girls. Don't be troubled, for I shall be up +to-morrow," she said cheerily, as she looked into the anxious faces +bending over her. + +But the weariness was of many months' growth, and it was weeks before +that "tomorrow" came. + +Laura installed herself as nurse, and her devotion was repaid +four-fold; for, sitting at her sister's bedside, she learned a finer +art than that she had left. Her eye grew clear to see the beauty of a +self-denying life, and in the depths of Nan's meek nature she found +the strong, sweet virtues that made her what she was. + +Then remembering that these womanly attributes were a bride's best +dowry, Laura gave herself to their attainment, that she might become +to another household the blessing Nan had been to her own; and turning +from the worship of the goddess Beauty, she gave her hand to that +humbler and more human teacher, Duty,--learning her lessons with a +willing heart, for Philip's sake. + +Di corked her inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as +if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but +scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. +Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di +had undisputed sway; but if dish-pans and dusters had tongues, direful +would have been the history of that crusade against frost and fire, +indolence and inexperience. But they were dumb, and Di scorned to +complain, though her struggles were pathetic to behold, and her +sisters went through a series of messes equal to a course of "Prince +Benreddin's" peppery tarts. Reality turned Romance out of doors; for, +unlike her favorite heroines in satin and tears, or helmet and shield, +Di met her fate in a big checked apron and dust-cap, wonderful to see; +yet she wielded her broom as stoutly as "Moll Pitcher" shouldered her +gun, and marched to her daily martyrdom in the kitchen with as heroic +a heart as the "Maid of Orleans" took to her stake. + +Mind won the victory over matter in the end, and Di was better all her +days for the tribulations and the triumphs of that time; for she +drowned her idle fancies in her wash-tub, made burnt-offerings of +selfishness and pride, and learned the worth of self-denial, as she +sang with happy voice among the pots and kettles of her conquered +realm. + +Nan thought of John, and in the stillness of her sleepless nights +prayed Heaven to keep him safe, and make her worthy to receive and +strong enough to bear the blessedness or pain of love. + +Snow fell without, and keen winds howled among the leafless elms, but +"herbs of grace" were blooming beautifully in the sunshine of sincere +endeavor, and this dreariest season proved the most fruitful of the +year; for love taught Laura, labor chastened Di, and patience fitted +Nan for the blessing of her life. + +Nature, that stillest, yet most diligent of housewives, began at last +that "spring-cleaning" which she makes so pleasant that none find the +heart to grumble as they do when other matrons set their premises +a-dust. Her handmaids, wind and rain and sun, swept, washed, and +garnished busily, green carpets were unrolled, apple-boughs were hung +with draperies of bloom, and dandelions, pet nurslings of the year, +came out to play upon the sward. + +From the South returned that opera troupe whose manager is never in +despair, whose tenor never sulks, whose prima donna never fails, and +in the orchard _bonâ fide_ matinées were held, to which buttercups and +clovers crowded in their prettiest spring hats, and verdant young +blades twinkled their dewy lorgnettes, as they bowed and made way for +the floral belles. + +May was bidding June good-morrow, and the roses were just dreaming +that it was almost time to wake, when John came again into the quiet +room which now seemed the Eden that contained his Eve. Of course there +was a jubilee; but something seemed to have befallen the whole group, +for never had they all appeared in such odd frames of mind. John was +restless, and wore an excited look, most unlike his usual serenity of +aspect. + +Nan the cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be +extracted by any hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky +over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she +looked as if she would go off like a torpedo, at a touch; but through +all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression +in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang +like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was +always, "Philip, my king." + +John felt that there had come a change upon the three, and silently +divined whose unconscious influence had wrought the miracle. The +embargo was off his tongue, and he was in a fever to ask that question +which brings a flutter to the stoutest heart; but though the "man" had +come, the "hour" had not. So, by way of steadying his nerves, he paced +the room, pausing often to take notes of his companions, and each +pause seemed to increase his wonder and content. + +He looked at Nan. She was in her usual place, the rigid little chair +she loved, because it once was large enough to hold a curly-headed +playmate and herself. The old work-basket was at her side, and the +battered thimble busily at work; but her lips wore a smile they had +never worn before, the color of the unblown roses touched her cheek, +and her downcast eyes were full of light. + +He looked at Di. The inevitable book was on her knee, but its leaves +were uncut; the strong-minded knob of hair still asserted its +supremacy aloft upon her head, and the triangular jacket still adorned +her shoulders in defiance of all fashions, past, present, or to come; +but the expression of her brown countenance had grown softer, her +tongue had found a curb, and in her hand lay a card with "Potts, +Kettel, & Co." inscribed thereon, which she regarded with never a +scornful word for the "Co." + +He looked at Laura. She was before her easel, as of old; but the pale +nun had given place to a blooming girl, who sang at her work, which +was no prim Pallas, but a Clytie turning her human face to meet the +sun. + +"John, what are you thinking of?" + +He stirred as if Di's voice had disturbed his fancy at some pleasant +pastime, but answered with his usual sincerity,-- + +"I was thinking of a certain dear old fairy tale called 'Cinderella.'" + +"Oh!" said Di; and her "Oh" was a most impressive monosyllable. "I see +the meaning of your smile now; and though the application of the story +is not very complimentary to all parties concerned, it is very just +and very true." + +She paused a moment, then went on with softened voice and earnest +mien:-- + +"You think I am a blind and selfish creature. So I am, but not so +blind and selfish as I have been; for many tears have cleared my eyes, +and much sincere regret has made me humbler than I was. I have found a +better book than any father's library can give me, and I have read it +with a love and admiration that grew stronger as I turned the leaves. +Henceforth I take it for my guide and gospel, and, looking back upon +the selfish and neglectful past, can only say, Heaven bless your dear +heart, Nan!" + +Laura echoed Di's last words; for, with eyes as full of tenderness, +she looked down upon the sister she had lately learned to know, +saying, warmly,-- + +"Yes, 'Heaven bless your dear heart, Nan!' I never can forget all you +have been to me; and when I am far away with Philip, there will always +be one countenance more beautiful to me than any pictured face I may +discover, there will be one place more dear to me than Rome. The face +will be yours, Nan,--always so patient, always so serene; and the +dearer place will be this home of ours, which you have made so +pleasant to me all these years by kindnesses as numberless and +noiseless as the drops of dew." + +"Dear girls, what have I ever done, that you should love me so?" cried +Nan, with happy wonderment, as the tall heads, black and golden, bent +to meet the lowly brown one, and her sisters' mute lips answered her. + +Then Laura looked up, saying, playfully,-- + +"Here are the good and wicked sisters;--where shall we find the +Prince?" + +"There!" cried Di, pointing to John; and then her secret went off like +a rocket; for, with her old impetuosity, she said,-- + +"I have found you out, John, and am ashamed to look you in the face, +remembering the past. Girls, you know, when father died, John sent us +money, which he said Mr. Owen had long owed us and had paid at last? +It was a kind lie, John, and a generous thing to do; for we needed it, +but never would have taken it as a gift. I know you meant that we +should never find this out; but yesterday I met Mr. Owen returning +from the West, and when I thanked him for a piece of justice we had +not expected of him, he gruffly told me he had never paid the debt, +never meant to pay it, for it was outlawed, and we could not claim a +farthing. John, I have laughed at you, thought you stupid, treated you +unkindly; but I know you now, and never shall forget the lesson you +have taught me. I am proud as Lucifer, but I ask you to forgive me, +and I seal my real repentance so--and so." + +With tragic countenance, Di rushed across the room, threw both arms +about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss +upon his cheek. There was a momentary silence; for Di finely +illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of +her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried +to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a +supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own. And Nan sat with +drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender pride,-- + +"They know him now, and love him for his generous heart." + +Di spoke first, rallying to her colors, though a little daunted by her +loss of self-control. + +"Don't laugh, John,--I couldn't help it; and don't think I'm not +sincere, for I am,--I am; and I will prove it by growing good enough +to be your friend. That debt must all be paid, and I shall do it; for +I'll turn my books and pen to some account, and write stories full of +dear old souls like you and Nan; and some one, I know, will like and +buy them, though they are not 'works of Shakspeare.' I've thought of +this before, have felt I had the power in me; _now_ I have the motive, +and _now_ I'll do it." + +If Di had proposed to translate the Koran, or build a new Saint +Paul's, there would have been many chances of success; for, once +moved, her will, like a battering-ram, would knock down the obstacles +her wits could not surmount. John believed in her most heartily, and +showed it, as he answered, looking into her resolute face,-- + +"I know you will, and yet make us very proud of our 'Chaos,' Di. Let +the money lie, and when you have made a fortune, I'll claim it with +enormous interest; but, believe me, I feel already doubly repaid by +the esteem so generously confessed, so cordially bestowed, and can +only say, as we used to years ago,--'Now let's forgive and so +forget.'" + +But proud Di would not let him add to her obligation, even by +returning her impetuous salute; she slipped away, and, shaking off the +last drops, answered with a curious mixture of old freedom and new +respect,-- + +"No more sentiment, please, John. +We know each other now; and when I find a friend, I never let him go. +We have smoked the pipe of peace; so let us go back to our wigwams and +bury the feud. Where were we when I lost my head? and what were we +talking about?" + +"Cinderella and the Prince." + +As he spoke, John's eye kindled, and, turning, he looked down at Nan, +who sat diligently ornamenting with microscopic stitches a great patch +going on, the wrong side out. + +"Yes,--so we were; and now taking pussy for the godmother, the +characters of the story are well personated,--all but the slipper," +said Di, laughing, as she thought of the many times they had played it +together years ago. + +A sudden movement stirred John's frame, a sudden purpose shone in his +countenance, and a sudden change befell his voice, as he said, +producing from some hiding-place a little worn-out shoe,-- + +"I can supply the slipper;--who will try it first?" + +Di's black eyes opened wide, as they fell on the familiar object; then +her romance-loving nature saw the whole plot of that drama which needs +but two to act it. A great delight flushed up into her face, as she +promptly took her cue, saying,-- + +"No need for us to try it, Laura; for it wouldn't fit us, if our feet +were as small as Chinese dolls';--our parts are played out; therefore +'Exeunt wicked sisters to the music of the wedding-bells.'" And +pouncing upon the dismayed artist, she swept her out and closed the +door with a triumphant bang. + +John went to Nan, and, dropping on his knee as reverently as the +herald of the fairy tale, he asked, still smiling, but with lips grown +tremulous,-- + +"Will Cinderella try the little shoe, and--if it fits--go with the +Prince?" + +But Nan only covered up her face, weeping happy tears, while all the +weary work strayed down upon the floor, as if it knew her holiday had +come. + +John drew the hidden face still closer, and while she listened to his +eager words, Nan heard the beating of the strong man's heart, and knew +it spoke the truth. + +"Nan, I promised mother to be silent till I was sure I loved you +wholly,--sure that the knowledge would give no pain when I should tell +it, as I am trying to tell it now. This little shoe has been my +comforter through this long year, and I have kept it as other lovers +keep their fairer favors. It has been a talisman more eloquent to me +than flower or ring; for, when I saw how worn it was, I always thought +of the willing feet that came and went for others' comfort all day +long; when I saw the little bow you tied, I always thought of the +hands so diligent in serving any one who knew a want or felt a pain; +and when I recalled the gentle creature who had worn it last, I always +saw her patient, tender, and devout,--and tried to grow more worthy of +her, that I might one day dare to ask if she would walk beside me all +my life and be my 'angel in the house.' Will you, dear? Believe me, +you shall never know a weariness or grief I have the power to shield +you from." + +Then Nan, as simple in her love as in her life, laid her arms about +his neck, her happy face against his own, and answered softly,-- + +"Oh, John, I never can be sad or tired any more!" + + * * * * * + + +THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. + + A poet came singing along the vale,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the dear old days! + They come no more as they did of yore + By the flowing river of Aise." + + He piped through the meadow, he piped through the grove,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the good old days! + They have all gone by, and I sit and sigh + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "Knights and ladies and shields and swords,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the grand old days! + Castles and moats, and the bright steel coats, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The lances are shivered, the helmets rust,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the stern old days! + And the clarion's blast has rung its last, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And the warriors that swept to glory and death,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the brave old days! + They have fought and gone, and I sit here alone + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The strength of limb and the mettle of heart,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the strong old days! + They have withered away, mere butterflies' play, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The queens of beauty, whose smile was life,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rare old days! + With love and despair in their golden hair, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "They have flitted away from hall and bower,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rich old days! + Like the sun they shone, like the sun they have gone, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And buried beneath the pall of the past,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the proud old days! + Lie valor and worth and the beauty of earth, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And I sit and sigh by the idle stream,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the bright old days! + For nothing remains for the poet's strains + But the flowing river of Aise." + + Then a voice rang out from the oak overhead,-- + "Why well-a-day for the old, old days? + The world is the same, if the bard has an aim, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There's beauty and love and truth and power,-- + Cease well-a-day for the old, old days! + The humblest home is worth Greece and Rome, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are themes enough for the poet's strains,-- + Leave well-a-day for the quaint old days! + Take thine eyes from the ground, look up and around + From the flowing river of Aise. + + "To-day is as grand as the centuries past,-- + Leave well-a-day for the famed old days! + There are battles to fight, there are troths to plight, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are hearts as true to love, to strive,-- + No well-a-day for the dark old days! + Go put into type the age that is ripe + By the flowing river of Aise." + + Then the merry Poet piped down the vale,-- + "Farewell, farewell to the dead old days! + By day and by night there's music and light + By the flowing river of Aise." + + * * * * * + + +THE ICEBERG OF TORBAY. + +TORBAY. + +Torbay, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. R.T.S. Lowell, +is an arm of the sea, a short strong arm with a slim hand and finger, +reaching into the rocky land and touching the water-falls and rapids +of a pretty brook. Here is a little village, with Romish and +Protestant steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the +universal appendages of fishing-houses, boats, and "flakes." One +seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and wild. The rocks slope +steeply down to the wonderfully clear water. Thousands of poles +support half-acres of the spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, +cool region, crossed with foot-paths, and not unfrequently sprinkled +and washed by the surf,--a most kindly office on the part of the sea, +you will allow, when once you have scented the fish-offal perpetually +dropping from the evergreen fish-house above. These little buildings +on the flakes are conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as +if they had just wandered away from the woodlands. + +There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, or upon the +extreme end of that part of it which runs off frequently over the +water like a wharf, an assemblage of huts and halls, bowers and +arbors, a curious huddle made of poles and sweet-smelling branches and +sheets of birch-bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce +at noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we see in old +pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the stranger only a kind of +buoy by which he is to steer his way through the darkness. To come off +then without pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is +the merest chance. Strange! one is continually allured into these +piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. In spite of the chilly, +salt air, and the repulsive smells about the tables where they dress +the fish, I have a fancy for these queer structures. Their front door +opens upon the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading down +to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also about fine fishes, +fresh from the net and the hook,--the salmon, for example, whose pink +and yellow flesh has given a name to one of the most delicate hues of +Art or Nature. + +THE CLIFFS. + +But where was the iceberg? We were not a little disappointed when all +Torbay was before us, and nothing but dark water to be seen. To our +surprise, no one had ever seen or heard of it. It must lie off Flat +Rock Harbor, a little bay below, to the north. We agreed with the +supposition that the berg must lie below, and made speedy preparations +to pursue, by securing the only boat to be had in the village,--a +substantial fishing-barge, laden rather heavily in the stern with at +least a cord of cod-seine, but manned by six stalwart men, a motive +power, as it turned out, none too large for the occasion. We embarked +at the foot of a fish-house ladder, being carefully handed down by the +kind-hearted men, and took our seats forward on the little bow-deck. +All ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars with the +skill and deliberation of lifelong practice, and we moved out upon the +broad, glassy swells of the bay towards the open sea, not indeed with +the rapidity of a Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable +steadiness, and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, +which, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with lights and +shadows. + +We were presently met by a breeze, which increased the swell, and made +it easier to fail in close under the northern shore, a line of +stupendous precipices, to which the ocean goes deep home. The ride +beneath these mighty cliffs was by far the finest boat-ride of my +life. While they do not equal the rocks of the Saguenay, yet, with all +their appendages of extent, structure, complexion, and adjacent sea, +they are sufficiently lofty to produce an almost appalling sense of +sublimity. The surges lave them at a great height, sliding from angle +to angle, and fretting into foam as they slip obliquely along the face +of the vast walls. They descend as deeply as two hundred feet, and +rise perpendicularly two, three, and four hundred feet from the water. +Their stratifications are up and down, and of different shades of +light and dark, a ribbed and striped appearance that increases the +effect of height, and gives variety and spirit to the surface. At one +point, where the rocks advance from the main front, and form a kind of +headland, the strata, six and eight feet thick, assume the form of a +pyramid,--from a broad base of a hundred yards or more running up to +meet in a point. The heart of this vast cone has partly fallen out, +and left the resemblance of an enormous tent with cavernous recesses +and halls, in which the shades of evening were already lurking, and +the surf was sounding mournfully. Occasionally it was musical, pealing +forth like the low tones of a great organ with awful solemnity. Now +and then, the gloomy silence of a minute was broken by the crash of a +billow far within, when the reverberations were like the slamming of +great doors. + +After passing this grand specimen of the architecture of the sea, +there appeared long rocky reaches like Egyptian temples,--old, dead +cliffs of yellowish gray, checked off by lines and seams into squares, +and having the resemblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean, +of doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. Presently we +came to a break, where there were grassy slopes and crags +intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in +the warm sunshine. A knot of kids--the reckless little creatures--were +sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to +witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single +misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in +proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the +goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a +few days before: a lad playing about the steep fell into the sea, and +was drowned. + +We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to +behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef that flanked +the small cape, in the finest style,--a beautiful dance of breakers of +dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward, +and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our +hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. "There it +is!" one exclaimed. An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the +next headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming down upon +us from the broad waters, and covering the very tract where the berg +was expected to be seen. Farther and farther out the long, strong +sweep of the great oars carried us, until the depth of the bay between +us and the next headland was in full view. It may appear almost too +trifling a matter over which to have had any feeling worth mentioning +or remembering, but I shall not soon forget the disappointment, when +from the deck of our barge, as it rose and sank on the large swells, +we stood up and looked around and saw, that, if the iceberg, over +which our very hearts had been beating with delight for twenty-four +hours, was anywhere, it was somewhere in the depths of that untoward +fog. It might as well have been in the depths of the ocean. + +While the pale cloud slept there, there was nothing left for us but to +wait patiently where we were, or retreat. We chose the latter. C. gave +the word to pull for the settlement at the head of the little bay just +mentioned, and so they rounded the breakers on the reef, and we turned +away for the second time, when the game was fairly ours. Even the +hardy fishermen, no lovers of "islands-of-ice," as they call them, +felt for us, as they read in our looks the disappointment, not to say +a little vexation. While on our passage in, we filled a half-hour with +questions and discussions about that iceberg. + +"We certainly saw it yesterday evening; and a soldier of Signal Hill +told us that it had been close in at Torbay for several days. And you, +my man there, say that you had a glimpse of it last evening. How +happens it to be away just now? Where do you think it is?" + +"Indeed, Sir, he must be out in the fog, a mile or over. De'il a bit +can a man look after a thing in a fog, more nor into a snow-bank. +Maybe, Sir, he's foundered; or he might be gone off to sea, +altogether, as they sometimes do." + +"Well, this is rather remarkable. Huge as these bergs are, they escape +very easily under their old cover. No sooner do we think we have them, +than they are gone. No jackal was ever more faithful to his lion, no +pilot-fish to his shark, than the fog to its berg. We will run in +yonder and inquire about it. We may get the exact bearing, and reach +it yet, even in the fog." + +THE FISHERMAN'S. + +The wind and sea being in our favor, we soon reached a fishery-ladder, +which we now knew very well how to climb, and wound our "dim and +perilous way" through the evergreen labyrinth of fish bowers, emerging +on the solid rock, and taking the path to the fisherman's house. Here +lives and works and wears himself out William Waterland, a +deep-voiced, broad-chested, round-shouldered man, dressed, not in +cloth of gold, but of oil, with the foxy remnant of a last winter's +fur cap clinging to his large, bony head, a little in the style of a +piece of turf to a stone. You seldom look into a more kindly, patient +face, or into an eye that more directly lets up the light out of a +large, warm heart. His countenance is one sober shadow of honest +brown, occasionally lighted by a true and guileless smile. William +Waterland has seen the "island-of-ice." "It lies off there, two miles +or more, grounded on a bank, in forty fathoms water." + +It was nearly six o'clock; and yet, as there were signs of the fog +clearing away, we thought it prudent to wait. A dull, long hour passed +by, and still the sun was high in the northwest. That heavy cod-seine, +a hundred fathoms long, sank the stern of our barge rather deeply, and +made it row heavily. For all that, there was time enough yet, if we +could only use it. The fog still came in masses from the sea, sweeping +across the promontory between us and Torbay, and fading into air +nearly as soon as it was over the land. In the mean time, we sat upon +the rocks, upon the wood-pile, stood around and talked, looked out +into the endless mist, looked at the fishermen's houses, their +children, their fowls and dogs. A couple of young women, that might +have been teachers of the village school, had there been a school, +belles of the place, rather neatly dressed, and with hair nicely +combed, tripped shyly by, each with an arm about the other's waist, +and very merry until abreast of us, when they were as silent and +downcast as if they had been passing by their sovereign queen or the +Great Mogul. Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amusing. +We speculated upon the astonishment that would have seized upon their +simple, innocent hearts, had they beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our +city fashionables in full bloom. + +At length we accepted an invitation to walk into the house, and sat, +not under the good man's roof, but under his chimney, a species of +large funnel, into which nearly one end of the house resolved itself. +Here we sat upon some box-like benches before a wood fire, and warmed +ourselves, chatting with the family. While we were making ourselves +comfortable and agreeable, we made the novel and rather funny +discovery of a hen sitting on her nest just under the bench, with her +red comb at our fingers' ends. A large griddle hung suspended in the +more smoky regions of the chimney, ready to be lowered for the baking +of cakes or frying fish. Having tarred my hand, the fisherman's wife, +kind woman, insisted upon washing it herself. After rubbing it with a +little grease, she first scratched it with her finger-nail, and then +finished with soap and water and a good wiping with a coarse towel. I +begged that she would spare herself the trouble, and allow me to help +myself. But it was no trouble at all for her, and the greatest +pleasure. And what should I know about washing off tar? They were +members of the Church of England, and seemed pleased when they found +that I was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. They had a pastor who +visited them and others in the village occasionally, and held divine +service on Sunday at Torbay, where they attended, going in boats in +summer, and over the hills on snow-shoes in the winter. The woman told +me, in an undertone, that the family relations were not all agreed in +their religious faith, and that they could not stop there any longer, +but had gone to "America," which they liked much better. It was a hard +country, any way, no matter whether one were Protestant or Papist. +Three months were all their summer, and nearly all their time for +getting ready for the long, cold winter. To be sure, they had codfish +and potatoes, flour and butter, tea and sugar; but then it took a deal +of hard work to make ends meet. The winter was not as cold as we +thought, perhaps; but then it was so long and snowy! The snow lay +five, six, and seven feet deep. Wood was a great trouble. There was a +plenty of it, but they could not keep cattle or horses to draw it +home. Dogs were their only teams, and they could fetch but small loads +at a time. In the mean while, a chubby little boy, with cheeks like a +red apple, had ventured from behind his young mother, where he had +kept dodging as she moved about the house, and edged himself up near +enough to be patted on the head, and rewarded for his little liberties +with a half-dime. + +THE ICEBERG. + +The sunshine was now streaming in at a bit of a window, and I went out +to see what prospect of success. C., who had left some little time +before, was nowhere to be seen. The fog seemed to be in sufficient +motion to disclose the berg down some of the avenues of clear air that +were opened occasionally. They all ended, however, with fog instead of +ice. I made it convenient to walk to the boat, and pocket a few cakes, +brought along as a kind of scattering lunch. C. was descried, at +length, climbing the broad, rocky ridge, the eastern point of which we +had doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up the crags by a +short cut, I joined him on the verge of the promontory pretty well +heated and out of breath. The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was +dispersing in the sunny air around us; the ocean was clearing off; the +surge was breaking with a pleasant sound below. At the foot of the +precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in +length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times +abreast, and then in single file, or disorderly, round and round they +went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then +plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large +movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no +muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more +flexibility in their motions than if they had been built of timber. +They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale might be supposed to +move down a mighty rapid, roiling and plunging and borne along +irresistibly by the current. As they rose, we could see their mouths +occasionally, and the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went +under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the +screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then +one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote +sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a +novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they +were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along +these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath +the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast +with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above the +whales the water was green, a darker green as they descended, a +lighter green as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green +water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with +the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were +gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, +there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the +breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of +whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, +was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness +another of a more brilliant character. + +To the north and east, the ocean, dark and sparkling, was, by the +magic action of the wind, entirely clear of fog; and there, about two +miles distant, stood revealed the iceberg in all its cold and solitary +glory. It was of a greenish white, and of the Greek-temple form, +seeming to be over a hundred feet high. We gazed some minutes with +silent delight on the splendid and impressive object, and then +hastened down to the boat, and pulled away with all speed to reach it, +if possible, before the fog should cover it again, and in time for C. +to paint it. The moderation of the oarsmen and the slowness of our +progress were quite provoking. I watched the sun, the distant fog, the +wind and waves, the increasing motion of the boat, and the seemingly +retreating berg. A good half-hour's toil had carried us into broad +waters, and yet, to all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was +freshening from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists, a species +of scout from the main body of the fog lying off in the east, were +scudding across our track. James Goss, our captain, threw out a hint +of a little difficulty in getting back. But Yankee energy was +indomitable. C. quietly arranged his painting--apparatus, and I, +wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck, +a sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves on our way +back, as the black, angry-looking swells chased us up, and flung the +foam upon the bow and stern. All at once, whole squadrons of fog swept +up, and swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, white +obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves foiled again. But still +the word was, "On!" And on they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, now +flushed and moist with rowing. Again the ice was visible, but dimly, +in his misty drapery. There was no time to be lost. Now, or not at +all. And so C. began. For half an hour, pausing occasionally for +passing flocks of fog, he plied the brush with a rapidity not usual, +and under disadvantages that would have mastered a less experienced +hand. We were getting close down upon the berg, and in fearfully rough +water. In their curiosity to catch glimpses of the advancing sketch, +the men pulled with little regularity, and trimmed the boat very +badly. We were rolling frightfully to a landsman. C. begged of them to +keep their seats, and hold the barge just there as near as possible. +To amuse them, I passed an opera-glass around among them, with which +they examined the iceberg and the coast. They turned out to be +excellent good fellows, and entered into the spirit of the thing in a +way that pleased us. I am sure they would have held on willingly till +dark, if C. had only said the word, so much interest did they feel in +the attempt to paint the "island-of-ice." The hope was to linger about +it until sunset, for its colors, lights, and shadows. That, however, +was suddenly extinguished. Heavy fog came on, and we retreated, not +with the satisfaction of a conquest, nor with the disappointment of a +defeat, but cheered with the hope of complete success, perhaps the +next day, when C. thought that we could return upon our game in a +little steamer, and so secure it beyond the possibility of escape. The +seine was hauled from the stern to the centre of the barge, and the +men pulled away for Torbay, a long six miles, rough and chilly. For my +part, I was trembling with cold, and found it necessary to lend a hand +at the oars, an exercise which soon made the weather feel several +degrees warmer, and rendered me quite comfortable. After a little the +wind lulled, the fog dispersed again, and the iceberg seemed to +contemplate our slow departure with complacent serenity. We regretted +that the hour forbade a return. It would have been pleasant to play +around that Parthenon of the sea in the twilight. The best that was +left us was to look back and watch the effects of light, which were +wonderfully fine, and had the charm of entire novelty. The last view +was the very finest. All the east front was a most tender blue; the +fissures on the southern face, from which we were rowing directly +away, were glittering green; the western front glowed in the yellow +sunlight; around were the dark waters, and above one of the most +beautiful of skies. + +We fell under the land presently, and passed near the northern cape of +Flat-Rock Bay, a grand headland of red sandstone, a vast and dome-like +pile, fleeced at the summit with green turf and shrubs of fir. The +sun, at last, was really setting. There was the old magnificence of +the king of day,--airy deeps of ineffable blue and pearl, stained with +scarlets and crimsons, and striped with living gold. A blaze of white +light, deepening into the richest orange, crowned the distant ridge +behind which the sun was vanishing. A vapory splendor, rose-color and +purple, was dissolving in the atmosphere; and every wave of the ocean, +a dark violet, nearly black, was "a flash of golden fire." Bathed with +this almost supernatural glory, the headland, in itself richly +complexioned with red, brown, and green, was at once a spectacle of +singular grandeur and solemnity. I have no remembrance of more +brilliant effects of light and color. The view filled us with emotions +of delight. We shot from beneath the great cliff into Flat-Rock Bay, +rounding, at length, the breakers and the cape into the smoother +waters of Torbay. As the oars dipped regularly into the polished +swells, reflecting the heavens and the wonderful shores, all lapsed +into silence. In the gloom of evening the rocks assumed an unusual +height and sublimity. Gliding quietly below them, we were saluted +every now and then by the billows thundering in some adjacent cavern. +The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite +unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the +chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, +muffled into stillness by the stupendous masses. + +Thus ended our first real hunting of an iceberg. When we landed, we +were thoroughly chilled. Our man was waiting with his wagon, and so +was a little supper in a house near by, which we enjoyed with an +appetite that assumed several phases of keenness as we proceeded. +There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread and butter and +bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried silently, without remark, at +the point of knife and fork. We were a forlorn-hope of two, and fell +to, winning the victory in the very breach. We drove back over the +fine gravel road at a round trot, watching the last edge of day in the +northwest and north, where it no sooner fades than it buds again to +bloom into morning. We lived the new iceberg-experience all over +again, and planned for the morrow. The stars gradually came out of the +cool, clear heavens, until they filled them with their sparkling +multitudes. For every star we seemed to have a lively and pleasurable +thought, which came out and ran among our talk, a thread of light. +When we looked at the hour, as we sat fresh and wakeful, warming at +our English inn in St. John's, it was after midnight. + + * * * * * + + +THEODORE PARKER. + + "Sir Launcelot! ther thou lyest; thou were never matched of none + earthly knights hands; thou were the truest freende to thy lover + that ever bestrood horse; and thou were the kindest man that ever + strooke with sword; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall + foe that ever put spere in the rest." _La Morte d'Arthur._ + +In the year 1828 there was a young man of eighteen at work upon a farm +in Lexington, performing bodily labor to the extent of twenty hours in +a day sometimes, and that for several days together, and at other +times studying intensely when work was less pressing. Thirty years +after, that same man sat in the richest private library in Boston, +working habitually from twelve to seventeen hours a day in severer +toil. The interval was crowded with labors, with acquisitions, with +reproaches, with victories, with honors; and he who experienced all +this died exhausted at the end of it, less than fifty years old, but +looking seventy. That man was Theodore Parker. + +The time is far distant when out of a hundred different statements of +contemporaries some calm biographer will extract sufficient materials +for a true picture of the man; and meanwhile all that each can do is +to give fearlessly his own honest impressions, and so tempt others to +give theirs. Of the multitude of different photographers, each +perchance may catch some one trait without which the whole portraiture +would have remained incomplete; and the time to secure this is now, +while his features are fresh in our minds. It is a daring effort, but +it needs to be made. + +Yet Theodore Parker was so strong and self-sufficing upon his own +ground, he needed so little from any other, while giving so freely to +all, that one would hardly venture to add anything to the +autobiographies he has left, but for the high example he set of +fearlessness in dealing with the dead. There may be some whose fame is +so ill-established, that one shrinks from speaking of them precisely +as one saw them; but this man's place is secure, and that friend best +praises him who paints him just as he seemed. To depict him as he +_was_ must be the work of many men, and no single observer, however +intimate, need attempt it. + +The first thing that strikes an observer, in listening to the words of +public and private feeling elicited by his departure, is the +predominance in them all of the sentiment of love. His services, his +speculations, his contests, his copious eloquence, his many languages, +these come in as secondary things, but the predominant testimony is +emotional. Men mourn the friend even more than the warrior. No fragile +and lovely girl, fading untimely into heaven, was ever more +passionately beloved than this white-haired and world-weary man. As he +sat in his library, during his lifetime, he was not only the awakener +of a thousand intellects, but the centre of a thousand hearts;--he +furnished the natural home for every foreign refugee, every hunted +slave, every stray thinker, every vexed and sorrowing woman. And never +was there one of these who went away uncomforted, and from every part +of this broad nation their scattered hands now fling roses upon his +grave. + +This immense debt of gratitude was not bought by any mere isolated +acts of virtue; indeed, it never is so bought; love never is won but +by a nobleness which, pervades the life. In the midst of his greatest +cares there never was a moment when he was not all too generous of his +time, his wisdom, and his money. Borne down by the accumulation of +labors, grudging, as a student grudges, the precious hour that once +lost can never be won back, he yet was always holding himself at the +call of some poor criminal, at the Police Office, or some sick girl in +a suburban town, not of his recognized parish perhaps, but longing for +the ministry of the only preacher who had touched her soul. Not a mere +wholesale reformer, he wore out his life by retailing its great +influences to the poorest comer. Not generous in money only,--though +the readiness of his beneficence in that direction had few equals,--he +always hastened past that minor bestowal to ask if there were not some +other added gift possible, some personal service or correspondence, +some life-blood, in short, to be lavished in some other form, to eke +out the already liberal donation of dollars. + +There is an impression that he was unforgiving. Unforgetting he +certainly was; for he had no power of forgetfulness, whether for good +or evil. He had none of that convenient oblivion which in softer +natures covers sin and saintliness with one common, careless pall. So +long as a man persisted in a wrong attitude before God or man, there +was no day so laborious or exhausting, no night so long or drowsy, but +Theodore Parker's unsleeping memory stood on guard full-armed, ready +to do battle at a moment's warning. This is generally known; but what +may not be known so widely is, that, the moment the adversary lowered +his spear, were it for only an inch or an instant, that moment +Theodore Parker's weapons were down and his arms open. Make but the +slightest concession, give him but the least excuse to love you, and +never was there seen such promptness in forgiving. His friends found +it sometimes harder to justify his mildness than his severity. I +confess that I, with others, have often felt inclined to criticize a +certain caustic tone of his, in private talk, when the name of an +offender was alluded to; but I have also felt almost indignant at his +lenient good-nature to that very person, let him once show the +smallest symptom of contrition, or seek, even in the clumsiest way, or +for the most selfish purpose, to disarm his generous antagonist. His +forgiveness in such cases was more exuberant than his wrath had ever +been. + +It is inevitable, in describing him, to characterize his life first by +its quantity. He belonged to the true race of the giants of learning; +he took in knowledge at every pore, and his desires were insatiable. +Not, perhaps, precocious in boyhood,--for it is not precocity to begin +Latin at ten and Greek at eleven, to enter the Freshman class at +twenty and the professional school at twenty-three,--he was equalled +by few students in the tremendous rate at which he pursued every +study, when once begun. With strong body and great constitutional +industry, always acquiring and never forgetting, he was doubtless at +the time of his death the most variously learned of living Americans, +as well as one of the most prolific of orators and writers. + +Why did Theodore Parker die? He died prematurely worn out through this +enormous activity,--a warning, as well as an example. To all appeals +for moderation, during the latter years of his life, he had but one +answer,--that he had six generations of long-lived farmers behind him, +and had their strength to draw upon. All his physical habits, except +in this respect, were unexceptionable: he was abstemious in diet, but +not ascetic, kept no unwholesome hours, tried no dangerous +experiments, committed no excesses. But there is no man who can +habitually study from twelve to seventeen hours a day (his friend Mr. +Clarke contracts it to "from six to twelve," but I have Mr. Parker's +own statement of the fact) without ultimate self-destruction. Nor was +this the practice during his period of health alone, but it was pushed +to the last moment: he continued in the pulpit long after a withdrawal +was peremptorily prescribed for him; and when forbidden to leave home +for lecturing, during the winter of 1858, he straightway prepared the +most laborious literary works of his life, for delivery as lectures in +the Fraternity Course at Boston. + +He worked thus, not from ambition, nor altogether from principle, but +from an immense craving for mental labor, which had become second +nature to him. His great omnivorous, hungry intellect must have +constant food,--new languages, new statistics, new historical +investigations, new scientific discoveries, new systems of Scriptural +exegesis. He did not for a day in the year nor an hour in the day make +rest a matter of principle, nor did he ever indulge in it as a +pleasure, for he knew no enjoyment so great as labor. Wordsworth's +"wise passiveness" was utterly foreign to his nature. Had he been a +mere student, this had been less destructive. But to take the standard +of study of a German Professor, and superadd to that the separate +exhaustions of a Sunday-preacher, a lyceum-lecturer, a radical leader, +and a practical philanthropist, was simply to apply half a dozen +distinct suicides to the abbreviation of a single life. And, as his +younger companions long since assured him, the tendency of his career +was not only to kill himself, but them; for each assumed that he must +at least attempt what Theodore Parker accomplished. + +It is very certain that his career was much shortened by these +enormous labors, and it is not certain that its value was increased in +a sufficient ratio to compensate for that evil. He justified his +incessant winter-lecturing by the fact that the whole country was his +parish, though this was not an adequate excuse. But what right had he +to deprive himself even of the accustomed summer respite of ordinary +preachers, and waste the golden July hours in studying Sclavonic +dialects? No doubt his work in the world was greatly aided both by the +fact and the fame of learning, and, as he himself somewhat +disdainfully said, the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was "a +convenience" in theological discussions; but, after all, his popular +power did not mainly depend on his mastery of twenty languages, but of +one. Theodore Parker's learning was undoubtedly a valuable possession +to the community, but it was not worth the price of Theodore Parker's +life. + +"Strive constantly to concentrate yourself," said the laborious +Goethe, "never dissipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever +kind, leads finally to bankruptcy." But Theodore Parker's whole +endeavor was to multiply his channels, and he exhausted his life in +the effort to do all men's work. He was a hard man to relieve, to +help, or to cooperate with. Thus, the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review" +began with quite a promising corps of contributors; but when it +appeared that its editor, if left alone, would willingly undertake all +the articles,--science, history, literature, everything,--of course +the others yielded to inertia and dropped away. So, some years later, +when some of us met at his room to consult on a cheap series of +popular theological works, he himself was so rich in his own private +plans that all the rest were impoverished; nothing could be named but +he had been planning just that for years, and should by-and-by get +leisure for it, and there really was not enough left to call out the +energies of any one else. Not from any petty egotism, but simply from +inordinate activity, he stood ready to take all the parts. + +In the same way he distanced everybody; every companion-scholar found +soon that it was impossible to keep pace with one who was always +accumulating and losing nothing. Most students find it necessary to be +constantly forgetting some things to make room for later arrivals; but +the peculiarity of his memory was that he let nothing go. I have more +than once heard him give a minute analysis of the contents of some +dull book read twenty years before, and have afterwards found the +statement correct and exhaustive. His great library,--the only private +library I have ever seen which reminded one of the Astor,--although +latterly collected more for public than personal uses, was one which +no other man in the nation, probably, had sufficient bibliographical +knowledge single-handed to select, and we have very few men capable of +fully appreciating its scholarly value, as it stands. It seems as if +its possessor, putting all his practical and popular side into his +eloquence and action, had indemnified himself by investing all his +scholarship in a library of which less than a quarter of the books +were in the English language. + +All unusual learning, however, brings with it the suspicion of +superficiality; and in this country, where, as Mr. Parker himself +said, "every one gets a mouthful of education, but scarce one a full +meal,"--where every one who makes a Latin quotation is styled "a ripe +scholar,"--it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the true from the +counterfeit. It is, however, possible to apply some tests. I remember, +for instance, that one of the few undoubted classical scholars, in the +old-fashioned sense, whom New England has seen,--the late John Glen +King of Salem,--while speaking with very limited respect of the +acquirements of Rufus Choate in this direction, and with utter +contempt of those of Daniel Webster, always became enthusiastic on +coming to Theodore Parker. "He is the only man," said Mr. King more +than once to the writer, "with whom I can sit down and seriously +discuss a disputed reading and find him familiar with all that has +been written upon it." Yet Greek and Latin were only the preliminaries +of Mr. Parker's scholarship. + +I know, for one,--and there are many who will bear the same +testimony,--that I never went to Mr. Parker to talk over a subject +which I had just made a speciality, without finding that on that +particular matter he happened to know, without any special +investigation, more than I did. This extended beyond books, sometimes +stretching into things where his questioner's opportunities of +knowledge had seemed considerably greater,--as, for instance, in +points connected with the habits of our native animals and the +phenomena of out-door Nature. Such were his wonderful quickness and +his infallible memory, that glimpses of these things did for him the +work of years. But, of course, it was in the world of books that this +wonderful superiority was chiefly seen, and the following example may +serve as one of the most striking among many. + +It happened to me, some years since, in the course of some historical +inquiries, to wish for fuller information in regard to the barbarous +feudal codes of the Middle Ages,--as the Salic, Burgundian, and +Ripuarian,--before the time of Charlemagne. The common historians, +even Hallam, gave no very satisfactory information and referred to no +very available books; and supposing it to be a matter of which every +well-read lawyer would at least know something, I asked help of the +most scholarly member of that profession within my reach. He regretted +his inability to give me any aid, but referred me to a friend of his, +who was soon to visit him, a young man, who was already eminent for +legal learning. The friend soon arrived, but owned, with some regret, +that he had paid no attention to that particular subject, and did not +even know what books to refer to; but he would at least ascertain what +they were, and let me know. (N.B. I have never heard from him since.) +Stimulated by ill-success, I aimed higher, and struck at the Supreme +Bench of a certain State, breaking in on the mighty repose of His +Honor with the name of Charlemagne. "Charlemagne?" responded my lord +judge, rubbing his burly brow,--"Charlemagne lived, I think, in the +sixth century?" Dismayed, I retreated, with little further inquiry; +and sure of one man, at least, to whom law meant also history and +literature, I took refuge with Charles Sumner. That accomplished +scholar, himself for once at fault, could only frankly advise me to do +at last what I ought to have done at first,--to apply to Theodore +Parker. I did so. "Go," replied he instantly, "to alcove twenty-four, +shelf one hundred and thirteen, of the College Library at Cambridge, +and you will find the information you need in a thick quarto, bound in +vellum, and lettered 'Potgiesser de Statu Servorum.'" I straightway +sent for Potgiesser, and found my fortune made, it was one of those +patient old German treatises which cost the labor of one man's life to +compile and another's to exhaust, and I had no reason to suppose that +any reader had disturbed its repose until that unwearied industry had +explored the library. + +Amid such multiplicity of details he must sometimes have made +mistakes, and with his great quickness of apprehension he sometimes +formed hasty conclusions. But no one has a right to say that his great +acquirements were bought by any habitual sacrifice of thoroughness. To +say that they sometimes impaired the quality of his thought would +undoubtedly be more just; and this is a serious charge to bring. +Learning is not accumulation, but assimilation; every man's real +acquirements must pass into his own organization, and undue or hasty +nutrition does no good. The most priceless knowledge is not worth the +smallest impairing of the quality of the thinking. The scholar cannot +afford, any more than the farmer, to lavish his strength in clearing +more land than he can cultivate; and Theodore Parker was compelled by +the natural limits of time and strength to let vast tracts lie fallow, +and to miss something of the natural resources of the soil. One +sometimes wished that he had studied less and dreamed more,--for less +encyclopedic information, and more of his own rich brain. + +But it was in popularizing thought and knowledge that his great and +wonderful power lay. Not an original thinker, in the same sense with +Emerson, he yet translated for tens of thousands that which Emerson +spoke to hundreds only. No matter who had been heard on any subject, +the great mass of intelligent, "progressive" New-England thinkers +waited to hear the thing summed up by Theodore Parker. This popular +interest went far beyond the circle of his avowed sympathizers; he +might be a heretic, but nobody could deny that he was a marksman. No +matter how well others seemed to have hit the target, his shot was the +triumphant one, at last. Thinkers might find no new thought in the new +discourse, leaders of action no new plan, yet, after all that had been +said and done, his was the statement that told upon the community. He +knew this power of his, and had analyzed some of the methods by which +he attained it, though, after all, the best part was an unconscious +and magnetic faculty. But he early learned, so he once told me, that +the New-England people dearly love two things,--a philosophical +arrangement, and a plenty of statistics. To these, therefore, he +treated them thoroughly; in some of his "Ten Sermons" the demand made +upon the systematizing power of his audience was really formidable; +and I have always remembered a certain lecture of his on the +Anglo-Saxons as the most wonderful instance that ever came within my +knowledge of the adaptation of solid learning to the popular +intellect. Nearly two hours of almost unadorned fact,--for there was +far less than usual of relief and illustration,--and yet the +lyceum-audience listened to it as if an angel sang to them. So perfect +was his sense of purpose and of power, so clear and lucid was his +delivery, with such wonderful composure did he lay out, section by +section, his historical chart, that he grasped his hearers as +absolutely as he grasped his subject: one was compelled to believe +that he might read the people the Sanscrit Lexicon, and they would +listen with ever fresh delight. Without grace or beauty or melody, his +mere elocution was sufficient to produce effects which melody and +grace and beauty might have sighed for in vain. And I always felt that +he well described his own eloquence while describing Luther's, in one +of the most admirably moulded sentences he ever achieved,--"The homely +force of Luther, who, in the language of the farm, the shop, the boat, +the street, or the nursery, told the high truths that reason or +religion taught, and took possession of his audience by a storm of +speech, then poured upon them all the riches of his brave plebeian +soul, baptizing every head anew,--a man who with the people seemed +more mob than they, and with kings the most imperial man." + +Another key to his strong hold upon the popular mind was to be found +in his thorough Americanism of training and sympathy. Surcharged with +European learning, he yet remained at heart the Lexington +farmer's-boy, and his whole atmosphere was indigenous, not exotic. Not +haunted by any of the distrust and over-criticism which are apt to +effeminate the American scholar, he plunged deep into the current of +hearty national life around him, loved it, trusted it, believed in it; +and the combination of this vital faith with such tremendous criticism +of public and private sins formed an irresistible power. He could +condemn without crushing,--denounce mankind, yet save it from despair. +Thus his pulpit became one of the great forces of the nation, like the +New York "Tribune." His printed volumes had but a limited circulation, +owing to a defective system of publication, which his friends tried in +vain to correct; but the circulation of his pamphlet-discourses was +very great; he issued them faster and faster, latterly often in pairs, +and they instantly spread far and wide. Accordingly he found his +listeners everywhere; he could not go so far West but his abundant +fame had preceded him; his lecture-room in the remotest places was +crowded, and his hotel-chamber also, until late at night. Probably +there was no private man in the nation, except, perhaps, Beecher and +Greeley, whom personal strangers were so eager to see; while from a +transatlantic direction he was sought by visitors to whom the two +other names were utterly unknown. Learned men from the continent of +Europe always found their way, first or last, to Exeter Place; and it +is said that Thackeray, on his voyage to this country, declared that +the thing in America which he most desired was to hear Theodore Parker +talk. + +Indeed, his conversational power was so wonderful that no one could go +away from a first interview without astonishment and delight. There +are those among us, it may be, more brilliant in anecdote or repartee, +more eloquent, more profoundly suggestive; but for the outpouring of +vast floods of various and delightful information, I believe that he +could have had no Anglo-Saxon rival, except Macaulay. And in Mr. +Parker's case, at least, there was no alloy of conversational +arrogance or impatience of opposition. He monopolized, not because he +was ever unwilling to hear others, but because they did not care to +hear themselves when he was by. The subject made no difference; he +could talk on anything. I was once with him in the society of an +intelligent Quaker farmer, when the conversation fell on agriculture: +the farmer held his own ably for a time; but long after he was drained +dry, our wonderful companion still flowed on exhaustless, with +accounts of Nova Scotia ploughing and Tennessee hoeing, and all things +rural, ancient and modern, good and bad, till it seemed as if the one +amusing and interesting theme in the universe were the farm. But it +soon proved that this was only one among his thousand departments, and +his hearers felt, as was said of old Fuller, as if he had served his +time at every trade in town. + +But it must now be owned that these astonishing results were bought by +some intellectual sacrifices which his nearer friends do not all +recognize, but which posterity will mourn. Such a rate of speed is +incompatible with the finest literary execution. A delicate literary +ear he might have had, perhaps, but he very seldom stopped to +cultivate or even indulge it. This neglect was not produced by his +frequent habit of extemporaneous speech alone; for it is a singular +fact, that Wendell Phillips, who rarely writes a line, yet contrives +to give to his hastiest efforts the air of elaborate preparation, +while Theodore Parker's most scholarly performances were still +stump-speeches. Vigorous, rich, brilliant, copious, they yet seldom +afford a sentence which falls in perfect cadence upon the ear; under a +show of regular method, they are loose and diffuse, and often have the +qualities which he himself attributed to the style of John Quincy +Adams,--"disorderly, ill-compacted, and homely to a fault." He said of +Dr. Channing,--"Diffuseness is the old Adam of the pulpit. There are +always two ways of hitting the mark,--one with a single bullet, the +other with a shower of small shot: Dr. Channing chose the latter, as +most of our pulpit orators have done." Theodore Parker chose it also. + +Perhaps Nature and necessity chose it for him. If not his temperament, +at least the circumstances of his position, cut him off from all high +literary finish. He created the congregation at the Music Hall, and +that congregation, in turn, moulded his whole life. For that great +stage his eloquence became inevitably a kind of brilliant +scene-painting,--large, fresh, profuse, rapid, showy;--masses of light +and shade, wonderful effects, but farewell forever to all finer +touches and delicate gradations! No man can write for posterity, while +hastily snatching a half-day from a week's lecturing, during which to +prepare a telling Sunday harangue for three thousand people. In the +perpetual rush and hurry of his life, he had no time to select, to +discriminate, to omit anything, or to mature anything. He had the +opportunities, the provocatives, and the drawbacks which make the work +and mar the fame of the professional journalist. His intellectual +existence, after he left the quiet of West Roxbury, was from hand to +mouth. Needing above all men to concentrate himself, he was compelled +by his whole position to lead a profuse and miscellaneous life. + +All popular orators must necessarily repeat themselves,--preachers +chiefly among orators, and Theodore Parker chiefly among preachers. +The mere frequency of production makes this inevitable,--a fact which +always makes every finely organized intellect, first or last, grow +weary of the pulpit. But in his case there were other compulsions. +Every Sunday a quarter part of his vast congregation consisted of +persons who had never, or scarcely ever, heard him before, and who +might never hear him again. Not one of those visitors must go away, +therefore, without hearing the great preacher define his position on +every point,--not theology alone, but all current events and permanent +principles, the Presidential nomination or message, the laws of trade, +the laws of Congress, woman's rights, woman's costume, Boston +slave-kidnappers, and Dr. Banbaby,--he must put it all in. His ample +discourse must be like an Oriental poem, which begins with the +creation of the universe, and includes all subsequent facts +incidentally. It is astonishing to look over his published sermons and +addresses, and see under how many different names the same stirring +speech has been reprinted;--new illustrations, new statistics, and all +remoulded with such freshness that the hearer had no suspicions, nor +the speaker either,--and yet the same essential thing. Sunday +discourse, lyceum lecture, convention speech, it made no difference, +he must cover all the points every time. No matter what theme might be +announced, the people got the whole latitude and longitude of Theodore +Parker, and that was precisely what they wanted. He broke down the +traditional non-committalism of the lecture-room, and oxygenated all +the lyceums of the land. He thus multiplied his audience very greatly, +while perhaps losing to some degree the power of close logic and of +addressing a specific statement to a special point. Yet it seemed as +if he could easily leave the lancet to others, grant him only the +hammer and the forge. + +Ah, but the long centuries, where the reading of books is concerned, +set aside all considerations of quantity, of popularity, of immediate +influence, and sternly test by quality alone,--judge each author by +his most golden sentence, and let all else go. The deeds make the man, +but it is the style which makes or dooms the writer. History, which +always sends great men in groups, gave us Emerson by whom to test the +intellectual qualities of Parker. They cooperated in their work from +the beginning, in much the same mutual relation as now; in looking +back over the rich volumes of the "Dial," the reader now passes by the +contributions of Parker to glean every sentence of Emerson's, but we +have the latter's authority for the fact that it was the former's +articles which originally sold the numbers. Intellectually, the two +men form the complement to each other; it is Parker who reaches the +mass of the people, but it is probable that all his writings put +together have not had so profound an influence on the intellectual +leaders of the nation as the single address of Emerson at Divinity +Hall. + +And it is difficult not to notice, in that essay in which Theodore +Parker ventured on higher intellectual ground, perhaps, than anywhere +else in his writings,--his critique on Emerson in the "Massachusetts +Quarterly,"--the indications of this mental disparity. It is in many +respects a noble essay, full of fine moral appreciations, bravely +generous, admirable in the loyalty of spirit shown towards a superior +mind, and all warm with a personal friendship which could find no +superior. But so far as literary execution is concerned, the beautiful +sentences of Emerson stand out like fragments of carved marble from +the rough plaster in which they are imbedded. Nor this alone; but, on +drawing near the vestibule of the author's finest thoughts, the critic +almost always stops, unable quite to enter their sphere. Subtile +beauties puzzle him; the titles of the poems, for instance, giving by +delicate allusion the key-note of each,--as "Astraea," "Mithridates," +"Hamatreya," and "Étienne de la Boéce,"--seem to him the work of "mere +caprice"; he pronounces the poem of "Monadnoc" "poor and weak"; he +condemns and satirizes the "Wood-notes," and thinks that a pine-tree +which should talk like Mr. Emerson's ought to be cut down and cast +into the sea. + +The same want of fine discrimination was usually visible in his +delineations of great men in public life. Immense in accumulation of +details, terrible in the justice which held the balance, they yet left +one with the feeling, that, after all, the delicate main-springs of +character had been missed. Broad contrasts, heaps of good and evil, +almost exaggerated praises, pungent satire, catalogues of sins that +seemed pages from some Recording Angel's book,--these were his mighty +methods; but for the subtilest analysis, the deepest insight into the +mysteries of character, one must look elsewhere. It was still +scene-painting, not portraiture; and the same thing which overwhelmed +with wonder, when heard in the Music Hall, produced a slight sense of +insufficiency, when read in print. It was certainly very great in its +way, but not in quite the highest way; it was preliminary work, not +final; it was Parker's Webster, not Emerson's Swedenborg or Napoleon. + +The same thing was often manifested in his criticisms on current +events. The broad truths were stated without fear or favor, the finer +points passed over, and the special trait of the particular phase +sometimes missed. His sermons on the last revivals, for instance, had +an enormous circulation, and told with great force upon those who had +not been swept into the movement, and even upon some who had been. The +difficulty was that they were just such discourses as he would have +preached in the time of Edwards and the "Great Awakening"; and the +point which many thought the one astonishing feature of the new +excitement, its almost entire omission of the "terrors of the Lord," +the far gentler and more winning type of religion which it displayed, +and from which it confessedly drew much of its power, this was +entirely ignored in Mr. Parker's sermons. He was too hard at work in +combating the evangelical theology to recognize its altered phases. +Forging lightning-rods against the tempest, he did not see that the +height of the storm had passed by. + +These are legitimate criticisms to make on Theodore Parker, for he was +large enough to merit them. It is only the loftiest trees of which it +occurs to us to remark that they do not touch the sky, and a man must +comprise a great deal before we complain of him for not comprising +everything. But though the closest scrutiny may sometimes find cases +where he failed to see the most subtile and precious truth, it will +never discover one where, seeing, he failed to proclaim it, or, +proclaiming, failed to give it force and power. He lived his life much +as he walked the streets of Boston,--not quite gracefully, nor yet +statelily, but with quick, strong, solid step, with sagacious eyes +wide open, and thrusting his broad shoulders a little forward, as if +butting away the throng of evil deeds around him, and scattering whole +atmospheres of unwholesome cloud. Wherever he went, there went a +glance of sleepless vigilance, an unforgetting memory, a tongue that +never faltered, and an arm that never quailed. Not primarily an +administrative nor yet a military mind, he yet exerted a positive +control over the whole community around him, by sheer mental and moral +strength. He mowed down harvests of evil as in his youth he mowed the +grass, and all his hours of study were but whetting the scythe. + +And for this great work it was not essential that the blade should +have a razor's edge. Grant that Parker was not also Emerson; no +matter, he was Parker. If ever a man seemed sent into the world to +find a certain position, and found it, he was that man. Occupying a +unique sphere of activity, he filled it with such a wealth of success, +that there is now no one in the nation whom it would not seem an +absurdity to nominate for his place. It takes many instruments to +complete the orchestra, but the tones of this organ the Music Hall +shall never hear again. + +One feels, since he is gone, that he made his great qualities seem so +natural and inevitable, we forgot that all did not share them. We +forgot the scholar's proverbial reproach of timidity and selfishness, +in watching him. While he lived, it seemed a matter of course that the +greatest acquirements and the heartiest self-devotion should go +together. Can we keep our strength, without the tonic of his example? +How petty it now seems to ask for any fine-drawn subtilties of poet or +seer in him who gave his life to the cause of the humblest! Life +speaks the loudest. We do not ask what Luther said or wrote, but only +what he did; and the name of Theodore Parker will not only long +outlive his books, but will last far beyond the special occasions out +of which he moulded his grand career. + + * * * * * + + +ICARUS. + +I. + +_Io triumphe!_ Lo, thy certain art, +My crafty sire, releases us at length! +False Minos now may knit his baffled brows, +And in the labyrinth by thee devised +His brutish horns in angry search may toss +The Minotaur,--but thou and I are free! +See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast +Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, +Thy glory and our prison! Either hand +Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad +In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows, +Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top +The sun, discovering first an earthly throne, +Sits down in splendor: lucent vapors rise +From folded glens among the awaking hills, +Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread +In airy planes beneath us, hearths of air +Whereon the morning burns her hundred fires. + +II. + +Take thou thy way between the cloud and wave, +O Daedalus, my father, steering forth +To friendly Samos, or the Carian shore! +But me the spaces of the upper heaven +Attract, the height, the freedom, and the joy. +For now, from that dark treachery escaped, +And tasting power which was the lust of youth, +Whene'er the white blades of the sea-gull's wings +Flashed round the headland, or the barbéd files +Of cranes returning clanged across the sky, +No half-way flight, no errand incomplete +I purpose. Not, as once in dreams, with pain +I mount, with fear and huge exertion hold +Myself a moment, ere the sickening fall +Breaks in the shock of waking. Launched, at last, +Uplift on powerful wings, I veer and float +Past sunlit isles of cloud, that dot with light +The boundless archipelago of sky. +I fan the airy silence till it starts +In rustling whispers, swallowed up as soon; +I warm the chilly ether with my breath; +I with the beating of my heart make glad +The desert blue. Have I not raised myself +Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar? +The curious eagles wheel about my path: +With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me, +With harsh, impatient screams they menace me, +Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship +Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,-- +Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds, +I claim the azure empire of the air! +Henceforth I breast the current of the morn, +Between her crimson shores: a star, henceforth, +Upon the crawling dwellers of the earth +My forehead shines. The steam of sacred blood, +The smoke of burning flesh on altars laid, +Fumes of the temple-wine, and sprinkled myrrh, +Shall reach my palate ere they reach the Gods. + +III. + +Nay, am not I a God? What other wing, +If not a God's, could in the rounded sky +Hang thus in solitary poise? What need, +Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes +Should grow, like yonder eagle's, from the nest? +It may be, ere my crafty father's line +Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer, +Who found you roaming wingless on the hills, +Naked, asserting godship in the dearth +Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same. +Thence did you seize Olympus; thence your pride +Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear +The temple from the mountain's marble womb, +To carve you shapes more beautiful than they, +To sate your idle nostrils with the reek +Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold. + +IV. + +Lo, where Hyperion, through the glowing air +Approaching, drives! Fresh from his banquet-meats, +Flushed with Olympian nectar, angrily +He guides his fourfold span of furious steeds, +Convoyed by that bold Hour whose ardent torch +Burns up the dew, toward the narrow beach, +This long, projecting spit of cloudy gold +Whereon I wait to greet him when he comes. +Think not I fear thine anger: this day, thou, +Lord of the silver bow, shalt bring a guest +To sit in presence of the equal Gods +In your high hall: wheel but thy chariot near, +That I may mount beside thee! + ----What is this? +I hear the crackling hiss of singéd plumes! +The stench of burning feathers stifles me! +My loins are stung with drops of molten wax!-- +Ai! ai! my ruined vans!--I fall! I die! + + * * * * * + +Ere the blue noon o'erspanned the bluer strait +Which parts Icaria from Samos, fell, +Amid the silent wonder of the air, +Fell with a shock that startled the still wave, +A shrivelled wreck of crisp, entangled plumes, +A head whence eagles' beaks had plucked the eyes, +And clots of wax, black limbs by eagles torn +In falling: and a circling eagle screamed +Around that floating horror of the sea +Derision, and above Hyperion shone. + + * * * * * + + +WALKER. + +I confess to knowledge of a large book bearing the above title,--a +title which is no less appropriate for this brief, disrupted +biographical memorandum. That I have a right to act as I have done, in +adopting it, will presently appear,--as well as that the honored name +thus appropriated by me refers neither io the dictionary nor the +_filibustero_, both of which articles appear to have been superseded +by newer and better things. + +At the first flush, Fur would seem to be rather a sultry subject to +open either a store or a story with, in these glowing days of a justly +incensed thermometer. + +And yet there is a fine bracing mountain-air to be drawn from the +material, as with a spigot, if you will only favor your mind with a +digression from the tangible article to the wild-rose associations in +which it is enveloped. + +Think of the high, wind-swept ridges, among the clefts of which are +the only homesteads of the hardy pioneers by whose agency alone one +kind of luxury is kept up to the standard demand for it in the great +cities. It might not be so likely a place to get fancy drinks in as +Broome Street, certainly, we must admit, as we picture to ourselves +some brushy ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set +out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed +"fisher-cat,"--but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a +brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the +fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the +mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more +conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy in cool images +connected with fur and its finders, we shall see what contrasts will +arise. The blue shadow of a cottonwood-tree stretching over a +mountain-spring. By the edge of the sparkling water sits, embroidering +buckskin, a red-legged squaw, keeper of the wigwam to the ragged +mountain-man who set the traps that caught the martens which furnished +the tails that mark so gracefully the number of skins of which the +rich banker's wife's _fichu-russe_ is composed. Here is a striking +contrast, in which extremes meet,--not the martens' tails, but the two +men's wives, the banker's and the trapper's, brought into antithetical +relation by the simple circumstance of a _fichu-russe_, the material +of which was worn in some ravine of the wilderness, mayhap not a +twelvemonth since, by a creature faster even than a banker's wife. +Great is the hereafter of the marten-cat, whose skin may be looked +upon as the soul by which the animal is destined to attain a sort of +modified immortality in the Elysian abodes of Wealth and Fashion,--the +place where good martens go! + +The men through whose intervention eventual felicity is thus secured +to the fur-creature are as much a race in themselves as the Gypsies. +No genuine type of them ever approaches nearer to the confines of +civilization than a frontier settlement beckons him. Old Adams, the +bear-tutor, might have been of this type once, but he is adulterated +with sawdust and gas-light now, with city cookery and spurious +groceries. Many men of French Canadian origin are to be found trading +and trapping in the Far West; although, taken in the aggregate, there +are no people less given to stirring enterprise than these colonial +descendants of the Gaul. The only direction, almost, in which they +exhibit any expansive tendency is in the border trade and general +adventure business, in which figure the names of many of them +conspicuously and with honor. The Chouteaus are of that stock; and of +that stock came the late Major Aubry, renowned among the guides and +trappers of the southwestern wilderness; and if J.C. Fremont is not a +French Canadian by birth, the strong efforts made about the time of +the last Presidential election to establish him as one had at least +the effect of determining his Canadian descent. + +Pierre La Marche was a Franco-Canadian of the spread-eagle kind +referred to. Departing widely from the conservative prejudices of his +race, his wandering propensities took him away, at an early age, from +the primitive colonial village in which he first saw the light of day. +He was but fourteen years old when he left his peaceful and thoroughly +whitewashed home on the banks of the St. François, in company with a +knot of Canadian _voyageurs_, whose principles tended towards the Red +River of the North. Leaving this convoy at Fond-du-Lac, he pushed his +way on to the Mississippi, alone and friendless, and, falling in with +a party of trappers at St. Louis, accompanied them when they returned +to the mountain "gulches" in which their business lay. + +After six years of trapper and trader life, but little trace of the +simple young Canadian _habitant_ was left in Pierre La Marche. He +spoke mountain English and French _patois_ with equal fluency. There +was a decision of character about him that commanded the respect of +his comrades. When the other trappers went to St. Louis, they used to +drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring +for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre +was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his +aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or +squandering it upon deteriorating drinks. + +About this time of his life, Pierre began to think that the fact of +his being "only a French Canadian" was likely to be a bar to his +advancement. He despised himself greatly for one thing, indeed,--that +his name was La Marche, and not Walker,--which patronymic he made out +to be the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent for his French one. He +adopted it,--calling himself Peter Walker,--and had an adventure out +of it, to begin with. + +While trading furs at St. Louis, on one occasion, he offered a remnant +of his stock to a dealer with whom he was not acquainted. They had an +argument as to prices. The dealer, a man of hasty temper, asked him +his name. + +"Walker," was the reply. + +When La Marche arose from the distant corner into which he was +projected in company with the bundle of furs levelled at his head, +revenge was his natural sentiment. Drawing his heavy knife from its +sheath, he flung it away: the temptation to use it might have been too +much for him. Small in stature, but remarkable for muscular strength, +and for inventive resource in the "rough-and-tumble" fight, La Marche +clenched with the burly store-keeper, who was getting the worst of it, +when some of his _employés_ interfered. This led to a general +engagement. Several of La Marche's companions now rushed in, and in +five minutes their opponents gave out, succumbent to superior wind and +sinew. + +Next morning, when the trappers took their way out of St. Louis, La +Marche was a leader among them for life. But the reason of the +store-keeper's rage was for many years a mystery to him. He knew not +the enormity of "Walker," as an exponent of disparagement; he simply +thought it a nicer name than La Marche, while it fully embodied the +sentiment of that name. He adopted it, then, as I said before, and +went on towards posterity as Peter Walker. + +I heard many strange anecdotes of Peter Walker at the residence of a +retired _voyageur_, who used to sing him Homerically to his chosen +friends. These _voyageurs_ are professional canoe-men; adventurers +extending, sparsely, from the waters of French Canada to those of +Oregon,--and sometimes back. Honest old Quatreaux! I mentioned his +"residence" just now, and the term is truly grandiloquent in its +application. The residence of old Quatreaux was a log _cabane_, about +twenty feet square. Planks, laid loosely upon the cross-ties of the +rafters, formed the up-stairs of the building: up-ladder would be a +term more in accordance with facts; for it was by an appliance of that +kind that the younger and more active of the sixteen members composing +the old _voyageur's_ family removed themselves from view when they +retired for the night. A partition, extending half-way across the +ground-floor, screened off the state or principal bed from outside +gaze; at least, it was exposed to view only from points rendered +rather inaccessible by tubs, with which these Canadian families are +generally provided to excess. This apartment was strictly assigned to +me, as a visitor; and although I firmly declined the honor,--chiefly +with reference to certain large and very hard fleas I knew of in its +dormitory arrangements,--it was kept religiously vacant, in case my +heart should relent towards it, and the family in general slept +huddled together on the outer floor, without manifest classification: +the two old people; son and wife; daughter and husband; children; the +extraordinary little hunch-backed and one-eyed girl, whom nobody would +marry, but everybody liked; dogs. I used to stretch myself on a +buffalo-robe before the wood-fire, in company with a faithful spaniel, +who was as wakeful on these occasions as if he suspected that the +low-bred curs of the establishment might pick his pockets. + +Quatreaux's _cabane_ was situated on the edge of an extensive tract of +marsh,--lagoon would be a more descriptive word for it, perhaps,--a +splashy, ditch-divided district, extending along the borders of a lake +for miles. Snipe-shooting was my motive there; and dull work it was in +those dark, Novembry, October days, with "the low rain falling" half +the time, and the yellow leaves all the time, and no snipe. But +whether we poled our log canoe up to some stunted old willow-tree that +sat low in the horizontal marsh, and took shelter under it to smoke +our pipes, or whether we mollified the privation of snipe in the +_cabane_ at night with mellow rum and tobacco brought by me, still was +Walker the old _voyageur's_ favorite theme. + +Old Quatreaux spoke English perfectly well, although his conservatism +as a Canadian induced him to prefer his mother tongue as a vehicle for +general conversation. But I remarked that his anecdotes of Walker were +always related in English, and on these occasions, therefore, for my +benefit alone: for but little of the Anglo-Saxon tongue appeared to be +known to, or at least used by, any member of his numerous family. +Indeed, I can recall but two words of that language which I could +positively aver to have heard in colloquial use among them,--_poodare_ +and _schotte_. And why should the old _voyageur_ have thus reserved +his experiences from those who were near and dear to him? Simply +because most of his adventures with Walker were not of the strictly +mild character becoming a family-man. But it was all the same to these +good people; and when I laughed, they all took up the idea and laughed +their best,--the little hunch-backed girl generally going off into a +kind of epilepsy by herself, over in the darkest corner of the room, +among the tubs. + +When divested of the strange Western expletives and imprecations with +which the old man used to spice his reminiscences, some of them are +enough. I remember one, telling how Peter Walker "raised the wind" on +a particular occasion, when he got short of money on his way to some +distant trading-post, in a district strange to him. It is before me, +in short-hand, on the pages of an old, old pocket-book, and I will +tell it with some slight improvements on the narrator's style, such as +suppressing his unnecessary combinations of the curse. + +Mounted on a two-hundred-dollar buffalo-horse, for which he would not +have taken double that amount, Peter Walker found himself, one +afternoon, near the end of a long day's ride. He had but little +baggage with him, that little consisting entirely of a bowie-knife and +holster-pistols,--for the revolver was a scarce piece of furniture +then and there. Of money he was entirely destitute, having expended +his last dollar upon the purchase of his noble steed, and of the +festive suit of clothes with which he calculated upon astonishing +people who resided outside the limits of civilization. The pantaloon +division of that suit was particularly superb, consisting principally +of a stripe by which the outer seam of each leg was made conducive to +harmony of outline. He was about three days' journey from the +trading-post to which he was bound. The country was a frontier one, +sparsely provided with inns. + +The sun was framed in a low notch of the horizon, as he approached a +border-hostelry, on the gable of which "Cat's Bluff Hotel" was painted +in letters quite disproportioned in size to the city of Cat's Bluff, +which consisted of the house in question, neither more nor less. In +that house Peter Walker decided upon sojourning luxuriously for that +night, at least, if he had to draw a check upon his holsters for it. + +Having stabled his horse, then, and seen him supplied with such +provender as the place afforded, he looked about the hotel, which he +found to be an institution of very considerable pretensions. It seemed +to have a good deal of its own way, in fact, being the only house of +entertainment for many miles upon a great south-western thoroughfare, +from which branched off the trail to be taken by him tomorrow,--a +trail which led only to the trading-post or fort already mentioned. + +The deportment of the landlord was gracious, as he went about +whistling "Wait for the wagon," and jingling with gold chains and +heavy jewelry. Still more exhilarating was the prosperous confidence +of the bar-keeper, who took in, while Walker was determining a drink, +not less than a dozen quarter-dollars, from blue-shirted, bearded, +thirsty men with rifles, who came along in a large covered wagon of +western tendency, in which they immediately departed with haste, late +as it was, as if bound to drive into the sun before he went down +behind the far-off edge. Walker used to say, jocularly, that he +supposed this must have been the wagon for which the landlord +whistled, and which came to his call. + +Everything denoted that there was abundance of money in that favored +place. Even small boys who came in and called for cigars and drinks +made a reckless display of coin as they paid for them, and then drove +off in their wagons,--for they all had wagons, and were all intent +upon driving rapidly in then toward the west. + +But, as night fell, travel went down with the declining day; and +Walker felt himself alone in the world,--a man without a dollar. +Nevertheless, he called for good cheer, which was placed before him on +a liberal scale: for landlords thereabouts were accustomed to provide +for appetites acquired on the plains, and their supply was obliged to +be both large and ready for the chance comers who were always dropping +in, and upon whom their custom depended. So he ate and drank; and +having appeased hunger and thirst, he went into the bar, and opened +conversation with the landlord by offering him one of his own cigars, +a bunch of which he got from the bar-keeper, whom he particularly +requested not to forget to include them in his bill, when the time for +his departure brought with it the disagreeable necessity of being +served with that document. + +Western landlords, in general, are not remarkable for the reserve with +which they treat their guests. This particular landlord was less so +than most others. He was especially inquisitive with regard to +Walker's exquisite pantaloons, the like of which had never been seen +in that part of the country before. His happiness was evidently +incomplete in the privation of a similar pair. + +"Them pants all wool, now?" asked he, as he viewed them with various +inclinations of head, like a connoisseur examining a picture. + +"All except the stripes," replied Walker;--"stripes is wool and cotton +mixed; gives 'em a finer grain, you see, and catches the eye." + +The landlord respected Walker at once. Perhaps he might be an Eastern +dry-goods merchant, come along for the purpose of making arrangements +to inundate the border-territory with stuffs for exquisite pantaloons. +He proceeded with his interrogatories. He laid himself out to extract +from Walker all manner of information as to his origin, occupation, +and prospects, which gave the latter an excellent opportunity of +glorifying himself inferentially, while he affected mystery and +reticence with regard to his mission "out West." At last the landlord +set him down for an agent come on to open the sluices for a great tide +of foreign emigration into the territory,--an event to which he +himself had been looking for a long time, and the prospect of which +had guided him to the spot where he had established his hotel, which +he now looked upon as the centre from which a great city was destined +immediately to radiate. And the landlord retired to his bed to +meditate upon immense speculations in town-lots, and, when sleep came +upon him, to dream that he had successfully arranged them through the +medium of an angel with a speaking-trumpet, whose manifest wardrobe +consisted of a pair of fancy pantaloons with stripes on the seams and +side-pockets, exactly like Walker's. + +Walker, too, retired to rest, but not to sleep, for his mind was +occupied in turning over means whereby to obtain some of the real +capital with which people here seemed to be superabundantly provided. +He had speculations to carry out, and money was the indispensable +element. Had he only been able to read the landlord's thoughts, he +might have turned quietly over and slept; for so held was that +person's mind by the idea that his ultimate success was to be achieved +through the medium of his unknown guest, that he would without +hesitation have lent him double the sum necessary for his financial +arrangements. + +There was a disturbance some time about the middle of the night. +People came along in wagons, as usual, waking up the bar-keeper, whose +dreams perpetually ran upon that kind of trouble. Walker, who was wide +awake, gathered from the conversation below that the travellers had +only halted for drinks, and would immediately resume their way +westward with all speed. He arose and looked out at the open window, +which was about fifteen feet from the ground. Something white loomed +up through the darkness: it was the awning of one of the wagons, which +stood just under the window, to the sill of which it reached within a +few feet. Walker, brought up in the rough-and-ready school, had lain +down to rest with his trousers on. A sudden inspiration now seized +him: he slipped them rapidly off, and dropped them silently on to the +roof of the wagon, which soon after moved on with the others, and +disappeared into the night. This done, he opened softly the door of +the room, and, leaving it ajar, returned to bed and slept. + +Morning was well advanced when Walker arose, and began operations by +moving the furniture about in an excited manner, to attract the +attention of those in the bar below, and convey an idea of search. +Presently he went to the door of the room, and, uttering an Indian +howl, by way of securing immediate attendance, cried out,-- + +"Hullo, below! where's my pants?--bar-keeper, fetch along my +pants!--landlord, I don't want to be troublesome, but just take off +them pants, if you happen to have mistook 'em for your own, and oblige +the right owner with a look at 'em, will you?" + +Puzzled at this address, which was couched in much stronger +language--according to old Quatreaux's version of it--than I should +like to commit to paper, the landlord and bar-keeper at once proceeded +to Walker's room, where they found him sitting, expectantly, on the +side of the bed, with his horse-pistols gathered together beside him. +Of course, they denied all knowledge of his pantaloons,--didn't steal +nobody's pants in that house, nor nothin'. + +Walker looked sternly at them, and, playing with one of his pistols, +exclaimed, with the usual redundants,-- + +"You lie!--you've stole my pants between you; you've found out what +they were worth by this time, I guess; but I'll have 'em back, and +that in a hurry, or else my name a'n't Walker,--Peter Walker." + +He added his Christian name, because a reminiscence of the mystery +belonging to his patronymic by itself flashed upon him. + +Now the name of Pete Walker was potent along the frontier, because of +his influence with the wild mountain-men, who did reckless deeds on +his account, unknown to him and otherwise. Another vision than that of +last night overcame the landlord,--a vision of Lynch and ashes. + +"So you're Pete Walker, be you?" asked he, in a tone of mingled +respect and admiration, slightly tremulous with fear. "How do you do, +Mr. Walker?--how do you find yourself this morning, Sir?" + +"I didn't come here to find myself," retorted Walker, fiercely. "I +found my door open, though, when I woke up,--but I couldn't find my +pants. You must get 'em, or pay for 'em, and that right away." + +"Them cusses that passed through here last night!" exclaimed the +landlord. "I guess the pants is gone on the sundown trail, stripes and +all." + +Walker thought it was quite probable that they had; but they were +stolen from that house, and the house must pay for them. + +Lynch and ashes again blazed before the landlord's eyes. + +"How much might the pants be worth, now, at cost price?" asked he. +"All wool, you say, only the stripes; but, as they was nearly all +stripes, you needn't holler much about the wool, I reckon. How much, +now?" + +"Two hundred and ten dollars," replied Walker, with impressive +exactness. + +"Thunder!" exclaimed the landlord. "I thought they might be +fancy-priced, sure-ly, but that's awful!" + +"Ten dollars, cash price, for the pants," proceeded Walker, "and two +hundred for that exact amount in gold stitched up in the waistband of +em." + +"The Devil has got 'em, anyhow!" said the landlord,--"for I saw a +queer critter, in my sleep, flying about with 'em on. Wings looks +kinder awful along o' pants with stripes. There'll be no luck round +till they're paid for, I guess. Couldn't you take my best checkers for +'em, now, with fifty dollars quilted into the waistband,--s-a-ay?" + +"My name's Walker,--Peter Walker," was the reply. + +The landlord was no match for that name, so disagreeably redolent of +Lynch and ashes. Thorough search was made upon the premises, and to +some distance around, in the wild hope that the missing trousers might +have walked off spontaneously, and lain down somewhere to sleep; but, +of course, nothing came of the investigation, although Walker assisted +at it with his usual energy. All compromise was rejected by him, and +it was not yet noon when he rode proudly away from the lone hostelry, +in the landlord's best checkers, for which he kindly allowed him five +dollars, receiving from him the balance, two hundred and five dollars, +in gold. + +I forget now what Walker did with that money, although Quatreaux knew +exactly, and told me all about it. Suffice it to say that he made a +grand _coup_ with it, in the purchase of a mill-privilege, or claim, +or something of the kind. Less than a year after the events narrated, +he again rode up to the lone hostelry, which was not so lonely now, +however; for houses were growing up around it, and it took boarders +and rang a dinner-bell, and maintained a landlady as well as a +landlord, besides. The landlord was astonished when Walker counted out +to him two hundred and five dollars in gold,--surprised when to that +was added a round sum for interest,--ecstatic, on being presented with +a brand-new pair of pantaloons, of the same pattern as the expensive +ones formerly so admired by him. But his features collapsed, and for +some time wore an expression of imbecility, when he learned the +details of the adventure, and found out that "some things"--landlords, +for example--"can be done as well as others." + +It was with little reminiscences like the one just narrated that old +Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate +ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that +our horizon was within paddle's length of us. With that presumptive +_clairvoyance_ which appears to be an essential property of the French +_raconteur_, he did not confine himself to external fact in his +narratives, but always professed to report minutely the thoughts that +flashed through the mind of such and such a person, on the particular +occasion referred to. He was a master of dialects,--Yankee, +Pennsylvanian Dutch, and Irish. + +"Where did you get your English, old man?" I asked him, as we scudded +across the lake in our canoe, with a small sail up, one red October +evening. + +"In Pennsylvania," replied he. "I went there on my own hook, when I +was about twelve year old, and worked in an oil-mill for four year." + +"In an oil-mill? Perhaps that accounts for the glibness with which +language slips off your tongue." + +"'Guess it do," said the old _voyageur_, with ready assent. + +We nearly got foul of a raft coming down the lake, manned with a +rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and +were very drunk and boisterous. + +"Ugly customers to deal with, those _brûlés_," remarked I, when we had +got clear away from them. + +"Some on 'em is," replied the old _voyageur_. "Did you notice the one +with the queer eye,--him in the Scotch cap and _shupac_ moccasons?" + +I _had_ noticed him, and an ill-looking thief he was. One of his eyes, +either from natural deformity or the effect of hostile operation, was +dragged down from its proper parallel, and planted in a remote socket +near the corner of his mouth, whence it glared and winked with +super-natural ferocity. + +"That's Rupe Falardeau," continued my companion. "His father, old +Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi +boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,--only the eye's +lower down still. If that's to go on in the family, I guess there'll +be a Falardeau with his eye in his knee, some time." + +In the deck-fight in which old Rupe got his ugly mark Pete Walker had +a hand; and the part he took in it, as related to me by old Quatreaux, +who was also present, affords a good example of the tact and coolness +which gave him such mastery over the wild spirits among whom he worked +out his destiny. + +Walker was coming down a lumbering-river--I forget the name of it--on +board a small tug-steamboat, in which he had an interest. He had gone +into other speculations beside furs, by this time, and had contracts +in two or three places for supplying remote stations with salt pork, +tea, and other staple provisions of the lumbering-craft. + +Stopping to wood at the mouth of a creek, a gang of raftsmen came on +board,--half-breed Canadians of fierce and demoralized aspect,--men of +great muscular strength, and armed heavily with axes and +butcher-knives. The gang was led by Rupe Falardeau, a dangerous man, +whether drunk or sober, and one whose antecedents were recorded in +blood. These men had been drinking, and were very noisy and intrusive, +and presently a row arose between them and some of the boat-hands. +Fisticuffs and kicks were first exchanged, but without any great loss +of blood. Knives were then drawn and nourished, and matters were +beginning to assume a serious aspect, when Walker made his appearance +forward of the paddle-box, pointing a heavy pistol right at the head +of the ringleader. + +"Rupe!" shouted he, in a voice that attracted immediate attention, +"drop that knife, or else I shoot!" + +The crowd parted for a moment, and Rupe, standing alone near the bows, +wheeled round with a yell, and glared fiercely at the speaker. + +"Drop that knife!" repeated Walker.--"One, two, _three_!--I'll give +you a last chance, and when I say _three_ again, I shoot, by thunder!" + +The last word had not rolled away, when the gleaming knife flashed +from the hand of Rupe, glanced close by Walker's ear, and sped +quivering into the paddle-box, just behind his head. + +"Good for you, Rupe!" exclaimed Walker, lowering his pistol, with a +pleasant smile,--"good for you!--but, _sacré bapteme_! how dead I'd +have shot you, if you hadn't dropped that knife!" + +The forbearance of Walker put an end to the row. Rupe, disarmed at +once by the loss of his knife and the coolness of Walker, was seized +by a couple of the deck-hands, and might have been secured without +injury to his beauty, had not a Mississippi boatman, who owed him an +old grudge, struck him on the face with a heavy iron hook, lacerating +and disfiguring him hideously for life. + +"But why didn't Walker shoot Falardeau, old man?" asked I of the +_voyageur_, wishing to learn something of the etiquette of life and +death among these peculiar people, who appear to be so reckless of the +former and fearless of the latter. + +"Ah!" replied he, "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a +man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known +before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the Ottawa to +the Columbia." + +Some time after this I again fell in with young Rupe, under +circumstances indicating that his life was not considered quite so +valuable as that of the old gentleman from whom he inherited his +frightful aspect. + +In company with a friend, one day, I was beating about for wild-fowl +in a marshy river, down which small rafts or "cribs" of timber were +worked by half-breeds and Canadians. + +About dark we came to a small, flat island in the marsh, where we +found an Iroquois camp, in which we proposed to pass the night, as we +had no camping-equipage in our skiff. The men were absent, hunting, +and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized +squaw, with her two ugly, undersized children. + +We were much fatigued, and agreed to sleep by watches, knowing the +sort of people we had to deal with. It was my watch, when voices were +heard as of men landing and pulling up a canoe or boat. Presently +three men came into the wigwam, railing-men, dressed in gray Canada +homespun and heavy Scotch bonnets. The light of the fire outside +flashed on their faces, as they stooped to enter the elm-bark tent, +and in the foremost I recognized the hideous Rupe Falardeau, Junior. +This man carried in his hand a small tin pail full of whiskey. He was +very drunk and dangerous, and greatly disgusted at the absence of the +Iroquois men, with whom he had evidently laid himself out for a +roaring debauch. + +I woke up my companion, and a judicious display of our +double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They +insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and +horrible stuff it was,--distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with +vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate +on such "fire-water" as that! + +By-and-by they slept,--two of them outside, by the fire,--Falardeau +inside the wigwam, the repose of which was broken by the hollow rattle +of his drunken breath. + +In the dead of the night something clutched me by the arm. It was the +ugly squaw, who forced a greasy butcher-knife into my hand, pointing +towards where the raftsman lay, and whispering to me in +English,--"Stick heem! stick heem!--nobody never know. He kill my +brother long time ago with this old knife. Kill heem! kill heem now!" + +I did not avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me for the +improvement of river society: nay, worse, I connived at the further +career of the redoubtable Rupert Falardeau, Junior; for, on leaving in +the morning, I roused him with repeated kicks, thus saving him for +that time, probably, from the Damoclesian blade of the _vengeresse_. + +_L'été de Saint Martin_!--how blue and yellow it is in the marshes in +those days! It is the name given by the French Canadians to the Indian +Summer,--the Summer of St. Martin, whose anniversary-day falls upon +the eleventh of November; though the brief latter-day tranquillity +called after him arrives, generally, some two or three weeks earlier. +Looking lakeward from the sedgy nook in which we are waiting for the +coming of the wood-ducks, the low line of water, blue and calm, is +broken at intervals by the rise of the distant _masquallongé_, as he +plays for a moment on the surface. But the channels that separate the +flat, alluvial islets are yellow, their sluggish waters being bedded +heavily down with the broad leaves of the wintering basswood-trees, +which, in some places, touch branch-tips across the narrow straits. +The muskrat's hut is thatched with the wet, dead leaves,--no thanks to +_him_; and there is a mat of them before his door,--a heavy, yellow +mat, on which are scattered the azure shells of the fresh-water clams +to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on +them, or are they only the cups and saucers of his vegeto-aquarian +_ménage_? Blue and yellow all,--the sky and the sedge-rows, the calm +lake and the canoe, the plashing basswood-leaves and the oval, azure +shells. + +Also Marance, the _voyageur's_ buxom young daughter, who came with us, +today, commissioned to cull herbs of wondrous properties among the +vine-tangled thickets of the islands. Blue and yellow. Eyes blue as +the azure shells; hair flashing out golden gleams, like that of +Pyrrha, when she braided hers so featly for the coming of some +ambrosial boy. + +"I must marry you, Marance," said I, jocularly, to the damsel, as I +jumped her out of the canoe,--"I shall marry you when we get back." + +It is good to live in a marsh. No fast boarding-house women there, +lurking for the unwary; no breaches of promise; "no nothing" in the +old-man-trap line. Abjure fast boarding-houses, you silly old +bachelors, and go to grass in a marsh! + +Marance laughed merrily, as she tripped away; then, turning, she +said,-- + +"But what if I never get back? I may lose myself in these lonely +places, and never be heard of again." + +"Oh, in that case," replied I, hard driven for a compliment, "in that +case, I must wait until Gilette"--a younger sister--"grows up. She +will be exactly like you: I must only wait for Gilette." + +"You remind me of Pete Walker," said the old man, as we shot away up +the channel, our canoe ripping up the matted surface like the cue of a +novice, when he runs a fatal reef along the sere and yellow cloth of +some billiard-table erewhile in verdure clad. "You are as bad as Pete +Walker, who thought one sister must be as good as another, because +they looked so much alike." + +And then, as we loitered about in the bays, the old man told me the +story of Walker's honeymoon, which was a sad and a short one. This is +the story. + +Near that wild rapid of the Columbia River known as the "Dalles," +there was, years ago, a Jesuit mission, established in a small fort, +built, like that at Nez-Percés, of mud. The labors of the holy men +composing the mission involved no inconsiderable amount of danger, +devoted as they were to the hopeless task of reforming such sinners as +the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Gros-Ventres, the Flat-Heads, the +Assiniboines, the Nez-Percés, and a few other such. + +Some of these missionaries had sojourned for a long time with a branch +of the Blackfoot tribe, among whom they found two young white girls, +remarkable for their exact resemblance to each other, and therefore +supposed to be twins. I say _supposed_, because of their origin there +was no trace. All that was known about them was, that they were the +sole survivors of a train of emigrants, attacked and murdered by the +Nez-Percés, who, actuated by one of those whims characteristic of the +red men, spared the lives of the two children, and adopted them into +the tribe. Subsequently, in a skirmish with the Blackfeet, they fell +into the hands of the latter, among whom they had lived for some time, +when they were ransomed by the missionaries, at the price of certain +trading-privileges negotiated by the latter for the tribe. + +When adopted by the Jesuits, the children had lost all remembrance of +their parentage; nor had they any names except the Indian ones +bestowed upon them by their captors. The good fathers christened them, +however, arranging them alphabetically, by the names of Alixe and +Bloyse, and confiding them to the especial charge of the wife of a +trader connected with the station, who had no family of her own. They +were fair-haired children, probably of German or Norwegian origin, and +had grown up to be robust young women of seventeen, when Walker saw +them for the first time, as he stopped at the Dalles on his way from +Fort Nez-Percés about one hundred and twenty-five miles higher up the +Columbia. + +Walker, whose business detained him for some time at the mission, +decided upon marrying one of the fair-haired sisters,--he did not much +care which, they were so singularly alike. Alixe happened to be the +one, however, to whom he tendered a share in his fortunes, which she +accepted in the random manner of one to whom it was of but little +consequence whether she said "Yes" or "No." Bloyse would have followed +him, and him only, to the end of all; but he never knew it at the +right time, though the women of the fort could have told him. + +It was late one afternoon when he was married to Alixe, in the chapel +of the mission. That was the night of the massacre. Two hours after +the wedding, the Blackfeet, combined with some allied tribe, came down +like wolves upon the fort. There was treachery, somewhere, and they +got in. In the thick of the fight, and when all seemed hopeless, +Walker shot down a tall Indian who was dragging his bride away to +where the horses of the tribe were picketed. In a second he had leaped +upon a horse, and, holding the young girl before him, galloped away in +the direction of a stream running into the Columbia,--a stream of +fierce torrents, navigable only at one place, and that by +flat-bottomed boats or scows, in which passengers warped themselves +across by a grass rope stretched from bank to bank. Once over this +river, he could easily reach a friendly camp, where he and his bride +would have been in safety. + +The moon had risen when he reached the ferry. Turning the horse +adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp +rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his +fainting companion close to him with the other. Suddenly, a sharp +click sounded from the opposite bank: the rope gave way, and Walker +and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat +shooting far away from beneath their feet. It ran a strong current +there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower +down. Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely +against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and +faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of +consciousness. When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his +companion was gone. The current had driven them forcibly against a +rock, throwing her from his grasp. The wild rapid was just below them. +She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore, +where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was +daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened. + +The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an +Indian, in whose brother's removal by hanging he had been +instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the +purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance. + +Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the +mission a heap of ruins,--blackened walls, charred rafters, and +unrecognizable human remains. + +Long afterwards, he learned that his bride was again living among the +Blackfeet;--for it was Bloyse, and not Alixe, with whom he had +galloped away to the fatal ferry, in the confusion of that terrible +night. It was poor Bloyse who went away from his arms down those +crushing rapids. It was Alixe, his bride, who shot back the bolts for +the entrance of the Blackfeet. She was secretly betrothed in the +tribe, and it was her betrothed whom Walker shot down as he was +rushing away in triumph with his supposed _fiancée_ of the pale-faces. +She married another Indian of the tribe, however; for she was a savage +woman at heart, and could live among savages only. + +"Sisters may be as like as two walnuts, to look at," said the old +_voyageur_, when he had finished his narration. "Take any two walnuts +from a heap, at random, though, and, like as not, you'll find one on +'em all heart and the other all hollow." + +"True," replied I; "but these be wild adventures for one whose boyhood +was passed in a peaceful and thoroughly whitewashed home on the banks +of the St. François." + +"'Guess they be," said the old _voyageur_. + + * * * * * + + +THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER AND ITS EDITORS. + +The families of Gales and Seaton are, in their origin, the one Scotch, +the other English. The Seatons are of that historic race, a daughter +of which (the fair and faithful Catherine) is the heroine of one of +Sir Walter Scott's romances. It was to be supposed that they whose +lineage looked to such an instance of devoted personal affection for +the ancient line would not slacken in their loyalty when fresh +calamities fell upon the Stuarts and again upset their throne. +Accordingly, the Seatons appear to have clung to the cause of their +exiled king with fidelity. Henry Seaton seems to have made himself +especially obnoxious to the new monarch, by taking part in those +Jacobite schemes of rebellion which were so long kept on foot by the +lieges and gentlemen of Scotland; so that, when, towards the close of +the seventeenth century, the cause he loved grew desperate, and +Scotland itself anything but safe for a large body of her most gallant +men, he was forced, like all others that scorned to submit, to fly +beyond the seas. Doing so, it was natural that he should choose to +take refuge in a Britain beyond the ocean, where a brotherly welcome +among his kindred awaited the political prescript. It is probable, +however, that a special sympathy towards that region which, by its +former fidelity to the Stuarts, had earned from them the royal +quartering of its arms and the title of "The Ancient Dominion," +directed his final choice. At any rate, it was to Virginia that he +came,--settling there, as a planter, first in the county of +Gloucester, and afterwards in that of King William. From one of his +descendants in a right line sprang (by intermarriage with a lady of +English family, the Winstons) William Winston Seaton, the editor, +whose mother connected him with a second Scotch family, the +Henrys,--the mother of Patrick Henry being a Winston. These last had +come, some three generations before, from the old seat of that family +in its knightly times, Winston Hall, in Yorkshire, and had settled in +the county of Hanover, where good estates gave them rank among the +gentry; while commanding stature, the gift of an equally remarkable +personal beauty, a very winning address, good parts, high character, +and the frequent possession among them of a fine natural eloquence, +gave them as a race an equal influence over the body of the people. In +William (popularly called Langaloo) and his sister Sarah, the mother +of Patrick Henry, these hereditary qualities seem to have been +particularly striking; so that, in their day, it seemed a sort of +received opinion that it was from the maternal side that the great +orator derived his extraordinary powers. + +The Galeses are of much more recent naturalization amongst us,--later +by just about a century than that of the Seatons, but alike in its +causes. For they, too, were driven hither by governmental resentment. +Their founder, (as he may be called,) the elder Joseph Gales, was one +of those rare men who at times spring up from the body of the people, +and by mere unassisted merit, apart from all adventitious advantages, +make their way to a just distinction. Perhaps no better idea of him +can be given than by likening him to one, less happy in his death, +whom Science is now everywhere lamenting,--the late admirable Hugh +Miller. A different career, rather than an inferior character, made +Joseph Gales less conspicuous. He was born in 1761, at Eckington, near +the English town of Sheffield. The condition of his family was above +dependence, but not frugality. + +Be education what else it may, there is one sort which never fails to +work well: namely, that which a strong capacity, when denied the usual +artificial helps, shapes out to its own advantage. Such, with little +and poor assistance, became that of Joseph Gales, obtained +progressively, as best it could be, in the short intervals which the +body can allow to be stolen between labor and necessary rest. + +Now the writer is thoroughly convinced, that, after this boy had +worked hard all the day long, he never would have sat down to study +half the night through, if it had not been a pleasure to him. In +short, no sort of toil went hard with him. For he was a fine, manly +youngster, cheerful and stalwart, one who never slunk from what he had +set about, nor turned his back except upon what was dishonest. He +wrought lightsomely, and even lustily, at his coarser pursuits; for, +in that sturdy household, to work had long been held a duty. + +Thus improving himself, at odd hours, until he was fit for the +vocation of a printer, and looked upon by the village as a genius, our +youth went to Manchester, and applied himself to that art, not only +for itself, but as the surest means of further knowledge. Of course he +became a master in the craft. At length, returning to his own town to +exercise it, he grew, by his industry and good conduct, into a +condition to exercise it on his own account, and set up a +newspaper,--"The Sheffield Register." + +Born of the people, it was natural that Joseph Gales should in his +journal side with the Reformers; and he did so: but with that +unvarying moderation which his good sense and probity of purpose +taught him, and which he ever after through life preserved. He kept +within the right limits of whatever doctrine he embraced, and held a +measure in all his political principles,--knowing that the best, in +common with the worst, tend, by a law of all party, to exaggeration +and extremes. Beyond this temperateness of mind nothing could move +him. Thus guarded, by a rare equity of the understanding, from excess +as to measures, he was equally guarded by a charity and a gentleness +of heart the most exhaustless. In a word, it may safely be said of +him, that, amidst all the heats of faction, he never fell into +violence,--amidst all the asperities of public life, never stooped to +personalities,--and in all that he wrote, left scarcely an unwise and +not a single dishonest sentence behind him. + +Such qualities, though not the most forward to set themselves forth to +the public attention, should surely bring success to an editor. The +well-judging were soon pleased with the plain good sense, the general +intelligence, the modesty, and the invariable rectitude of the young +man. Their suffrage gained, that of the rest began to follow. For, in +truth, there are few things of which the light is less to be hid than +that of a good newspaper. "The Register," by degrees, won a general +esteem, and began to prosper. And as, according to the discovery of +Malthus, Prosperity is fond of pairing, it soon happened that our +printer went to falling in love. Naturally again, being a printer, he, +from a regard for the eternal fitness of things, fell in love with an +authoress. + +This was Miss Winifred Marshall, a young lady of the town of Newark, +who to an agreeable person, good connections, and advantages of +education, joined a literary talent that had already won no little +approval. She wrote verse, and published several novels of the +"Minerva Press" order, (such as "Lady Emma Melcombe and her Family," +"Matilda Berkley," etc.,) of which only the names survive. + +Despite the poetic adage about the course of true love, that of Joseph +Gales ran smooth: Miss Marshall accepted his suit and they were +married. Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together +most happily and long,--she dying, at an advanced age, only two years +before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some +marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with +their daughters,--namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three +sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three +(Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born +in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from +which she was named; and the rest in America. + +To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with +his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his +printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also +flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he +should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an +advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended +youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future +man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his +employment,--at first, merely to keep his accounts,--but, by degrees, +for superior things,--until, progressively, he (the youth) matured +into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his +successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet. + +On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their +rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the +"Intelligencer." [Mr. Gales has since died.] Happy at home, the young +mother could as delightedly look without. The business of her husband +throve apace; nor less the general regard and esteem in which he was +personally held. He grew continually in the confidence and affection +of his fellow-citizens; endearing himself especially, by his sober +counsels and his quiet charities, to all that industrious class who +knew him as one of their own, and could look up without reluctance to +a superiority which was only the unpretending one of goodness and +sense. Over them, without seeking it, he gradually obtained an +extraordinary ascendancy, of which the following is a single instance. +Upon some occasion of wages or want among the working-people of +Sheffield, a great popular commotion had burst out, attended by a huge +mob and riot, which the magistracy strove in vain to appease or quell. +When all else had failed, Mr. Gales bethought him of trying what he +could do. Driven into the thick of the crowd, in an open carriage, he +suddenly appeared amongst the rioters, and, by a few plain words of +remonstrance, convinced them that they could only hurt themselves by +overturning the laws, that they should seek other modes of redress, +and meantime had all better go home. They agreed to do so,--but with +the condition annexed, that they should first see him home. Whereupon, +loosening the horses from the carriage, they drew him, with loud +acclamations, back to his house. + +Such were his prospects and position for some seven years after his +marriage, when, of a sudden, without any fault of his own, he was made +answerable for a fact that rendered it necessary for him to flee +beyond the realm of Great Britain. + +As a friend to Reform, he had, in his journal, at first supported +Pitt's ministry, which had set out on the same principle, but which, +when the revolutionary movement in France threatened to overthrow all +government, abandoned all Reform, as a thing not then safe to set +about. From this change of views Mr. Gales dissented, and still +advocated Reform. So, again, as to the French Revolution, not yet +arrived at the atrocities which it speedily reached,--he saw no need +of making war upon it. In its outset, he had, along with Fox and other +Liberals, applauded it; for it then professed little but what Liberals +wished to see brought about in England. He still thought it good for +France, though not for his own country. Thus, moderate as he was, he +was counted in the Opposition and jealously watched. + +It was in the autumn of 1792, while he was gone upon a journey of +business, that a King's-messenger, bearing a Secretary-of-State's +warrant for the seizure of Mr. Gales's person, presented himself at +his house. For this proceeding against him the following facts had +given occasion. In his office was employed a printer named Richard +Davison,--a very quick, capable, useful man, and therefore much +trusted,--but a little wild, withal, at once with French principles +and religion, with conventicles, and those seditious clubs that were +then secretly organized all over the island. This person corresponded +with a central club in London, and had been rash enough to write them, +just then, an insurrectionary letter, setting forth revolutionary +plans, the numbers, the means they could command, the supplies of +arms, etc., that they were forming. This sage epistle was betrayed +into the hands of the Government. The discreet Dick they might very +well have hanged; but that was not worth while. From his connection +with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover +for a deeper man,--its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, +had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual +fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of +the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to +reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and +he, on learning what awaited him at home, instead of trusting to his +innocence, chose rather to trust the seas; and, making his way to the +coast, took the only good security for his freedom, by putting the +German Ocean between him and pursuit. He sailed for Amsterdam, where +arriving, he thence made his way to Hamburg, at which city he had +decided that his family should join him. To England he could return +only at the cost of a prosecution; and though this would, of +necessity, end in an acquittal, it was almost sure to be preceded by +imprisonment, while, together, they would half-ruin him. It was plain, +then, that he must at once do what he had long intended to do, go to +America. + +Accordingly, he gave directions to his family to come to him, and to +Montgomery that he should dispose of all his effects and settle up all +his affairs. These offices that devoted friend performed most +faithfully; remitting him the proceeds. The newspaper he himself +bought and continued, under the name of the "Sheffield Iris." Still +retaining his affection for the family, he passed into the household +of what was left of them, and supplied to the three sisters of the +elder Joseph Gales the place of a brother, and, wifeless and +childless, lived on to a very advanced age, content with their society +alone. The last of these dames died only a few months ago. + +At Hamburg, whence they were to take ship for the United States, the +family were detained all the winter by the delicate health of Mrs. +Gales. This delay her husband put to profit, by mastering two things +likely to be needful to him,--the German tongue and the art of +short-hand. In the spring, they sailed for Philadelphia. Arrived +there, he sought and at once obtained employment as a printer. It was +soon perceived, not only that he was an admirable workman, but every +way a man of unusual merit, and able to turn his hand to almost +anything. By-and-by, reporters of Congressional debates being few and +very indifferent, his employer, Claypole, said to him,--"You seem able +to do everything that is wanted: pray, could you not do these +Congressional Reports for us better than this drunken Callender, who +gives us so much trouble?" Mr. Gales replied, with his usual modesty, +that he did not know what he could do, but that he would try. + +The next day, he attended the sitting of Congress, and brought away, +in time for the compositors, a faithful transcript of such speeches as +had been made. Appearing in the next morning's paper, it of course +greatly astonished everybody. It seemed a new era in such things. They +had heard of the like in Parliament, but had scarcely credited it. +Claypole himself was the most astonished of all. Seizing a copy, he +ran around the town, showing it to all he met, and still hardly +comprehending the wonder which he himself had instigated. It need +hardly be said that here was something far more profitable for Mr. +Gales than type-setting. + +But to apply this skill, possessed by none else, to the exclusive +advantage of a journal of his own was yet more inviting; and the +opportunity soon offering itself, he became the purchaser of the +"Independent Gazetteer," a paper already established. This he +conducted with success until the year 1799, making both reputation and +many friends. Among the warmest of these were some of the North +Carolina members, and especially that one whose name has ever since +stood as a sort of proverb of honesty, Nathaniel Macon. By the +representations of these friends, he was led to believe that their new +State capital, Raleigh, where there was only a very decrepit specimen +of journalism, would afford him at once a surer competence and a +happier life than Philadelphia. Coming to this conclusion, he disposed +of his newspaper and printing-office, and removed to Raleigh, where he +at once established the "Register." Of his late paper, the +"Gazetteer," we shall soon follow the fortunes to Washington, where it +became the "Intelligencer": meantime, we must finish what is left to +tell of his own. + +At Raleigh he arrived under auspices which gave him not only a +reputation, but friends, to set out with. Both he soon confirmed and +augmented. By the constant merit of his journal, its sober sense, its +moderation, and its integrity, he won and invariably maintained the +confidence of all on that side of politics with which he concurred, +(the old Republican,) and scarcely less conciliated the respect of his +opponents. He quickly obtained, for his skill, and not merely as a +partisan reward, the public printing of his State, and retained it +until, reaching the ordinary limit of human life, he withdrew from the +press. In the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long +served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in +the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and +esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened, +as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for +his character and person; and the good North State honored and +cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In +Raleigh, there was no figure that, as it passed, was greeted so much +by the signs of a peculiar veneration as that great, stalwart one of +his, looking so plain and unaffected, yet with a sort of nobleness in +its very simplicity, a gentleness in its strength, an inborn goodness +and courtesy in all its roughness of frame,--his countenance mild and +calm, yet commanding, thoughtful, yet pleasant and betokening a bosom +that no low thought had ever entered. You had in him, indeed, the +highest image of that stanch old order from which he was sprung, and +might have said, "Here's the soul of a baron in the body of a +peasant." For he really looked, when well examined, like all the +virtues done in roughcast. + +With him the age of necessary and of well-merited repose had now come; +and judging that he could attain it only by quitting that habitual +scene of business where it would still solicit him, he transferred his +newspaper, his printing-office, and the bookstore which he had made +their adjunct in Raleigh, as in Sheffield, to his third son, Weston; +and removed to Washington, in order to pass the close of his days near +two of the dearest of his children,--his son Joseph and his daughter +Mrs. Seaton,--from whom he had been separated the most. + +In renouncing all individual aims, Mr. Gales fell not into a mere life +of meditation, but sought its future pleasures in the adoption of a +scheme of benevolence, to the calm prosecution of which he might +dedicate his declining powers, so long as his advanced age should +permit. A worthy object for such efforts he recognized in the plan of +African colonization, and of its affairs he accepted and almost to his +death sustained the management in chief; achieving not less, by his +admirable judgment, the warm approval and thanks of that wide-spread +association, than, by the most amiable virtues of private life, +winning in Washington, as he had done everywhere else, from all that +approached him, a singular degree of deference and affection. + +But the close of this long career of honor and of usefulness was now +at hand. In 1839, he lost the wife whose tenderness had cheered the +labors and whose gay intelligence had brightened the leisure of his +existence. She had lived the delight of that intimate society to which +she had confined faculties that would have adorned any circle +whatever; and she died lamented in proportion by it, and by the only +others to whom she was much known,--the poor. Her husband survived her +but two years,--expiring at his son's house in Raleigh, where he was +on a visit, in April, 1841, at the age of eighty. He died as calm as a +child, in the placid faith of a true Christian. + +Still telling his story in the order of dates, the writer would now +turn to the younger Joseph Gales. As we have seen, he arrived in this +country when seven years old, and went to Raleigh about six years +afterwards. There he was placed in a school, where he made excellent +progress,--profiting by the recollection of his earlier lessons, +received from that best of all elementary teachers, a mother of +well-cultivated mind. His boyhood, as usual, prefigured the mature +man: it was diligent in study, hilarious at play; his mind bent upon +solid things, not the showy. For all good, just, generous, and kindly +things he had the warmest impulse and the truest perceptions. Quick to +learn and to feel, he was slow only of resentment. Never was man born +with more of those lacteals of the heart which secrete the milk of +human kindness. Of the classic tongues, he can be said to have learnt +only the Latin: the Greek was then little taught in any part of our +country. For the Positive Sciences he had much inclination; since it +is told, among other things, that he constructed instruments for +himself, such as an electrical machine, with the performances of which +he much amazed the people of Raleigh. Meantime he was forming at home, +under the good guidance there, a solid knowledge of all those fine old +authors whose works make the undegenerate literature of our language +and then constituted what they called Polite Letters. With these went +hand in hand, at that time, in the academies of the South, a profane +amusement of the taste. In short, our sinful youth were fond of +stage-plays, and even wickedly enacted them, instead of resorting to +singing-schools. Joseph Gales the younger had his boyish emulation of +Roscius and Garrick, and performed "top parts" in a diversity of those +sad comedies and merry tragedies which boys are apt to make, when they +get into buskins. But it must be said, that, as a theatric star, he +presently waxed dim before a very handsome youth, a little his senior, +who just then had entered his father's office. He was not only a +printer, but had already been twice an editor,--last, in the late +North Carolina capital, Halifax,--previously, in the great town of +Petersburg,--and was bred in what seemed to Raleigh a mighty city, +Richmond; in addition to all which strong points of reputation, he +came of an F.F.V., and had been taught by the celebrated Ogilvie, of +whom more anon. He was familiar with theatres, and had not only seen, +but even criticized the great actors. He outshone his very +brother-in-law and colleague that was to be. For this young gentleman +was William Seaton. + +Meantime, Joseph, too, had learnt the paternal art,--how well will +appear from a single fact. About this time, his father's office was +destroyed by fire, and with it the unfinished printing of the +Legislative Journals and Acts of the year. Time did not allow waiting +for new material from Philadelphia. Just in this strait, he that had +of old been so inauspicious, Dick Davison, came once more into +play,--but, this time, not as a marplot. He, strange to say, was at +hand and helpful. For, after his political exploit, abandoning England +in disgust at the consequences of his Gunpowder Plot, he, too, had not +only come to America, but had chanced to set up his "type-stick" in +the neighboring town of Warrenton, where, having flourished, he was +now the master of a printing-office and the conductor of a newspaper. +Thither, then, young Joseph was despatched, "copy" in hand. +Richard--really a worthy man, after all--gladly atoned for his ancient +hurtfulness, by lending his type and presses; and, falling to work +with great vigor, our young Faust, with his own hands, put into type +and printed off the needful edition of the Laws. + +He had also, by this time, as an important instrument of his intended +profession, attained the art of stenography. When, soon after, he +began to employ it, he rapidly became an excellent reporter; and +eventually, when he had grown thoroughly versed in public affairs, +confessedly the best reporter that we ever had. + +He was now well-prepared to join in the manly strife of business or +politics. His father chose, therefore, at once to commit him to +himself. He judged him mature enough in principles, strong enough in +sense; and feared lest, by being kept too long under guidance and the +easy life of home, he should fall into inertness. He first sent him to +Philadelphia, therefore, to serve as a workman with Birch and Small; +after which, he made for him an engagement on the "National +Intelligencer," as a reporter, and sent him to Washington, in October, +1807. + +To that place, changing its name to the one just mentioned, the +father's former paper, "The Gazetteer," had been transferred by his +old associate, Samuel Harrison Smith. Its first issue there +(tri-weekly) was on the 31st of October, 1800, under the double title +of "The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser." The latter +half of the title seems to have been dropped in 1810, when its present +senior came, for a time, into its sole proprietorship. + +More than twice the age of any other journal now extant there,--for +the "Globe" came some thirty, the "Union" some forty-five years +later,--the "Intelligencer" has long stood, in every worthy sense, the +patriarch of our metropolitan press. It has witnessed the rise and +fall around it of full a hundred competitors,--many of them declared +enemies; not a few, what was more dangerous far, professed friends. +Yet, in the face of all enmity and of such friendship, it has ever +held on its calm way, never deserting the public cause,--as little +extreme in its opposition as in its support of those in power; so that +its foes never forgot it, when they prevailed, but its friends +repeatedly. To estimate the value of its influence, during its long +career, would be impossible,--so much of right has it brought about, +so much of wrong defeated. + +Though it came hither with our Congress, a newspaper had once before +been set up here,--either upon the expectation created by the laying +of certain corner-stones, in 1792, that the Government would fix +itself at this spot, or through an odd local faith in the dreams of +some ancient visionary dwelling hard by, who had, many years before, +foretold this as the destined site of a great imperial city, a second +Rome, and so had bestowed upon Goose Creek the name of Tiber, long +before this was Washington. The founder of this Pre-Adamite journal +was Mr. Benjamin Moore; its name, "The Washington Gazette"; its issue, +semi-weekly; its annual price, four dollars; and the two leading +principles which, in that day of the infancy of political "platforms," +his salutatory announced, were, first, "to obtain a living for +himself," and, secondly, "to amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How +long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again +swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have +been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our +penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point. + +To the "Intelligencer" young Mr. Gales brought such vigor, such +talent, and such skill in every department, that within two years, in +1809, he was admitted by Mr. Smith into partnership; within less than +a year from which date, that gentleman, grown weary of the laborious +life of the press, was content to withdraw and leave him sole +proprietor, editor, and reporter. An enormous worker, however, it +mattered little to him what tasks were to be assumed: he could +multiply himself among them, and suffice for all. + +In thus assuming the undivided charge of the paper, the young editor +thought it becoming to set forth one main principle, that has, beyond +a question, been admirably the guide of his public life: he said to +his readers,--"It is the dearest right, and ought to be cherished as +the proudest prerogative of a freeman, to be guided by the unbiassed +convictions of his own judgment. This right it is my firm purpose to +maintain, and to preserve inviolate the independence of the print now +committed into my hands." Never was pledge more universally made or +more rarely kept than this. + +It was towards the close of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency that Mr. Gales +had entered the office of the "Intelligencer"; and it was during Mr. +Madison's first year that he became joint-editor of that paper. Of +these Administrations it had been the supporter,--only following, in +that regard, the transmitted politics of its original, the +"Gazetteer," derived from the elder Mr. Gales. Bred in these, the son +had learnt them of his sire, just as he had adopted his religion or +his morals. Sprung from one who had been persecuted in England as a +Republican, it was natural that the son should love the faith for +which an honored parent had suffered. + +The high qualities and the strong abilities of the young editor did +not fail to strike the discerning eye of President Madison, who +speedily gave him his affection and confidence. To that Administration +the "Intelligencer" stood in the most intimate and faithful +relations,--sustaining its policy as a necessity, where it might not +have been a choice. During the entire course of the war, the +"Intelligencer" sustained most vigorously all the measures needful for +carrying it on with efficiency; and it did equally good service in +reanimating, whenever it had slackened at any disaster, the drooping +spirit of our people. Nor did its editors, when there were two, stop +at these proofs of sincerity, nor slink, when danger drew near, from +that hazard of their own persons to which they had stirred up the +country. When invasion came, they at once took to arms, as volunteer +common-soldiers, went to meet the enemy, and remained in the field +until he had fallen back to the coast. And during the invasion of +Washington, moreover, their establishment was attacked and partially +destroyed, through an unmanly spirit of revenge on the part of the +British forces. In October, 1812, proposing to himself the change of +his paper into a daily one, as was accordingly brought about on the +first of January ensuing, Mr. Gales invited Mr. Seaton, who had by +this time become his brother-in-law, to come and join him. He did so; +and the early tie of youthful friendship, which had grown between them +at Raleigh, and which the new relation had drawn still closer, +gradually matured into that more than friendship or brotherhood, that +oneness and identity of all purposes, opinions, and interests which +has ever since existed between them, without a moment's interruption, +and has long been, to those who understood it, a rare spectacle of +that concord and affection so seldom witnessed, and could never have +come about except between men of singular virtues. + +The same year that brought Gales and Seaton together as partners in +business witnessed an alliance of a more interesting character; for it +was in 1813 that Mr. Gales married the accomplished daughter of +Theodorick Lee, younger brother of that brilliant soldier of the +Revolution, the "Legionary Harry." + +But, at this natural point, the writer must go back for a while, in +order to bring down the story of William Seaton to where, uniting with +his associate's, the two thus flow on in a single stream. + +He was born January 11th, 1785, on the paternal estate in King William +County, Virginia, one of a family of four sons and three daughters. At +the good old mansion passed his childhood. There, too, according to +what was then the wont in Virginia, he trod the first steps of +learning, under the guidance of a domestic tutor, a decayed gentleman, +old and bedridden; for the only part left him of a genteel inheritance +was the gout. But when it became necessary to send his riper progeny +abroad, for more advanced studies, Mr. Seaton very justly bethought +him of going along with them; and so betook himself, with his whole +family, to Richmond, where he was the possessor of houses enough to +afford him a good habitation and a genteel income. Here, then, along +with his brothers and sisters, William was taught, through an +ascending series of schools, until, at last, he arrived at what was +the wonder of that day,--the academy of Ogilvie, the Scotchman. He, be +it noted, had an earldom, (that of Finlater,) which slept while its +heir was playing pedagogue in America: a strange mixture of the +ancient rhapsodist with the modern strolling actor, of the lord with +him who lives by his wits. Scot as he was, he was better fitted to +teach anything rather than common sense. The writer must not give the +idea, however, that there was in Lord Ogilvie anything but +eccentricity to derogate from the honors of either his lineage or his +learning. A very solid teacher he was not. A great enthusiast by +nature, and a master of the whole art of discoursing finely of even +those things which he knew not well, he dazzled much, pleased greatly, +and obtained a high reputation; so that, if he did not regularly +inform or discipline the minds of his pupils, he probably made them, +to an unusual degree, amends on another side: he infused into them, by +the glitter of his accomplishments, a high admiration for learning and +for letters. Certainly, the number of his scholars that arrived at +distinction was remarkable; and this is, of course, a fact conclusive +of great merit of some sort as a teacher, where, as in his case, the +pupils were not many. Without pausing to mention others of them who +arrived at honor, it may be well enough to refer to Winfield Scott, +William Campbell Preston, B. Watkins Leigh, William S. Archer, and +William C. Rives. + +The writer does not know if it had ever been designed that young +Seaton should proceed from Ogilvie's classes to the more systematic +courses of a college. Possibly not. Even among the wealthy, at that +time, home-education was often employed. The children of both sexes +were committed to the care of private tutors, usually young Scotchmen, +the graduates of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, sent over to the +planter, upon order, along with his yearly supply of goods, by his +merchant abroad. Or else the sons were sent to select private schools, +like that of Ogilvie, set up by men of such abilities and scholarship +as were supposed capable of performing the whole work of institutions. + +At any rate, our youth, without further preparation, at about the age +of eighteen, entered earnestly upon the duties of life. He fell at +once into his vocation,--impelled to it, no doubt, by the ambition for +letters and public affairs which the lessons of Ogilvie usually +produced. Party ran high. Virginia politics, flushed with recent +success, had added to the usual passions of the contest those of +victory. + +Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in +common with nearly all others of a like age and condition. He became, +in short, a politician. Though talent of every other sort abounded, +that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not. Young Seaton was +found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise +it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals. He had already +made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where +he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it +is more than probable that many of his youthful "editorials" were "set +up" by his own hands. Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he +received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper +in Petersburg, "The Republican," the editor and proprietor of which, +Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months. +Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a +still better position,--that of the proprietary editorship of the +"North Carolina Journal," published at Halifax, the former capital of +that State, and the only newspaper there. He accepted the offer, and +became the master of his own independent journal. Of its being so he +proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token. They +were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the +gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism: but he +forthwith changed its politics to Republican. + +There can be no doubt that he who made a change so manly conducted his +paper with spirit. Yet he must have done it also with that wise and +winning moderation and fairness which have since distinguished him and +his associate. William Seaton could never have fallen into anything of +the temper or the taste, the morals or the manners, which are now so +widely the shame of the American press; he could never have written in +the ill spirit of mere party, so as to wound or even offend the good +men of an opposite way of thinking. The inference is a sure one from +his character, and is confirmed by what we know to have happened +during his editorial career among the Federalists of Halifax. Instead +of his paper's losing ground under the circumstances just mentioned, +it really gained so largely and won so much the esteem of both sides, +that, when he desired to dispose of it, in order to seek a higher +theatre, he easily sold the property for double what it had cost him. + +It was now that he made his way to Raleigh, the new State-capital, and +became connected with the "Register." Nor was it long before this +connection was drawn yet closer by his happy marriage with the lady +whose virtues and accomplishments have so long been the modest, yet +shining ornament and charm of his household and of the society of +Washington. After this union, he continued his previous relationship +with the "Register," until, as already mentioned, he came to the +metropolis to join all his fortunes with those of his brother-in-law. +From this point, of course, their stories, like their lives, become +united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no +bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a +consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a +division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn +whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a +settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest +not merely a singular harmony of character, but an admirable +conformity of virtues? + +The history of the "Intelligencer" has, as to all its leading +particulars, been for fifty years spread before thousands of readers, +in its continuous diary. To re-chronicle any part of what is so well +known would be idle in the extreme. Of the editors personally, their +lives, since they became mature and settled, have presented few events +such as are not common to all men,--little of vicissitude, beyond that +of pockets now full and now empty,--nothing but a steady performance +of duty, an exertion, whenever necessary, of high ability, and the +gradual accumulation through these of a deeply felt esteem among all +the best and wisest of the land. Amidst the many popular passions with +which nearly all have, in our country, run wild, they have maintained +a perpetual and sage moderation; amidst incessant variations of +doctrine, they have preserved a memory and a conscience; in the +frequent fluctuations of power, they have steadily checked the +alternate excesses of both parties; and they have never given to +either a factious opposition or a merely partisan support. Of their +journal it may be said, that there has, in all our times, shone no +such continual light on public affairs, there has stood no such sure +defence of whatever was needful to be upheld. Tempering the heats of +both sides,--re-nationalizing all spirit of section,--combating our +propensity to lawlessness at home and aggression abroad,--spreading +constantly on each question of the day a mass of sound +information,--the venerable editors have been, all the while, a power +and a safety in the land, no matter who were the rulers. Neither party +could have spared an opposition so just or a support so well-measured. +Thus it cannot be deemed an American exaggeration to declare the +opinion as to the influence of the "Intelligencer" over our public +counsels, that its value is not easily to be overrated. + +Never, meantime, was authority wielded with less assumption. The +"Intelligencer" could not, of course, help being aware of the weight +which its opinions always carried among the thinking; but it has never +betrayed any consciousness of its influence, unless in a ceaseless +care to deserve respect. Its modesty and candor, its fairness and +courtesy have been invariable; nor less so, its observance of that +decorum and those charities which constitute the very grace of all +public life. + +From the time of their coming together, down to the year 1820, Gales +and Seaton were the exclusive reporters, as well as editors, of their +journal,--one of them devoting himself to the Senate, and the other to +the House of Representatives. Generally speaking, they published only +running reports,--on special occasions, however, giving the speeches +and proceedings entire. In those days they had seats of honor assigned +to them directly by the side of the presiding officers, and over the +snuff-box, in a quiet and familiar manner, the topics of the day were +often discussed. To the privileges they then enjoyed, but more +especially to their sagacity and industry, are we now indebted, as a +country, for their "Register of Debates," which, with the +"Intelligencer," has become a most important part of our national +history. As in their journal nearly all the most eminent of American +statesmen have discussed the affairs of the country, so have they been +the direct means of preserving many of the speeches which are now the +acknowledged ornaments of our political literature. Had it not been +for Mr. Gales, the great intellectual combat between Hayne and +Webster, for example, would have passed into a vague tradition, +perhaps. The original notes of Mr. Webster's speech, now in Mr. +Gales's library, form a volume of several hundred pages, and, having +been corrected and interlined by the statesman's own hand, present a +treasure that might be envied. At the period just alluded to, Mr. +Gales had given up the practice of reporting any speeches, and it was +a mere accident that led him to pay Mr. Webster the compliment in +question. That it was appreciated was proved by many reciprocal acts +of kindness and the long and happy intimacy that existed between the +two gentlemen, ending only with the life of the statesman. It was Mr. +Webster's opinion, that the abilities of Mr. Gales were of the highest +order; and yet the writer has heard of one instance in which even the +editor could not get along without a helping hand. Mr. Gales had for +some days been engaged upon the Grand Jury, and, with his head full of +technicalities, entered upon the duty of preparing a certain +editorial. In doing this, he unconsciously employed a number of legal +phrases; and when about half through, found it necessary to come to a +halt. At this juncture, he dropped a note to Mr. Webster, transmitting +the unfinished article and explaining his difficulty. Mr. Webster took +it in hand, finished it to the satisfaction of Mr. Gales, and it was +published as editorial. + +But the writer is trespassing upon private ground, and it is with +great reluctance that he refrains from recording a long list of +incidents which have come to his knowledge, calculated to illustrate +the manifold virtues of his distinguished friends. That they are +universally respected and beloved by those who know them,--that their +opinions on public matters have been solicited by Secretaries of State +and even by Presidents opposed to them in politics,--that their +journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a +healthy tone in polite literature,--that their home-life has been made +happy by the influences of refinement and taste,--and that they have +given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the +unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all +assertions which none can truthfully deny. If, therefore, to look back +upon a long life not _uselessly spent_ is what will give us peace at +last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could +desire; and their "silver hairs," the most appropriate crown of true +patriotism, + + "Will purchase them a good opinion, + And buy men's voices to commend their deeds." + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + +WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY. + + An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay, + Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death, + With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath, + And languid eyeballs darkening to the day; + A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway + Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath, + The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath, + Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray: + When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown + Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind, + Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone + Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,-- + But pausing soon, behold creation shrined + In a new birth, God's covenant clasping all! + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who +had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such +relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a +real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need +counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was +competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. +That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth +words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which +win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure +was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and +clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must +have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof +or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say quietly to +her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. +These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated +watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in +the heats of summer that they were most common and most strongly +characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, +and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her +sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged +to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All winter long +she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in +her motions; her eye would lose something of its strange lustre; and +the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that her whole expression +and aspect would show the change, and people would say to her, "Why, +Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie +there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, +the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep +would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter +was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or +movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures +that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when +the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were +following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, +(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers +dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal +sounds,--_frsh_,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all +pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to +the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the +life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. +This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most +cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of +The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, +whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given +to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown +more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as +the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament +came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so +superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The +barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous +muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own +pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly +left her arm. Without some necklace she was never seen,--either the +golden cord she wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or +simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a +necklace, and that when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a +fancy of hers,--but many thought there was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there +was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so +far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to +him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing +was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with +others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have +got a foot-hold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession +against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good +listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to +effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling +well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and +the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place of +much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house and +farmlands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her without +questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he +had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system +of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he +had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If +he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly, +in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life +between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl +might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after +he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner, +as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and +agreeable to lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise +children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and +disagreeable, so much the worse for those that made it so. Like many +other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue +were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there +might be contingencies in which the property would be better without +its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the +light of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some +new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With +the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own +interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd +where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young +man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as +probably at the bottom of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let +him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. +What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. +Don't like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about _something_, +anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so often? Not +out of our library, that's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep +into her chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what +mischief she was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a +shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of +moonlight into the shadow of the the trees. She was setting out on one +of her midnight rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks +flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to +invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful +hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber +he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this +season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if he +ventured down-stairs to her apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose +and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust +his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the +stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady +had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the +key with her, no doubt,--unless, indeed, she had got out by the +window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this +window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his +footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own +chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It +was open. He then went to one of his trunks, wich he unlocked, and +began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not +stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various +patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in +certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of +these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and +drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a +noose,--a tough, well-seasoned _lasso_, looking as if it had seen +service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this +and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out +of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's +room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and with a +slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a match, found +a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously about him, as +Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was +a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those +who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could +hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, +which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the +forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a +quick eye and hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of +unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as +Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like +any naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees +does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of +life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we +could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and +General Jackson on horse-back, done by Nature in green leaves, each +with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and +smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and +her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of +animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually reach +the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that +extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, except +the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have a +glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that +one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his +fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if +a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like +branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which +strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the +bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. +With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of +them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in +form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture +might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her +apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not +detain Mr. Richard Venner very long, whatever may have been his +sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A +copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of +_Bernard C. Langdon_ on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table +with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was +empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was +locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen +enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the +school,--this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--_he_ was aspiring to +become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward +his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the _diablo_ had Elsie to do with +hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, +it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the +innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, +some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the +question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, +and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way +of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could +think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the +window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own +chamber and drew in the lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in +love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. +As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was +his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated +themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of +securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must come +into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from +this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her +affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company again, to +propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was +strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to +the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed +to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen +and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or +gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a +strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to +himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the +moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and +sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon +him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she +could exercise a kind of fascination over him,--though there were +times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, +an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still +centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so +curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. +His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her +as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity +with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until +tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature +was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He +was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not +strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his +nephew, represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. +Had Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less +willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had +long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had +in common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious +instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of +life and death, or more than that,--some dark ending, perhaps, which +would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon +the lips of all coming generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of +looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional +in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of +her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, +when others court their female relatives; they know them as good young +or old women enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they +may be,--but never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any +more than of their being struck by lightning. + +But in this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common +family delusion,--reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she +should attract a suitor. Who would _dare_ to marry Elsie? No, let her +have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome +excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into +melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of +superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent +idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from +her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind +and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of +any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to +become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at +that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence +the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union +of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual +attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many +years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most of +all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought whether, in +case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he +might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but it had not +occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son-in-law for +the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticize other people's modes of dealing with +their children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. +They notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood +of this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement +of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the +common observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy +sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; +his grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement +of the eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper +of the other. + +These are things parents can see, and which they must take account of +in education, but which few except parents can be expected to really +understand. Here and there a sagacious person, old, or of middle age, +who has _triangulated_ a race, that is, taken three or more +observations from the several standing-places of three different +generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the +limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a given stock,--errors +excepted always, because children of the same stock are not bred just +alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to +break out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a +small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so +that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of +justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal +oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We +make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes. That +is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the +physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle of +selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The +magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made +up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear +solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated +in the opaque sediment of history---- + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley Venner of weakness +and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of +opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when she +was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they said, +but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If _they_ had had the +charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the upperhand +of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in season! There +are people who think that everything may be done, if the doer, be he +educator or physician, be only called "in season." No doubt,--but _in +season_ would often be a hundred or two years before the child was +born; and people never send so early as that. + +The father of Elsie Venner knew his duties and his difficulties too +well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So +soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life +up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a +stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not +without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for +himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his +position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such a +nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for bearing +his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He could +not talk of them even with those who knew their secret spring. His +minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in the meaner +sort of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for +sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and +Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more +odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could he speak with +the old physician and the old black woman about a sorrow and a terror +which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's +faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and +making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found his +other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and wasted +his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we may say of +most, who infringe the patent of our social order by intruding +themselves into a life already upon half-allowance of the necessary +luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief space was not +only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it +to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of +two souls to each other, string by string, not without little +half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the +other proves to be over-strained or over-lax, but always approaching +nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two +instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this +blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when he found +himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little diamond-eyed +child lying in the old woman's arms, with the coral necklace round her +throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. +There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was +enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this +child's sake, at any rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with what +thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features would look +placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; then all his +tender feelings would rush up into his eyes, and he would put his arms +out to take her from the old woman,--but all at once her eyes would +narrow and she would throw her head back; and a shudder would seize +him as he stooped over his child,--he could not look upon her,--he +could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there would sometimes come +into his soul such frightful suggestions that he would hurry from the +room lest the hinted thought should become a momentary madness and he +should lift his hand against the helpless infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in his +restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in outward +action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the summit of any +of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them recklessly, as having +no particular care for his life. Sometimes he would go into the +accursed district where the venomous reptiles were always to be +dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he could come near +with a kind of blind fury that was strange in a person of his gentle +nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon his +home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and +fissures that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off some +time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs below? He +thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular indifference, +in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such a swift +and thorough solution of this great problem of life he was working out +in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote possibility of such a +catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers beneath The Mountain to +other places of residence; here the danger was most imminent, and yet +he loved to dwell upon the chances of its occurrence. Danger is often +the best _counter-irritant_ in cases of mental suffering; he found a +solace in careless exposure of his life, and learned to endure the +trials of each day better by dwelling in imagination on the +possibility that it might be the last for him and the home that was +his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually +fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from +his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from the +great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for +centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his +time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. Old +Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the red +coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys had +bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father +forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom he had +such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial to him +and often a terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, +and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of +filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never +would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, +punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical +effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of +expression and color that it would have been senseless to attempt to +govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could +be to some extent indirectly influenced,--not otherwise. She called +her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered +everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the +household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons +laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely +talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in +whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely +indifferent, not only with the indifference which all gentlemen feel +to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which +did not wonder or blame. He knew that his position was not simply a +difficult, but an impossible one, and schooled himself to bear his +destiny as well as he might and report himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning +to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual +sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn +to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to +rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and +the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed +himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to +his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always +beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing +agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of +wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, +wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of the night. + +It was understood between Dudley Venner and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection +of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in +the mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied Elsie's case in the +light of all the books he could find which might do anything towards +explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science +for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his +imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it +to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish those two +fancies before alluded to: that the ominous birthmark she had carried +from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that the age of +complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change in her +physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all of us +nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world would he +have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the probability +or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of asking +questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes +we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and +varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised +at the extent of Dudley Venner's information. Doctor Kittredge found +that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological +discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural +chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints +about the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance +with the classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and +calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and +periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the +passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing +to see his neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but on the other +hand not cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost +something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories +had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even +that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an +endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their +acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until +their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than +they were at twenty, Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and +tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he +counted but half his present years. He was now on the verge of that +decade which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in +knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or +the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly +downward. At the entrance of this decade his inward nature was richer +and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could only be +summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies +could only find an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for +his natural affections had been gathering in the course of all these +years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were +softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, +as the wreck left by a mountain-slide is covered over by the gentle +intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the +stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Venner had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if +he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with +which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in +the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a +person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. +But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an +additional motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the +routine of Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Venner did not know just what he wanted at this period of +his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who +thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough,--nigh twenty +year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there wa'n't +anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. +What was the reason he didn't go abaout to taown-meetin's, 'n' +Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school-'xaminations, 'n' +s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and other entertainments where the +still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see +if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?--Fac' was, he was +livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't +he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him +and--let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'-twenty,--no, +six-'n'-twenty,--Born the same year we buried aour little Anny MarÃ. + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But +"Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not +happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met +her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen +of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a +woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite +so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but +with two or three more joints in her frame and two or three soft +inflections in her voice which for some absurd reason or other drew +him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half his secrets +and looked into her eyes all that, he could not tell, in less time +than it would have taken him to discuss the champion paper of the last +Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." _Heu, quanta minus!_ How much +more was that lost image to him than all it left on earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know that +just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what particular +day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that just about +so much love will be made every year in a given population; but who +will rain his young affections upon the heart of whom is not known +except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And why rain falls as +it does, and why love is made just as it is, are equally puzzling +questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his +daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of +life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he loves: +before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, it has +passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned over +by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by millions of lateral +impulses which bandy it about through the mental spaces as a +reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. +With this altered image of the woman before him his preëxisting ideal +becomes blended. The object of his love is half the offspring of her +legal parents and half of her lover's brain. The difference between +the real and the ideal objects of love must not exceed a fixed +maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them stereoscopically into a +single image, if the divergence passes certain limits. A formidable +analogy, much in the nature of a proof, with very serious +consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do well to +remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous +physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious falls. + +Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a breathing image near enough to +his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was +very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would +steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of +silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public +worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old +griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into +sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such woman as this, if +Heaven should send him such, might call him back to the world of +happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again +be the young lover who walked through the garden-alleys all red with +roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. He could never +forget the bride of his youth, whose image, growing phantom-like with +the lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream while waking and +like a reality in dreams. But if it might be in God's good providence +that this desolate life should come under the influence of human +affections once more, what an ecstasy of renewed existence was in +store for him! His life had not all been buried under that narrow +ridge of turf with the white stone at its head. It seemed so for a +while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be so. His first +passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or stain upon +it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of any word +or look he would have wished to forget. All those little differences, +such as young married people with any individual flavor in their +characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added to +the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some +perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the +whole harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate, had +inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was +clean, and its edge was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in +healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may say, by the wise and +beneficent law of our being. The recollection of a deep and true +affection, is rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow strong +upon than a poison to destroy it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early +bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between +natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary +tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and +fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an +anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the +heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! some +new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his heart; +but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent which rose +with every morning's sun and watched with every evening star,--what +power save alone that of him who comes bearing the inverted torch, and +leaving after him only the ashes printed with his footsteps? + + * * * * * + + +THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER. + +While all of us have been watching, with that admiring sympathy which +never fails to wait on courage and magnanimity, the career of the new +Timoleon in Sicily,--while we have been reckoning, with an interest +scarcely less than in some affair of personal concern, the chances and +changes that bear with furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of +united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which +more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own +form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our +domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we +became a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good +or evil that will follow from the popular decision in November, we +might be tempted to regard the remarkable moderation which has thus +far characterized the Presidential canvass as a guilty indifference to +the duty implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid +unconsciousness of the result which may depend upon its exercise in +this particular election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly +from the general persuasion that the success of the Republican party +was a foregone conclusion. + +In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private +thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a +peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve +us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, +and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For, though +during its term of office the government be practically as independent +of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the +people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. +Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an +argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing +it should be statesmen and thinkers. It is a proverb, that to turn a +radical into a conservative there needs only to put him into office, +because then the license of speculation or sentiment is limited by a +sense of responsibility,--then for the first time he becomes capable +of that comparative view which sees principles and measures, not in +the narrow abstract, but in the full breadth of their relations to +each other and to political consequences. The theory of democracy +presupposes something of these results of official position in the +individual voter, since in exercising his right he becomes for the +moment an integral part of the governing power. + +How very far practice is from any likeness to theory a week's +experience of our politics suffices to convince us. The very +government itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boys' +debating-club, with the disadvantage of being reported. As our +party-creeds are commonly represented less by ideas than by persons, +(who are assumed, without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of +certain ideas,) our politics become personal and narrow to a degree +never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our +Congress debates and our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after +day, not questions of national interest, not what is wise and right, +but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad +whiskey said for him, half a dozen years ago. If that personage, +outraged in all the finer sensibilities of our common nature, by +failing to get the contract for supplying the District Court-House at +Skreemeropolisville City with revolvers, was led to disparage the +union of these States, it is seized on as proof conclusive that the +party to which he belongs are so many Cat_a_lines,--for Congress is +unanimous only in misspelling the name of that oft-invoked +conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms always in advance, +so that we seem never to have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a +prospective one, looking to the chances of reëlection, and mingling in +all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent +for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the White House lures +our public men away from present duties and obligations; and if +matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a Committee of Congress +to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, whenever a President +goes out of office,--with a policeman to watch every member of the +Committee. We are kept normally in that most unprofitable of +predicaments, a state of transition, and politicians measure their +words and deeds by a standard of immediate and temporary +expediency,--an expediency not as concerning the nation, but which, if +more than merely personal, is no wider than the interests of party. + +Is all this a result of the failure of democratic institutions? Rather +of the fact that those institutions have never yet had a fair trial, +and that for the last thirty years an abnormal element has been acting +adversely with continually increasing strength. Whatever be the effect +of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that +its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has +compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their +moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent +ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of +statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for +opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized +world for patriotism. We have been asked to admit, first, that it was +a necessary evil; then that it was a good both to master and slave; +then that it was the corner-stone of free institutions; then that it +was a system divinely instituted under the Old Law and sanctioned +under the New. With a representation, three-fifths of it based on the +assumption that negroes are men, the South turns upon us and insists +on our acknowledging that they are things. After compelling her +Northern allies to pronounce the "free and equal" clause of the +preamble to the Declaration of Independence (because it stood in the +way of enslaving men) a manifest absurdity, she has declared, through +the Supreme Court of the United States, that negroes are not men in +the ordinary meaning of the word. To eat dirt is bad enough, but to +find that we have eaten more than was necessary may chance to give us +an indigestion. The slaveholding interest has gone on step by step, +forcing concession after concession, till it needs but little to +secure it forever in the political supremacy of the country. Yield to +its latest demand,--let it mould the evil destiny of the +Territories,--and the thing is done past recall. The next Presidential +Election is to say _Yes_ or _No_. + +But we should not regard the mere question of political preponderancy +as of vital consequence, did it not involve a continually increasing +moral degradation on the part of the Nonslaveholding States,--for Free +States they could not be called much longer. Sordid and materialistic +views of the true value and objects of society and government are +professed more and more openly by the leaders of popular outcry, if it +cannot be called public opinion. That side of human nature which it +has been the object of all lawgivers and moralists to repress and +subjugate is flattered and caressed; whatever is profitable is right; +and already the slave-trade, as yielding a greater return on the +capital invested than any other traffic, is lauded as the highest +achievement of human reason and justice. Mr. Hammond has proclaimed +the accession of King Cotton, but he seems to have forgotten that +history is not without examples of kings who have lost their crowns +through the folly and false security of their ministers. It is quite +true that there is a large class of reasoners who would weigh all +questions of right and wrong in the balance of trade; but--we cannot +bring ourselves to believe that it is a wise political economy which +makes cotton by unmaking men, or a far-seeing statesmanship which +looks on an immediate money-profit as a safe equivalent for a beggared +public sentiment. We think Mr. Hammond even a little premature in +proclaiming the new Pretender. The election of November may prove a +Culloden. Whatever its result, it is to settle, for many years to +come, the question whether the American idea is to govern this +continent, whether the Occidental or the Oriental theory of society is +to mould our future, whether we are to recede from principles which +eighteen Christian centuries have been slowly establishing at the cost +of so many saintly lives at the stake and so many heroic ones on the +scaffold and the battle-field, in favor of some fancied assimilation +to the household arrangements of Abraham, of which all that can be +said with certainty is that they did not add to his domestic +happiness. + +We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history; for, +although there are four candidates, there are really, as everybody +knows, but two parties, and a single question that divides them. The +supporters of Messrs. Bell and Everett have adopted as their platform +the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws. This may +be very convenient, but it is surely not very explicit. The cardinal +question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn--a +question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the +other--is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the +Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to +that instrument. Indeed, it is quite the fashion. The removers of all +the ancient landmarks of our policy, the violators of thrice-pledged +faith, the planners of new treachery to established compromise, all +take refuge in the Constitution,-- + + "Like thieves that in a hemp-plot lie, + Secure against the hue and cry." + +In the same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in +the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows +the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any +logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the +Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our +statesmen could be "happy with either, were t'other dear charmer +away." Mr. Douglas confides the secret of his passion to the +unloquacious clams of Rhode Island, and the chief complaint made +against Mr. Lincoln by his opponents is that he is _too_ +Constitutional. + +Meanwhile the only point in which voters are interested is,--What do +they mean by the Constitution? Mr. Breckinridge means the superiority +of a certain exceptional species of property over all others, nay, +over man himself. Mr. Douglas, with a different formula for expressing +it, means practically the same thing. Both of them mean that Labor has +no rights which Capital is bound to respect,--that there is no higher +law than human interest and cupidity. Both of them represent not +merely the narrow principles of a section, but the still narrower and +more selfish ones of a caste. Both of them, to be sure, have +convenient phrases to be juggled with before election, and which mean +one thing or another, or neither one thing nor another, as a +particular exigency may seem to require; but since both claim the +regular Democratic nomination, we have little difficulty in divining +what their course would be after the fourth of March, if they should +chance to be elected. We know too well what regular Democracy is, to +like either of the two faces which each shows by turns under the same +hood. Everybody remembers Baron Grimm's story of the Parisian showman, +who in 1789 exhibited the _royal_ Bengal tiger under the new character +of _national_, as more in harmony with the changed order of things. +Could the animal have lived till 1848, he would probably have found +himself offered to the discriminating public as the _democratic_ and +_social_ ornament of the jungle. The Pro-slavery party of this country +seeks the popular favor under even more frequent and incongruous +_aliases_; it is now _national_, now _conservative_, now +_constitutional_; here it represents Squatter-Sovereignty, and there +the power of Congress over the Territories; but, under whatever name, +its nature remains unchanged, and its instincts are none the less +predatory and destructive. Mr. Lincoln's position is set forth with +sufficient precision in the platform adopted by the Chicago +Convention; but what are we to make of Messrs. Bell and Everett? Heirs +of the stock in trade of two defunct parties, the Whig and +Know-Nothing, do they hope to resuscitate them? or are they only like +the inconsolable widows of Père la Chaise, who, with an eye to former +customers, make use of the late Andsoforth's gravestone to advertise +that they still carry on the business at the old stand? Mr. Everett, +in his letter accepting the nomination, gave us only a string of +reasons why he should not have accepted it at all; and Mr. Bell +preserves a silence singularly at variance with his patronymic. The +only public demonstration of principle that we have seen is an +emblematic bell drawn upon a wagon by a single horse, with a man to +lead him, and a boy to make a nuisance of the tinkling symbol as it +moves along. Are all the figures in this melancholy procession equally +emblematic? If so, which of the two candidates is typified in the +unfortunate who leads the horse?--for we believe the only hope of the +party is to get one of them elected by some hocus-pocus in the House +of Representatives. The little boy, we suppose, is intended to +represent the party, which promises to be so conveniently small that +there will be an office for every member of it, if its candidate +should win. Did not the bell convey a plain allusion to the leading +name on the ticket, we should conceive it an excellent type of the +hollowness of those fears for the safety of the Union, in case of Mr. +Lincoln's election, whose changes are so loudly rung,--its noise +having once or twice given rise to false alarms of fire, till people +found out what it really was. Whatever profound moral it be intended +to convey, we find in it a similitude that is not without significance +as regards the professed creed of the party. The industrious youth who +operates upon it has evidently some notion of the measured and regular +motion that befits the tongues of well-disciplined and conservative +bells. He does his best to make theory and practice coincide; but with +every jolt on the road an involuntary variation is produced, and the +sonorous pulsation becomes rapid or slow accordingly. We have observed +that the Constitution was liable to similar derangements, and we very +much doubt whether Mr. Bell himself (since, after all, the +Constitution would practically be nothing else than his interpretation +of it) would keep the same measured tones that are so easy on the +smooth path of candidacy, when it came to conducting the car of State +over some of the rough places in the highway of Manifest Destiny, and +some of those passages in our politics which, after the fashion of new +countries, are rather _corduroy_ in character. + +But, fortunately, we are not left wholly in the dark as to the aims of +the self-styled Constitutional party. One of its most distinguished +members, Governor Hunt of New York, has given us to understand that +its prime object is the defeat at all hazards of the Republican +candidate. To achieve so desirable an end, its leaders are ready to +coalesce, here with the Douglas, and there with the Breckinridge +faction of that very Democratic party of whose violations of the +Constitution, corruption, and dangerous limberness of principle they +have been the lifelong denouncers. In point of fact, then, it is +perfectly plain that we have only two parties in the field: those who +favor the extension of slavery, and those who oppose it,--in other +words, a Destructive and a Conservative party. + +We know very well that the partisans of Mr. Bell, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. +Breckinridge all equally claim the title of conservative: and the fact +is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign +critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to +compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic +propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the +working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are +promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the _rights_ of property, +but by a well-founded jealousy of its usurpations; and it is +Privilege, and not Property, that is perplexed with fear of change. +The conservative effect of ownership operates with as much force on +the man with a hundred dollars in an old stocking as on his neighbor +with a million in the funds. During the Roman Revolution of '48, the +beggars who had funded their gains were among the stanchest +reactionaries, and left Rome with the nobility. No question of the +abstract right of property has ever entered directly into our +politics, or ever will,--the point at issue being, whether a certain +exceptional kind of property, already privileged beyond all others, +shall be entitled to still further privileges at the expense of every +other kind. The extension of slavery over new territory means just +this,--that this one kind of property, not recognized as such by the +Constitution, or it would never have been allowed to enter into the +basis of representation, shall control the foreign and domestic policy +of the Republic. + +A great deal is said, to be sure, about the rights of the South; but +has any such right been infringed? When a man invests money in any +species of property, he assumes the risks to which it is liable. If he +buy a house, it may be burned; if a ship, it may be wrecked; if a +horse or an ox, it may die. Now the disadvantage of the Southern kind +of property is,--how shall we say it so as not to violate our +Constitutional obligations?--that it is exceptional. When it leaves +Virginia, it is a thing; when it arrives in Boston, it becomes a man, +speaks human language, appeals to the justice of the same God whom we +all acknowledge, weeps at the memory of wife and children left +behind,--in short, hath the same organs and dimensions that a +Christian hath, and is not distinguishable from ordinary Christians, +except, perhaps, by a simpler and more earnest faith. There are people +at the North who believe, that, beside _meum_ and _tuum_, there is +also such a thing as _suum_,--who are old-fashioned enough, or weak +enough, to have their feelings touched by these things, to think that +human nature is older and more sacred than any claim of property +whatever, and that it has rights at least as much to be respected as +any hypothetical one of our Southern brethren. This, no doubt, makes +it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human +nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be +counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the +cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these +images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the +incident risks along with the advantages. We should be very sorry to +deem this risk capable of diminution; for we think that the claims of +a common manhood upon us should be at least as strong as those of +Freemasonry, and that those whom the law of man turns away should find +in the larger charity of the law of God and Nature a readier welcome +and surer sanctuary. We shall continue to think the negro a man, and +on Southern evidence, too, as long as he is counted in the population +represented on the floor of Congress,--for three-fifths of perfect +manhood would be a high average even among white men; as long as he is +hanged or worse, as an example and terror to others,--for we do not +punish one animal for the moral improvement of the rest; as long as he +is considered capable of religious instruction,--for we fancy the +gorillas would make short work with a missionary; as long as there are +fears of insurrection,--for we never heard of a combined effort at +revolt in a menagerie. Accordingly, we do not see how the particular +right of whose infringement we hear so much is to be made safer by the +election of Mr. Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or Mr. Douglas,--there being +quite as little chance that any of them would abolish human nature as +that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The same generous instinct +that leads some among us to sympathize with the sorrows of the +bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others to take part +with the rescued man. + +But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our +constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular +divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to +forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and +extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the +traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high +time that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States, +and of the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to +be respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the +safety of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever +there is soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for +making him a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not +to justice, freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting +with the current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully +nursing the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow +worse? + +To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when +it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with +the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured. The +discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what? +The manufacturers of the Free States constitute a more numerous class +than the slaveholders of the South: suppose they should claim an equal +sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of +free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral +enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. +The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the +mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail +roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm +the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when +the encroachments of the Slave-Power and the concessions of the +Trade-Power shall have made it a burden instead of a blessing. The +real avalanche to be dreaded, are we to expect it from the +ever-gathering mass of ignorant brute force, with the irresponsibility +of animals and the passions of men, which is one of the fatal +necessities of slavery, or from the gradually increasing consciousness +of the non-slaveholding population of the Slave States of the true +cause of their material impoverishment and political inferiority? From +one or the other source its ruinous forces will be fed, but in either +event it is not the Union that will be imperilled, but the privileged +Order who on every occasion of a thwarted whim have menaced its +disruption, and who will then find in it their only safety. + +We believe that the "irrepressible conflict"--for we accept Mr. +Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever +meant to give it--is to take place in the South itself; because the +Slave-System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy +which are sure, sooner or later, to work their own retribution. The +inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the +soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to +reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower +level of property, intelligence, and enterprise,--their increase in +numbers adding much to the economical hardship of their position and +nothing to their political weight in the community. There is no +home-encouragement of varied agriculture,--for the wants of a slave +population are few in number and limited in kind; none of inland +trade, for that is developed only by communities where education +induces refinement, where facility of communication stimulates +invention and variety of enterprise, where newspapers make every man's +improvement in tools, machinery, or culture of the soil an incitement +to all, and bring all the thinkers of the world to teach in the cheap +university of the people. We do not, of course, mean to say that +slaveholding states may not and do not produce fine men; but they +fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its attendant +consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing +communities of men, which is the true object of all political +organizations, and which is essential to the prolonged existence of +all those whose life and spirit are derived directly from the people. +Every man who has dispassionately endeavored to enlighten himself in +the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, the course of things in +slaveholding states is substantially what we have described, a +downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and in all those +results of material prosperity which in a free country show themselves +in the general advancement for the good of all and give a real meaning +to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous the wealth centred in +the hands of a few, it has no longer the conservative force or the +beneficent influence which it exerts when equably distributed,--even +loses more of both where a system of absenteeism prevails so largely +as in the South. In such communities the seeds of an "irrepressible +conflict" are purely, if slowly, ripening, and signs are daily +multiplying that the true peril to their social organization is looked +for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in an insurrection of +intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds itself none the +richer for it. To multiply such communities is to multiply weakness. + +The election in November turns on the single and simple question, +Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and +the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against +such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor +of it, is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted +that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess +that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward +since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater +ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to +the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr. +Seward's nomination, for the very reason we have seen assigned for +passing him by,--that he represented the most advanced doctrines of +his party. He, more than any other man, combined in himself the +moralist's oppugnancy to Slavery as a fact, the thinker's resentment +of it as a theory, and the statist's distrust of it as a policy,--thus +summing up the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and +concentrated the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, +he has that best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of +being always able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of +his opinions which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect +of his speeches in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to +their power. Safe from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional +eloquence as if he had been inoculated for it early in his career, he +addresses himself to the reason, and what he says sticks. It was +assumed that his nomination would have embittered the contest and +tainted the Republican creed with radicalism; but we doubt it. We +cannot think that a party gains by not hitting its hardest, or by +sugaring its opinions. Republicanism is not a conspiracy to obtain +office under false pretences. It has a definite aim, an earnest +purpose, and the unflinching tenacity of profound conviction. It was +not called into being by a desire to reform the pecuniary corruptions +of the party now in power. Mr. Bell or Mr. Breckinridge would do that, +for no one doubts their honor or their honesty. It is not unanimous +about the Tariff, about State-Rights, about many other questions of +policy. What unites the Republicans is a common faith in the early +principles and practice of the Republic, a common persuasion that +slavery, as it cannot but be the natural foe of the one, has been the +chief debaser of the other, and a common resolve to resist its +encroachments everywhen and everywhere. They see no reason to fear +that the Constitution, which has shown such pliant tenacity under the +warps and twistings of a forty-years' proslavery pressure, should be +in danger of breaking, if bent backward again gently to its original +rectitude of fibre. "All forms of human government," says Machiavelli, +"have, like men, their natural term, and those only are long-lived +which possess in themselves the power of returning to the principles +on which they were originally founded." It is in a moral aversion to +slavery as a great wrong that the chief strength of the Republican +party lies. They believe as everybody believed sixty years ago; and we +are sorry to see what appears to be an inclination in some quarters to +blink this aspect of the case, lest the party be charged with want of +conservatism, or, what is worse, with abolitionism. It is and will be +charged with all kinds of dreadful things, whatever it does, and it +has nothing to fear from an upright and downright declaration of its +faith. One part of the grateful work it has to do is to deliver us +from the curse of perpetual concession for the sake of a peace that +never comes, and which, if it came, would not be peace, but +submission,--from that torpor and imbecility of faith in God and man +which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. A question +which cuts so deep as the one which now divides the country cannot be +debated, much less settled, without excitement. Such excitement is +healthy, and is a sign that the ill humors of the body politic are +coming to the surface, where they are comparatively harmless. It is +the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have +once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative. The +vital and formative principle, which was active during the process of +crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or governments, +ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the Eternal +Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead formula on +men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been our good +fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has forced us to +reconsider the primal principles of government, which has appealed to +conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories of the +Declaration of Independence to the test of experience in our thought +and life and action, has realized a tradition of the memory into a +conviction of the understanding and the soul. It will not do for the +Republicans to confine themselves to the mere political argument, for +the matter then becomes one of expediency, with two defensible sides +to it; they must go deeper, to the radical question of Right and +Wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What +Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party-platforms,--that those +are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which +compel the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind. + +No man pretends that under the Constitution there is any possibility +of interference with the domestic relations of the individual States; +no party has ever remotely hinted at any such interference; but what +the Republicans affirm is, that in every contingency where the +Constitution can be construed in favor of freedom, it ought to be and +shall be so construed. It is idle to talk of sectionalism, +abolitionism, and hostility to the laws. The principles of liberty and +humanity cannot, by virtue of their very nature, be sectional, any +more than light and heat. Prevention is not abolition, and unjust laws +are the only serious enemies that Law ever had. With history before +us, it is no treason to question the infallibility of a court; for +courts are never wiser or more venerable than the men composing them, +and a decision that reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any +immunity from reversal. Truth is the only unrepealable thing. + +We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to +suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, +Presidents' messages, and Congress, for the last dozen years, lest we +endanger the safety of the Union. The true danger to popular forms of +government begins when public opinion ceases because the people are +incompetent or unwilling to think. In a democracy it is the duty of +every citizen to think; but unless the thinking result in a definite +opinion, and the opinion lead to considerate action, they are nothing. +If the people are assumed to be incapable of forming a judgment for +themselves, the men whose position enables them to guide the public +mind ought certainly to make good their want of intelligence. But on +this great question, the wise solution of which, we are every day +assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no +opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion +prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections +have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which +support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the +election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back +peace to the distracted country. The distracted country will continue +to take care of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question +that needs an answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous +future to the helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or +mar for all coming time? What will save the country from a Senate and +Supreme Court where freedom shall be forever at a disadvantage? + +There is always a fallacy in the argument of the opponents of the +Republican party. They affirm that all the States and all the citizens +of the States ought to have equal rights in the Territories. +Undoubtedly. But the difficulty is that they cannot. The slaveholder +moves into a new Territory with his _institution_, and from that +moment the free white settler is virtually excluded. _His_ +institutions he cannot take with him; they refuse to root themselves +in soil that is cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; +the post-office is Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may +be enough to hang him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free +States are being driven out and murdered for pretended complicity in a +plot the evidence for the existence of which has been obtained by +means without a parallel since the trial of the Salem witches, and the +stories about which are as absurd and contradictory as the confessions +of Goodwife Corey. Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the +experience of Kansas that disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's +panacea of "Squatter Sovereignty." + +The claim of _equal_ rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. +Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every +inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. +For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,--that +their _local law_ be made the law of the land, and coextensive with +the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no +unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; +and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law +makes property," (confounding a law existing anywhere with the law +which is binding everywhere,) can deceive only those who have either +never read the Constitution or are ignorant of the opinions and +intentions of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where +slavery already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery +are well aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by +positive enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of +existence for their institution in the Territories,--a title which +they do not possess, and the possession of which would give them the +oyster and the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for +to protect Southern property in the Territories,--that is, to protect +the inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of +government shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion +of our national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the +Non-Slave-holding States fail to do their duty in the present crisis. + +But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a +little remarkable, that, as the prospect of his success increases, the +menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W.L. Yancey, +to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without +him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But +Governor Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at +Washington,--perhaps because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. +The old Mumbo-Jumbo is occasionally paraded at the North, but, however +many old women may be frightened, the pulse of the stock-market +remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right +of the late Mr. James the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on +the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, +some thinking that it means a Military Despot--though in that case the +force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,--and others the Pony +Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would +have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry of +Disunion has lost its terrors, if it ever had any, at the North. The +South itself seems to have become alarmed at its own scarecrow, and +speakers there are beginning to assure their hearers that the election +of Mr. Lincoln will do them no harm. We entirely agree with them, for +it will save them from themselves. + +To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb +the existing internal policy of the Southern States possible +presupposes a manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could +take place, the country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But +there is no premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we +except Mr. Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset +will hardly turn the continent head over heels. The administration of +Mr. Lincoln will be conservative, because no government is ever +intentionally otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines +the foundation on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is +that influence in the councils of the nation to which they are justly +entitled by their population, wealth, and intelligence. That these +elements of prosperity have increased more rapidly among them than in +communities otherwise organized, with greater advantages of soil, +climate, and mineral productions, is certainly no argument that they +are incapable of the duties of efficient and prudent administration, +however strong a one it may be for their endeavoring to secure for the +Territories the single superiority that has made them what they are. +The object of the Republican party is not the abolition of African +slavery, but the utter extirpation of dogmas which are the logical +sequence of the attempts to establish its righteousness and wisdom, +and which would serve equally well to justify the enslavement of every +white man unable to protect himself. They believe that slavery is a +wrong morally, a mistake politically, and a misfortune practically, +wherever it exists; that it has nullified our influence abroad and +forced us to compromise with our better instincts at home; that it has +perverted our government from its legitimate objects, weakened the +respect for the laws by making them the tools of its purposes, and +sapped the faith of men in any higher political morality than interest +or any better statesmanship than chicane. They mean in every lawful +way to hem it within its present limits. + +We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than +anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved +both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in +public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a +politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in +the eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced +public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close. He +represents a party who know that true policy is gradual in its +advances, that it is conditional and not absolute, that it must deal +with facts and not with sentiments, but who know also that it is wiser +to stamp out evil in the spark than to wait till there is no help but +in fighting fire with fire. They are the only conservative party, +because they are the only one based on an enduring principle, the only +one that is not willing to pawn tomorrow for the means to gamble with +today. They have no hostility to the South, but a determined one to +doctrines of whose ruinous tendency every day more and more convinces +them. + +The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like +those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon +with his glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an +anachronism of summer, the relic of a bygone world where such monsters +swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work +against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, +fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous +devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant +sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no +trace but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed +boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in +the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and +believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually +before it. "All the earth cries out upon Truth, and the heaven +blesseth it; ill works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no +unrighteous thing." + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +_History of Flemish Literature_. By OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, LL. D. 8vo. +London. John Murray. 1860. + +"When I write in Danish," says Oehlenschläger, "I write for only six +hundred persons." And so, in view of this somewhat exaggerated +statement, he himself translated his best works into the more favored +and more widely spread Germanic idiom. It requires a certain amount of +courage in an author to write in his own native tongue only, when he +knows that he thereby limits the number of his readers. We see in our +own days, among the Sclavonic races, men whose writings breathe the +most ardent patriotism, whose labors and researches are all +concentrated within the sphere of their nationality, publishing, not +in their own Polish, Czechish, or Serbian, but in German or French. + +The history of language shows us a two-fold tendency,--one of +divergence from some common stem, followed by one of concentration, of +unity, in the literature. Thus, in France, the _Langue d'Oïl_ +superseded the richer and more melodious Provençal; in Spain the +Castilian predominated; while for several centuries it has been the +steady tendency of the High-German to become the language of letters +and of the upper classes among the various Teutonic races. Since the +Bible-translation of Luther, this central dialect has not only become +the medium in which poet and philosopher, historian and critic address +the nation, but it may be said to have entirely superseded the +Northern and Southern forms. Whatever local or linguistic interest may +be manifested for the works of Groth in the Ditmarsch _Platt-Deutsch_, +or for the sweet Alemannic songs of Hebel, the centralizing tongue is +that in which Schiller and Goethe wrote. + +The allied Danish and Dutch have escaped this ingulfing process. The +former, instead of retreating, seeks in the present to enlarge its +circuit; and great are the complaints in Schleswig-Holstein of the +arbitrary and despotic imposition of Danish on a State of the German +Confederation. The present government of Holland has not remained +inactive. Much has been done to encourage men of letters and +counteract the Gallic influences which prevailed in the early part of +the century. + +But the Flemings speaking nearly the same language as their Protestant +neighbors, where is their literature now? The language itself, in +which are handed down to us some of the masterpieces of the Middle +Ages, as "Reynard the Fox" and "Gudrun," is disregarded, even +discountenanced, by Government. It is with a feeling of sadness that +we read the annals of a literature which met so many obstacles to its +progress. Despised by foreign rulers, thrust back by the Spanish +policy of the Duke of Alva, its authors exiled and seeking refuge in +other lands, its very existence has been a constant battling against +the inroads of more powerful neighbors. + +Surely, "if words be made of breath, and breath of life," there is +nothing a nation can hold more dear than its own tongue. Its laws, its +rulers, may change, its privileges and charters be wrenched from it, +but that remains as an heirloom, the first gift to the child, the last +and dearest treasure of the man. Perhaps nowhere more than in Flanders +do we meet with a systematic oppression of a vernacular idiom. From +the days of the contests with France, through the long Spanish +troubles and dominion, the military occupation of the country by the +troops of Louis XIV., the Austrian rule, the levelling tendency of the +French Revolution, and the present aping of French manners by the +higher powers of the land,--through all this there has been but one +long, continuous struggle, and the ultimate result is now too plain. + +We find the Flemish spoken by nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of +Belgium, divided from the Walloon or _Rouchi-Fran ais_ by a line of +demarcation running from the Meuse through Liege and Waterloo, and +ending in France, between Calais and Dunkirk. It differs in no +material points from the Dutch, being essentially the same, if we +except slight differences in spelling, as _ae_ for _aa_, _ue_ for +_uu_, _y_ for _ij_. Both should bear but one common name, the +Netherlandish. That differences should be sought can be accounted for +only by the petty feeling of jealousy that exists between the +neighboring states, their literary productions varying in grammatical +construction scarcely more than the writings of English and American +authors. + +Mr. Octave Delepierre, who since 1830 has published some ten or twelve +monographs relating to the antiquities and history of Flanders, has +presented the English public during the course of the present year +with a history of Flemish literature. With an evident predilection for +authors south of the Meuse, Mr. Delepierre has nevertheless given us +the first clear and connected account we possess of the history of +letters in the Netherlands. Without careful or minute critical +research, he has shown little that is new, nor has he sought to clear +one point that was obscure. His work is pleasant reading, interspersed +with occasional translations, though scarcely answering the requisites +of literary history in the nineteenth century. Having followed the +older work of Snellaert [_Histoire de la Littérature Flamande_. +Bruxelles. 1654.], in the latter half of the volume, page for page, he +has not even mentioned by name the authors of the last quarter of a +century. + +Let us glance at that portion of literature more particularly +belonging to Flanders and Brabant. + +The first expressions of the Germanic mind, the song of "Hildebrand," +"Gudrun," the "Nibelungen," have been handed down to us in a form +which shows their origin to have been Netherlandish. The first part of +"Gudrun" is evidently so; and we find, as well in many of the older +poems of chivalry, as "Charles and Elegast," "Floris and +Blanchefloer," as in the national epos, intrinsic proofs that the +unknown authors were from the regions of the Lower Rhine. These elder +remnants, however, can scarcely be claimed by any one of the Teutonic +races, as they are the common property of all; for we find the hero +Siegfried in the Scandinavian Saga, as well as in the more southern +tradition. Mr. Delepierre has translated the following song, almost +Homeric in its form, which belongs to this early period, when +Christianity had not obliterated the memories of barbarous days:-- + + "The Lord Halewyn knew a song: all those + who heard it were attracted towards him. + + "It was once heard by the daughter of the + King, who was so beloved by her parents. + + "She stood before her father: 'O father, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her mother: 'O mother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her sister: 'O sister, may + I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, sister, no! They who go to him + never come back again.' + + "She stood before her brother: 'O brother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Little care I where thou goest, provided + thou preservest thine honor and thy crown. + + "She goes up into her chamber; she clothes + herself in her best garments. + + "What does she put on first? A shift finer + than silk. + + "What does she gird round her lovely + waist? Strong bands of gold. + + "What does she put upon her scarlet petticoat? + On every seam a golden button. + + "What does she set on her beautiful fair + hair? A massive golden crown. + + "What does she put upon her kirtle? On + every seam a pearl. + + "She goes into her father's stable, and takes + out his best charger. She mounts him proudly, + and so, laughing and singing, rides through + the forest. When she reaches the middle of + the forest, she meets the Lord Halewyn. + + "'Hail!' said he, approaching her, 'hail, + beautiful virgin, with eyes so black and brilliant!' + + "They proceed together, chatting as they go. + + "They arrive at a field in which stands a + gallows. The bodies of several women hang + from it. + + "The Lord Halewyn says to her: 'As you + are the loveliest of all virgins, say, how will + you die? The time is come.' + + "'It is well: as I may choose, I choose the + sword. + + "'But, first of all, take off your tunic; for + the blood of a virgin gushes out so far, that it + might reach you, and I should be sorry.' + + "But before he had divested himself of his + tunic, his head rolled off and lay at his feet: + his lips still murmured these words: + + "'Go down there into that corn-field, and blow + the horn, so that my friends may hear it.' + + "'Into that corn-field I shall not go, neither + shall I blow the horn. I do not follow the counsel + of a murderer.' + + "'Go, then, down under the gallows, and + gather the balm which you shall find there, + and spread it over my bloody throat.' + + "'Under the gallows I shall not go; on your + bloody throat I shall spread no balm. I do + not follow the counsel of a murderer.' + + "She took up the head by the hair, and + washed it at a clear fountain. + + "She mounted her charger proudly, and, + laughing and singing, she rode through the + forest. + + "When she reached the middle of the forest, + she met the mother of Halewyn. 'Beautiful + virgin, have you not seen my son?' + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is gone + hunting: you will never see him again. + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is dead. I + have his head in my apron, which is red with + his blood.' + + "And when she arrived at her father's gate, + she blew the horn like a man. + + "And when her father saw her, he rejoiced + at her return. + + "He celebrated it by a feast, and the head + of Halewyn was placed on the table." + +Flemish writers claim as entirely their own that epic of the people, +"Reynard the Fox." Their right to it was long contested; nor has +anything been done since the labors of Willems, who, in opposition to +the opinion of William Grimm, settles the authorship of the "Reinaert +de Vos" on Utenhove, a priest of Aerdenburg. It seems natural to +suppose that this most popular of Middle-Age productions should have +originated in the very region which later gave to the world a school +of painting that incarnated on canvas the phases of animal life, +taking its delight and best inspirations in the burlesque side of +human passions. + +In its first period, Flemish literature found some encouragement from +its princes. John I. of Brabant fostered it, and even took, himself, +the title of Flemish Troubadour. Under Guy of Dampierre, who neither +in heart nor mind was sympathetic with the people he ruled, we find +Maerlant, still revered by his country; his name is ever coupled with +the epithet of Father of Flemish Poets. Didactic rather than poetical, +his influence was great in breaking down the barriers which separated +the people from the higher classes, by adapting to their own +home-idiom the best productions of the age. About this period we find +prevalent those Northern singers corresponding to the _Trouvères_, +_Troubadours_, and _Jongleurs_. They are in Flanders the _Spreker_, +_Segger_, and _Vinder_, who, when travelling through the country, took +the name of _Gezel_, received in town or village, court or hamlet, as +the wandering minstrel of the South. The golden age when sovereigns +doffed their royal robes to lay them on the shoulders of some +sweet-singing poet, as the old chronicles tell us, was of short +duration in the North, if ever the _Sproken_ or erotic poems may be +said to have brought their authors into such favor. On the other hand, +we find some of the wanderers arrested for theft and other crimes. + +Little light has been thrown on their first ante-historical attempts. +Until the late labors of German philologers, little had been done to +clear up the confusion resting on this period of literary history. As +yet the field has scarcely been explored beyond the regions not +immediately connected with the literature of Germany. We have long +historical poems of little interest, arranged without +order,--interminable productions of thousands and ten thousands of +lines of uncertain date, didactic and encyclopedia-like, besides +unmistakable remnants of a Netherlandish theatre. + +The battle of Roosebeke, where the second Artevelde and his companions +succumbed to superior numbers, was the last great enterprise of the +Flemings against the French. Half a century earlier, a strong league +had been formed against these powerful neighbors. In the interior, the +country was divided into factions,--the partisans and enemies of +France. Prominent were the _Clauwaerts_ and the _Leliarts_, from the +lion's claw and the _fleur-de-lis_ which they respectively wore on +their badges. The country, which has ever been one of the +battle-fields of Europe, was abandoned to all the horrors of civil +war. The Duke of Brabant was childless. The Count of Flanders gave his +daughter, his only legitimate child, in marriage to the Duke of +Burgundy; and the provinces soon came into the hands of those +ambitious and restless enemies of the Court of France. It may easily +be imagined that these events were not without their influence on a +language deteriorated on the one hand by constant contact with a +Romanic idiom, and in Holland by the transmission of the sovereign +crown to the House of Avesnes. + +The "Chambers of Rhetoric," an institution peculiar to the Low +Countries, reached their highest point of prosperity under the +Burgundian rule. The wandering life of poets and authors had nearly +ceased. The _Gezellen_, settled in towns, and moved by the prevalent +spirit which prompted men of one calling to unite into bodies, +naturally fell into corporations analogous to the Guilds. Without +attaching any very definite or clear idea to the term Rhetoric which +they employed, these associations exerted great influence upon the +whole literature of the Netherlands. Many would date their origin as +far back as the early part of the twelfth century. In Alost, the +Catherinists claimed to have existed as early as 1107, on the mere +strength of their motto, AMOR VINCIT. At any rate, we are left +entirely to conjecture with regard to the first beginnings of these +literary guilds, which seem in many respects an imitation of the +poetical societies of Provence. Every poet of note was a participant +in them. In Flanders there was scarcely a town or village that did not +possess its Chamber. Brabant, Holland, Zealand soon followed in the +movement. One of the principal, the Fountain of Ghent, seems to have +exercised a certain supremacy over the other confraternities of art. + +The proceedings of these companies, protected at first by princes, +were carried on with great magnificence. They were in constant +communication with each other throughout the country. Their _facteurs_ +or poets composed songs and theatrical pieces, which were performed by +the members. They had a long array of officers, with princely names; +and none was complete without a jester. Their larger assemblies were +accompanied with long festivities, the solemn entry into a town or +village being styled _Landjuweel_ (Landjewel). The nobility mingled in +them, incited by the example of Henry IV. of Brabant or +Philippe-le-Bel. The wealth of the Netherlands was displayed on these +solemnities, and the citizens rivalled their monarchs in magnificence. +The burghers of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp shone, on these +occasions, in the gaudy pomp of princely patricians. All were invited +to take part and dispute the prizes awarded by fair hands. + +It can scarcely be expected that these guilds, composed in many cases +of mechanics, should give rise to works of the highest order of merit. +Their dramatic representations were rather gorgeous than tasteful, +their attempts at wit little better than buffoonery, their humor mere +personal vituperation. Yet even in matters of taste they are not much +inferior to the then more pretentious academies of other lands. It was +an age of long religious dramas, of tortured rhymes and impossible +metres, when strange and new versification imported from France found +favor among a people whose silks and linens and rich tapestries were +destined to reach a wider circulation than all the poetical effusions +of their guilds, the "Lily," the "Violet," and the "Jesus with the +Balsam Flower." + +It was Philip the Fair who, wishing to centralize the scattered +efforts of these societies, established at Malines, in 1493, a +sovereign chamber, of which he appointed his chaplain, Pierre Aelters, +_sovereign prince_. With an admixture of religion, in accordance with +the spirit of the Middle Ages, the sacred number was fifteen. There +were fifteen members. Fifteen young girls were to form part of it, in +honor of the fifteen joys of Mary. Fifteen youths were instructed in +the art of rhetoric, and the assemblies were held fifteen times a +year. Charles V. was the last chief of this assembly, which had +previously been removed to Ghent. In 1577 it greeted the arrival of +the Prince of Orange, but this was its last sign of vitality. + +The Chambers of Rhetoric reached their climax in a time of +fermentation. The impatience, the feeling of uneasiness and restraint, +is felt in the drama of these days, which was wholly under the control +of the Chambers. The stage, that "mirror of the times," is often the +first manifestation of the unquiet heaving and subsequent up-bubbling +in the fluid compost of the mass that constitutes a nation. When +freely developed, it is the pulse-beat of the people. And so, +throughout the Netherlands, at the end of the fifteenth century and +the beginning of the sixteenth, we find the allegorical drama giving +way to more definite and direct personations. Those cold +representations of vices and virtues, of vice in its nakedness, such +as to render the reading, when not absolutely tedious, distasteful, to +say the least, to our modern ideas,--all such aimless productions were +giving way to the conscious expression of satire. Diatribes against +prevalent abuses, personal invectives scarcely veiled, were fast +becoming the order of the day. It is no wonder, then, that the guilds, +which had found favor formerly, should gradually be crushed, in +proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among +the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The +_refrain_ was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the +expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic +party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under +Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her +poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, and were +read as masterpieces till the middle of the last century. + +A taste for religious writing prevailed in the Netherlands throughout +the sixteenth century. William van Zuylen van Nyevelt first published +a collection of the Psalms of David. These, in imitation of the French +Calvinists, were sung to the most popular melodies. Zuylen found many +imitators. The Catholic party composed songs in opposition to the +Reformers; and we have psalms and songs by Utenhove, the painters Luc +de Heere and Van Mander, by Van Haecht and Fruytiers. A long list of +obscure names, if we except those of Marnix and Houwaert, is mentioned +as belonging to this period,--their works mostly didactic or +controversial. Houwaert, a Catholic, one of the avowed friends and +partisans of the Prince of Orange, courted the Muses in the hottest +days of civil strife. He published a poem, in sixteen cantos, entitled +"The Gardens of the Virgins," tending to show the dangers to which the +fair sex is exposed, and condemning as unreal all love not centred in +God. With a remarkable fertility of composition he possesses an +uncommon smoothness of versification, combined with a power, so +successful in his age, of illustration from history or romance, from +the sacred writings or the legendary lore of the people. The work was +received in those days of trouble with unbounded enthusiasm. Brabant +was thought to have given birth to a new Homer. His praises resounded +in verse and song, and the young girls of Brussels crowned him with +laurel. + +The government of the Duke of Alva, and the succeeding years of +revolution, were a period of desolation for Flanders. The Guilds of +Rhetoric were dispersed; town after town was depopulated; Ghent, the +loved city of Charles V., lost six thousand families; Leyden, +Amsterdam, Haerlem, Gouda, afforded refuge to the emigrants. The +golden age of literary activity is about to dawn in the Dutch +republic. In the other provinces the national language is more and +more neglected. It gives umbrage to the foreign chiefs who act as +sovereigns. With it they identify all the opposition that has +prevailed against them. Archduke Albert carries his condescension no +farther than to address in High-German such of his subjects as can +speak only Flemish. His Walloons he treats with no more civility, +answering them but in Spanish or Latin. Ymmeloot, lord of Steenbrugge, +a native of Ypres, endeavors in 1614 to stem the current of opposition +and reawaken a love for letters. He suggests many reforms in the +versification, and gives the example. He is followed by many, and +Ypres becomes for a time a centre of versifiers. But the spirit of +originality has flown, and the literature of Holland is enriched with +the name of many a Fleming who preferred exile to the new rule. + +In 1618, the General Synod of Dordrecht decreed that a new translation +of the Bible should be undertaken. Two Flemings, Baudaert and Walaeus, +and two Dutchmen, Bogerman and Hommius, completed it. Like the work of +Luther, this tended in a great measure to fix the language, preventing +the preponderance of one dialect over the other. + +Foreign imitation begins to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq +constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary +quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An +action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest _patois_ of +Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage +the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms. +His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to +represent vice on the stage, as the Romans formerly on certain days +intoxicated their slaves and showed them to their children, in order +that they might at an early age become inspired with a disgust for +debauchery." Yet his comedies enjoyed the highest favor, and have been +pronounced by native critics among the most remarkable and meritorious +productions of the epoch. They are ever distinguished by vivacity, +truth, and fidelity, in depicting the many-sided life of the people. +He seems to have been a literary Ostade or Teniers, with less of +ingenuousness and good-nature in the portraiture. + +In the mean time the French language continues to gain ground every +day. In Brussels, native authors seek in vain to oppose the +encroachments of the "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but, +save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers, +and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations. +Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly +style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious +ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;--the country, +after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of +inaction. + +Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing. Its poets and +historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the +poet of the people. Bruges, in the eighteenth century, produces two +writers of merit,--Smidts and Labare. In French Flanders, De Swaen +adapts from Corneille, and publishes original dramas. Many songs are +composed both in the northern and southern provinces, mostly of a +religious character. Philologers seek to revive the neglected idiom +with little success. But the century is blank of great names. The +Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres, established at Brussels by +Maria Theresa, was composed of members totally unacquainted with the +Flemish. It took no notice of the language beyond publishing a few +prize-memoirs in its annals. The German barons who ruled cared little +for their own tongue: how should they have manifested interest in that +of their Belgian subjects? The subsequent French domination was no +improvement. On the 13th of June, 1803, it was decreed by the +Republic,--"In a year, reckoning from the publication of this present +ordinance, the public acts, in the departments once called Belgium, +... in those on the left bank of the Rhine, ... where the custom of +drawing up acts in the language of those countries may have been +preserved, are henceforth to be written in French." The Bonaparte rule +was not of a nature to restore former privileges. In spite of the +feeble remonstrances that were urged against such arbitrary measures, +an imperial decree of 1812 enjoined that all Flemish papers should +appear with a French translation. + +Under the rule of King William, vigorous measures were employed to +reinstate the native idiom. At first warmly seconded, Government soon +met with an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects. The Dutch +was combated by those connected with education. It was ridiculed by +the Walloon population. Since the independence of Belgium, the +_mouvement flamand_ has been felt more than once by the would-be +French rulers. In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the +members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were +addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little avail. At +present, though the language is nominally on a par with French, it +meets with little encouragement. The philological labors of Willems +entitle him to a place among the greatest of the present century; he +was until his death the leader of the intellectual movement of his +country. + +Of later authors, we may mention the laureate Ledeganck, Henri +Conscience, whose works have now been translated into English, French, +German, Danish, and Swedish, Renier Snieders, Van Duyse, Dantzenberg. +Modern literature seems to have taken a new flight; it is animated by +the purest love of country, by an ardent desire in its authors to +revive the use of their native tongue. The tendency is rather +Germanic. At the Singers' Festival, held in Ghent a short time ago, +the songs sung breathed a spirit of union and love for the sister +languages. As a fair sample, we may quote the following:-- + + "Welaen, Germaen en Belg tezaem ten stryd + Voor vryheid, tael en vaderland! + De vaen van't duïtsch en vlaemsche zangverbond + Prael op't gentsch eeregoud! + Wy willen vry zyn, als de adelaer + Die stout op eigen wieken dryft, + Voor wien er slechts een koestring is, de zon. + Alom waer der Germanen tael + Zich heft en bloeid en't volk, + Daer is ons vaderland!" + + * * * * * + + +_The Glaciers of the Alps_. Being a Narrative of Excursions and +Ascents, an Account of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers, and an +Exposition of the Physical Principles to which they are related. By +JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., etc., etc. With Illustrations. London: John +Murray. 1860. pp. xx., 444. + +Our readers are probably aware that the question of the causes of +glacier formation and motion, cool as the subject may seem in itself, +has demonstrated the existence of a great deal of latent heat among +scientific men. In England, the so-called _viscous_ theory of +Professor J.D. Forbes held for a long while undisputed possession of +the field. According to him, "a glacier is an imperfect fluid, or +viscous body, which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by +the mutual pressure of its parts." With that impartial +superciliousness to all foreign achievement which not seldom +characterizes the British mind, the credit of all the results of +observation and experiment on the glaciers was attributed to Professor +Forbes, who seems to have accepted it with delightful complacency. But +presently doubt, then unbelief, and at last downright opposition began +to show themselves. The leader of the revolt was Professor Tyndall, +whose book is now before us. The controversy has begotten no little +bitterness of feeling; but none is shown in Mr. Tyndall's volume, +which is throughout written in the truest spirit of science,--with the +earnest frankness that becomes a seeker of truth, and the dignity that +befits a lover of it. + +Not content with any theoretic antagonism to the Forbes explanation of +the phenomena, Mr. Tyndall devoted all the leisure of several years to +an examination of them on the spot. At the risk of his life, he +verified the previous observations of others and made new ones +himself. At home, he made experiments upon the nature of ice, +especially upon its capacity for regulation and the effect of pressure +upon it. He satisfied himself that snow may be changed to ice by +pressure, that crumbled ice may in like manner be restored to its +original condition, and that solid ice may be forced to take any form +desired. Under proper conditions, lamination may be produced by the +same means. The result of his investigations is, that the glacier is a +solid body, and that _pressure_ answers all the requirements of the +glacier-problem, and is the only thing that will. + +The book is one of uncommon interest, and discusses many topics beside +the glaciers, though nothing that is not in some way related to them. +Mr. Tyndall does justice to former investigators,--especially to M. +Rendu, who, though imperfectly supplied with demonstrated facts, +theorized the phenomena with the happiest inspiration,--and to +Agassiz, of whose important observations, establishing for the first +time the fact of more rapid motion in the middle of the glacier, +Professor Forbes had appropriated the credit. The style is remarkably +agreeable, in description vivid, and in its scientific parts clear. +Indeed, we do not know whether we have enjoyed the narrative or the +science the most. Professor Tyndall has the uncommon gift of being +able to write science so that the unscientific can understand it, +without descending to the low level of science made easy. The Royal +Institution may well congratulate itself on having in him a man every +way qualified to succeed Faraday, whenever (and may it be long first!) +his chair is vacant. + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +MR. JARVES'S COLLECTION. + +It seems an odd turn in the kaleidoscope of Fortune that associates a +Prime Minister of the Sandwich Islands--where the only pictorial Art +is a kind of illumination laboriously executed by the natives on each +other's skins, thus forming a free peripatetic gallery--with a +collection of pictures by early Italian masters. It is certainly a +striking illustration of American multifariousness. From the dawning +civilization of Hawaii Mr. Jarves withdraws to Italy, where culture +has passed far beyond its noon, and finds himself equally at home in +both. From Italy he has returned to America with by far the most +important contribution to historical Art that has ever reached us. It +is not easy to overestimate its value, whether intrinsically, or as an +aid to intelligent and refining study. We can hardly expect, it is +true, ever to form such collections of Art in this country as would +save our students the necessity of visiting Europe. This, indeed, +would be hardly desirable; since a great deal of the refining and +enlightening influence of foreign travel and observation is not +received directly from the special objects that may have drawn us +abroad, but incidentally and unexpectedly, by being brought into +contact with strange systems of government and new forms of thought. +But what we might have is such a collection as would enable those of +us who cannot travel to enjoy some of the highest aesthetic advantages +of travel, and would send our students to the galleries of the Old +World already in a condition to appreciate and profit by them. Mr. +Jarves's pictures afford the opportunity for an excellent beginning in +such an undertaking. + +Mr. Jarves's object has been to form a gallery that should exhibit the +origin, progress, and culmination of Italian Art from the thirteenth +to the seventeenth century, in such chronological order as should show +the sequence and affiliation of the various schools and the various +motive and inspiration that were operative in them. To quote his own +language, Mr. Jarves began his undertaking with no "expectation of +acquiring masterpieces, or many, if any, of those specimens upon which +the reputation of the great masters is based. These are in the main +either fixtures in their native localities or permanently absorbed +into the great galleries of Europe; and America may scarcely hope ever +to possess such. He did propose, however, to get together a collection +which should _fairly_ represent the varied qualities of the masters +themselves, and the phases of inspiration, religious, aesthetic, or +naturalistic, by which they were actuated. And he claims now to have +succeeded in this to an extent which in the outset he did not dare to +hope, and to have secured for the collection the approving verdict of +European taste and connoisseurship in the recognition of it as a +_valuable historical gallery of original paintings of the epochs and +schools they claim to represent_. + +"In putting forward this claim, he does it in full view of the +character of the criticism and doubts such an assumption naturally +begets. The public are right in doubting; and they should not be +convinced except upon sound evidence. Therefore, while he +unhesitatingly claims for the collection the foregoing character, he +expects and invites from the public the fullest measure of impartial +and intelligent criticism. + +"The object of the collection is a nucleus for an American Gallery, to +be established in the most fitting place and upon a broad basis, +sufficient to gratify and improve every variety of taste and to +advance the aesthetic culture of the people. + +"With this aim, he has declined repeated overtures pecuniarily +advantageous to divert it in whole or part to other purposes; and in +bringing it to America at his own risk and expense, it is solely to +test the disposition of the public to second such a project. If it +meet their approbation, the means best adapted for the purpose are to +be maturely considered; but if otherwise, it is his intention to +return the gallery to Europe. + +"It is a simple question, whether, after having had the opportunity of +becoming acquainted with the collection and his object in making it, +the American public will sustain perfect this humble beginning of a +Public Gallery of Art, or abandon the formation of one to future +chances, when the difficulties will be much greater and the +opportunities for success much fewer. It must be considered, that, at +this moment, while genuine works of Art are growing more and more +difficult to be procured, the rivalry of public and private collectors +is rapidly increasing. It is true that the existing great galleries +come into the market only for pictures specially wanted to fill some +important gap in their series, for which they pay prices that would +startle our public economists. America will have to undergo the +competition, even if she now enters this field, of several important +foreign galleries in the process of formation, among which are those +of Manchester, with a subscribed capital, _as a beginning_, of +£100,000; of the Association of St. Petersburg, for the same purpose, +under the patronage of the Imperial Family; and of one even in +Australia." + +Mr. Jarves's collection is not confined by any means to what may be +called the _curiosities_ of Art. It contains one hundred and +twenty-five pictures; and, rich as it is in works that mark the +successive stages of development in Italian painting, it possesses +also specimens of its later and most perfect productions. Examples of +the pure Byzantine bring us to those of the Greco-Italian school, and +these to the early Italian, represented (in its Umbrian branch) by +Cimabue, by Giotto and his followers, the Gaddi, Cavallini, Giottino, +Orgagna, and others; while of the Sienese we have Duccio, Simone di +Martino, and Lorenzetti, with more of less note. Of the Ascetics we +have, among others, Frà Angelico, Castagno, and Giovanni di Paolo. The +Realists are ushered in by Masolino, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, and go +on in an unbroken series through Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and +Cosimo Roselli, to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Leonardo, Raffaello, and a +design of Michel Angelo, painted by one of his pupils. Nor does the +succession end here; Andrea del Sarto, R. Ghirlandajo, Vasari, +Bronzino, Pontormo, and others, follow. Of the Religionists, there are +Lorenzo di Credi, Frà Bartolommeo, Perugino, and their scholars. The +progress of landscape, history, and anatomical drawing may be traced +in Paolo Uccello, Dello Delli, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, the +Pollajuoli, and Luca Signorelli. Here also is Gentile da Fabriano. +Venice gives us G. Bellini, M. Basaiti, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese. +And of the later Sienese, there are Sodoma, Matteo da Siena, and +Beccafumi. The list includes, also, Domenichino, Sebastian del Piombo, +Guido, Salvator Rosa, Holbein, Rubens, and Lo Spagna. + +The names we have cited will be enough to show those familiar with the +subject the scope of the collection and its value as a consecutive +series, embracing a period which few galleries in any country cover so +completely, since few have been gathered on any historical plan. + +The chief question, of course, is as to the authenticity of the +pictures. This cannot be decided till they are exhibited and Mr. +Jarves's proofs are before the public. It is mainly to be decided on +internal evidence, and it is on such evidence that a great part of the +very early pictures in foreign collections have been labelled with the +names of particular artists. The weight of such evidence is to be +determined by the judgment of experts, and we are informed that Mr. +Jarves has a mass of testimony from those best qualified to decide in +such cases,--among it that of Sir Charles Eastlake, M. Rio, and the +directors of the two great public galleries of Florence. After all, +however, this appears to us a matter of secondary consequence. If the +pictures are genuine productions of the periods they are intended to +illustrate, if they are good specimens of their several schools of +Art, the special names of the artists who may have painted them are a +matter of less concern. The money-value of the collection might be +lessened without affecting its worth in other more considerable +respects, as an illustration of the rise and progress of the most +important school of modern Art. + +Every year it becomes more difficult to obtain pictures of the class +of which Mr. Jarves's collection is mainly composed. The directors of +European galleries have become alive to their value, and are sparing +no effort to fill the _lacuna_ left by the more strictly _virtuoso_ +taste of a former generation. As far as the general public is +concerned, such pictures must, no doubt, create the taste by which +they will be appreciated. The style of the more archaic ones among +them may be easily ridiculed, and the cry of Pre-Raphaelitism may be +turned against them; but we should not forget that these earlier +efforts, however they might fail in grace of treatment and ease of +expression, are sincere and genuine products of their time, and very +different in spirit and character from the productions of the modern +school, which aims to reproduce a phase of Art when the thought and +faith that animated it are gone past recall. + +Mr. Jarves is desirous that the gallery should remain in his native +city of Boston, and to that end is willing to part with it on very +generous terms. We cannot but hope that there will be taste and public +spirit enough to realize his design. By the side of the Museum of +Natural History under the charge of Agassiz, we should like to see one +of Art that would supply another great want in our culture. The Jarves +Collection gives the opportunity for a most successful beginning, and +we trust it will not be allowed to follow the Ninevite Marbles. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Rosa; or the Parisian Girl. From the French of Madame de Pressensé. By +Mrs. J.C. Fletcher. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 371. 60 +cts. + +The Sunny South; or the Southerner at Home. Embracing Five Years' +Experience of a Northern Governess in the Land of the Sugar and the +Cotton. Edited by Professor J.H. Ingraham of Mississippi. +Philadelphia. George G. Evans. 12mo. pp. 526. $1.25. + +A Greek Grammar, for Schools and Colleges. By James Hadley, Professor +in Yale College. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 366. $1.25. + +Life of William T. Porter. By Francis Brinley. New York. D. Appleton & +Co. 12mo. pp. 273. $1.00. + +Virgil's Aeneid; with Explanatory Notes. By Henry S. Frieze, Professor +of Latin in the State University of Michigan. New York. D. Appleton & +Co. 12mo. pp. 598. $1.25. + +What may be Learned from a Tree. By Harland Coultas, Author of +"Organic Life the same in Animals as in Plants," etc. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 190. $1.00. + +Wilkins Wylder; or the Successful Man. By Stephen F. Miller, Author of +"The Bench and Bar of Georgia." Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. +12mo. pp. 420. $1.00. + +Italy in Transition. Public Scenes and Private Opinions in the Spring +of 1860. Illustrated by Official Documents from the Papal Archives of +the Revolted Legations. By William Arthur, A.M., Author of "The +Successful Merchant." New York. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 429. +$1.00. + +Chapters on Wives. By Mrs. Ellis, Author Of "Mothers of Great Men." +New York. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 358. + +The Woman in White. A Novel. By Wilkie Collins, Author of "The Queen +of Hearts," "After Dark," etc. Illustrated by John McLenan. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.--No. XXXVI. + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 28, 2004 [EBook #10854] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Keith M. Eckrich, and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. VI.--OCTOBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVI. + + * * * * * + + +SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS. + +BY A TOURIST WITHOUT IMAGINATION OR ENTHUSIASM. + +We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour +were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a +flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, +where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after +their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up +to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called +mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at +the station there. + +Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully +hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily +adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring +our way to the residence of Burns. The street leading from the station +is called Shakspeare Street; and at its farther extremity we read +"Burns Street" on a corner house,--the avenue thus designated having +been formerly known as "Mill Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with +small, hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean +houses of white-washed stone, joining one to another along the whole +length of the street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass +between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and +reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed +children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some +women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their +wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a +poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man +of cleanly predilections to spend his days. + +We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street +to a two-story house, built of stone, and white-washed, like its +neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most +of them, though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate +structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was +an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but +indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial +school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who +smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low +and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. + +A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon +appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room, +and that he had written many of his songs here. + +She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bed-chamber over +the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or +windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber +itself was the one where he slept in his latter life-time, and in +which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable +place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more +unsatisfactory than Shakspeare's house, which has a certain homely +picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness +of the abode before us. The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the +contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the +steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the +poet's memory less fragrant. + +As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the +house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, +it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched +outskirt above described. Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries +guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,) +we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the +mausoleum of Burns. + +Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and, +scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was +crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are +peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other +stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling +the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these +sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty +feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed +with names of small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to +ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the +custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner," +"Shoemaker," "Flesher") on his tombstone. As another peculiarity, +wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of their husbands; +thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have +bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave. + +There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently +well-worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed +behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was +privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian +temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty +feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the +Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares +of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the +structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the +interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of +Burns,--the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, +before this monument was built. Stuck against the surrounding wall is +a marble statue of Burns at the plough, with the Genius of Caledonia +summoning the ploughman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very +successful piece of work; for the plough was better sculptured than +the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, was more effective +than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who +knew Burns, certifies, this statue to be very like the original. + +The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their +children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was +intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) +said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of +the burial of the eldest son of Burns. The poet's bones were +disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful +thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for +several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a +new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. We learned that there is +a surviving daughter of Burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of +the two younger sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity +by the eldest son, who appears to have been of disreputable life in +his younger days. He inherited his father's failings, with some faint +shadow, I have also understood, of the great qualities which have made +the world tender of his father's vices and weaknesses. + +We listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it +robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due. +Indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and +effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just +previously. Beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings, +and picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these, +one does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have +failed to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a +disreputable, drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man, +consorting with associates of damaged character, and, as his only +ostensible occupation, gauging the whiskey which he too often tasted. +Siding with Burns, as we needs must, in his plea against the world, +let us try to do the world a little justice too. It is far easier to +know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape in the +spotlessness of marble than when the actual man comes staggering +before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily life. For my +part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while +he was still living. There must have been something very grand in his +immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his +natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon. + +As we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly +four hundred inhabitants of Dumfries were buried during the cholera +year; and also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the +inscriptions on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to +puzzle them out; but, I believe, they mark the resting-places of old +Covenanters, some of whom were killed by Claverhouse and his +fellow-ruffians. + +St. Michael's Church is of red freestone, and was built about a +hundred years ago, on an old Catholic foundation. Our guide admitted +us into it, and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble +figure of a child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from +beneath which appeared its two baby feet. It was truly a sweet little +statue; and the woman told us that it represented a child of the +sculptor, and that the baby (here still in its marble infancy) had +died more than twenty-six years ago. "Many ladies," she said, +"especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." It +was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his +genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the +representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion +of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities. +A gentleman from London had seen the statue, and was so much delighted +with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain +above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. So this was not the +real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold +that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy +to replace it. The first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and +spiritual innocence. The copy, as I have said above, has a drapery +over the lower limbs. But, after all, if we come to the truth of the +matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly reposited in the +drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch. + +We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without +altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly +wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the +side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family-pew, +showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so +situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the +minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers," +said she. This touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself +nodding in sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought +him before us to the life. In the corner seat of the next pew, right +before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on +whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has +immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's +name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing +which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted +that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, +because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient. + +At the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for +the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got +into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile +to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, +one of the veriest country-inns which we have found in Great Britain. +The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any +other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly +white-washed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural +in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could +contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy +generations. The fashion of paving the village-street, and patching +one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all +verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a +more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's +time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about +midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in +its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred +edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most +characteristic productions,--"The Holy Fair." + +Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village-street, stands +Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter +is a two-story, redstone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means +venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned +windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or +eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it +might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole +town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses, +of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general +aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little +dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm +summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most +familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled +uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of +our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the +whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping +their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on +Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the +street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. Except in +some remote little town of Italy, (where, besides, the inhabitants had +the intelligible stimulus of beggary,) I have never been honored with +nearly such an amount of public notice. + +The next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church, +after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and, it being Sacrament +Sunday, and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a +closely filled pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of +four several sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate. +He was somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a +spectacle of Scotch manners identical with that of Burns's "Holy +Fair," on the very spot where the poet located that immortal +description. By way of further conformance to the customs of the +country, we ordered a sheep's head and the broth, and did penance +accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a fly, and set out for +Burns's farm of Moss Giel. + +Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends +over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes +on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to +point out a hawthorn, growing by the way-side, which he said was +Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, although I +have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been +celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately +came to the farm-house of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed +from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably +overshadowed by trees. The house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like +thousands of others in England and Scotland, with a thatched roof, on +which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien +growth. There is a door and one window in front, besides another +little window that peeps out among the thatch. Close by the cottage, +and extending back at right angles from it, so as to inclose the +farm-yard, are two other buildings of the same size, shape, and +general appearance as the house: any one of the three looks just as +fit for a human habitation as the two others, and all three look still +more suitable for donkey-stables and pig-sties. As we drove into the +farm-yard, bounded on three sides by these three hovels, a large dog +began to bark at us; and some women and children made their +appearance, but seemed to demur about admitting us, because the master +and mistress were very religious people, and had not yet come back +from the Sacrament at Mauchline. + +However, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of +Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling +visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we +went into the back-door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. +It showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there +were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years +old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the +people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about +us. Thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage +into the only other apartment below-stairs, a sitting-room, where we +found a young man eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did +not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way +home from church. This room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor +one, and, besides being all that the cottage had to show for a parlor, +it was a sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained +off, on occasion. The young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him +lay) to go upstairs. Up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought +us to the top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the +wretchedest little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof +under the thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. This, most +probably, was Burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of +his mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at +one time or another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight +tread. On the opposite side of the passage was the door of another +attic-chamber, opening which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses +on the floor. + +The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a +dunghill-odor, and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of +such a dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than +it appeared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe +about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics +into this narrowness and filth. Such a habitation is calculated to +make beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism +which I did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that a tiller of broad +fields, like the farmer of Mauchline, should have his abode in a +pig-sty. It is sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any +human being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his +home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, I never in the least +knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's genius, nor his heroic +merit for being no worse man, until I thus learned the squalid +hindrances amid which he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere, +and cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human +virtue. + +The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and +unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it +should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, +enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and +sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high +hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant +aspect enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the +interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall +remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it. + +Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told +us was that in which Burns turned up the mouse's nest. It is the +inclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a +rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was +whitened with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies, +everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was +the field where Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. If so, the +soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he +bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole +handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be +precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's +farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he +turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. + +From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of +which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. We skirted, +too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs +to the Boswell family,--the present possessor being Sir James Boswell, +[Sir James Boswell is now dead.] a grandson of Johnson's friend, and +son of the Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel. Our driver spoke of +Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and +similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that +poor Bozzy's booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his +ancient line. There is no male heir to the estate of Auchinleck. The +portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much +undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over +a large number of acres, is the income very considerable. + +By-and-by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass +of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge +that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from +bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the +young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth +and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest +truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her +womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. + +Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, +through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it +seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no +such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could +desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river +flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, +sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the +foot of high and precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of +Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's +song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people +ever attained it. How slight the tenure seems! A young lady happened +to walk out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a +neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in four or five +warm, rude,--at least, not refined, though rather ambitious,--and +somewhat ploughman-like verses. Burns has written hundreds of better +things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance +into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and all her race are +famous! I should like to know the present head of the family, and +ascertain what value, if any, they put upon the celebrity thus won. + +We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of +Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly +the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing +anything else worth writing about. + +There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the +rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while +frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days +past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a +stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found, +after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by, +and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely +ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through +the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief +business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are +perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell +only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of +village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an +extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the +churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead +people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular +and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless +there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by +her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline. + +Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely +gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to +be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of +Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy +of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old +gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old +family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a +fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed +proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named +Whitefoord. + +Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a +cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a +woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we +see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly +direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to +the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the +town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; +although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking +houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. +The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and +stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows +directly down into the passing tide. + +I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and +recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four +gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the +early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," +whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other +auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream +among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved +like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at +the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the +pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless +I mention, that, during the rain, the women and girls went about the +streets of Ayr barefooted to save their shoes. + +The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined +to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch +breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and +started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at +about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a road-side cottage, on which +was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its +walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and +entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a +neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls +are much over-scribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of +a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the +room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two +tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the +inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of +furniture. I have never (though I do not personally adopt this mode of +illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural +impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of +poets and heroes. + +On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait +of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of +this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute +for the ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one +other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is +the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, +even ruder than those of Shakspeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so +strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of +Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been +opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is +the little original window, of only four small panes, through which +came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side +of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, +which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in +the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest +human life which mankind then had within its circumference. + +These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance +of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; +and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and +sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The +cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and +description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a +splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began +to draw visitors to the way-side ale-house. The old woman of the house +led us through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast +dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splendid as +compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the +cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with +pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and +poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant +with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whiskey is here +quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed to draw so much of +his inspiration from that potent liquor. + +We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the +Monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A +very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and +to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds +within which the former is inclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of +the inclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because +the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to +assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared +anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at +the concluding ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns. + +The inclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an +ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and +shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an +elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, +above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,--a mere dome, +supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The +edifice is beautiful in itself; though I know not what peculiar +appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet. + +The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a +bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so +warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness +cannot be good. In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which +were reposited the two volumes of the little Pocket-Bible that Burns +gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. +It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring +to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of +each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers +is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried +to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly +treasured here. + +There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the +top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam +O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered +through the inclosed garden, and came to a little building in a +corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor +Wat,--ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable +degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the +garden, too, we again beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam +galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in +the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed +all over and around with foliage. + +When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us +that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of +the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out +from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, +which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few +steps ascend from the road-side, through a gate, into the old +graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is +wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, +though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was +there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural +pretension; no New England meeting-house has more simplicity in its +very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so +wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually +exists. By-the-by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of +witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but +the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative +faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of +rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some +priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the +consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus +made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils. + +The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent +a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for +it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each +compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on +one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is +impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, +had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs +to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they +sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from +our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns +bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth +and annexing it to the domain of imagination. And here these wretched +squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of +the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! May their rest be +troubled, till they rise and let us in! + +Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it +fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside +of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more +than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few +windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with +mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the +eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with +devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is +a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he +might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have +looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been +walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the +gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that +I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are +gray and irregular. + +The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a +modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach +the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing +the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new +bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, +and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing +wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a +lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a +kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its +high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green +banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet +and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded +banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at +this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning +some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody. + +It was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of Tam's +adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road, +and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from +that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily as might be to +Ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a +pyramid out of the sea. Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in +sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side. +But a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding +intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost +of one, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. We shall appreciate +him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as +a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary +light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a +personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his +countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had +shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. + + + * * * * * + +PASQUIN AND PASQUINADES. + +At an angle of the palace which Pius VI., (Braschi,) with paternal +liberality, built for the residence of his family, before the French +Revolution put an end to such beneficence, stands the famous statue of +Pasquin, giving its name to the square upon which it looks. It is +little more now than a mere trunk of marble, bearing the marks of +blows and long hard usage. But even in this mutilated condition it +shows traces of excellent workmanship and of pristine beauty. The +connoisseurs in sculpture praise it,[1] and the antiquaries have +embittered their ignorance in regard to it by discussions as to +whether it was a statue of Hercules, of Alexander the Great, or of +Menelaus bearing the body of Patroclus. Disabled and maimed as it is, +it is thus only the more fitting type of the Roman people, of which it +has been so long the acknowledged mouthpiece; and the epigrams and +satires which have made its name famous have gained an additional +point and a sharper sting from the patent resemblance in the condition +of their professed author to that of those for whom he spoke. + +It is said to have been about the beginning of the sixteenth century +that the statue was discovered and dug up near the place where it now +stands, and the earliest account of it seems to be that given by +Castelvetro, in 1553, in his discourse upon a _canzone_ by Annibal +Caro. He says, that Antonio Tibaldeo of Ferrara, a venerable and +lettered man, relates concerning this statue, that there used to be in +Rome a tailor, very skilful in his trade, by the name of Pasquin, who +had a shop which was much frequented by prelates, courtiers, and other +people, so that he employed a great number of workmen, who, like +worthless fellows, spent their time in speaking ill of one person or +another, sparing no one, and finding opportunity for jests in +observing those who came to the shop. This custom became so notorious +that the very persons who were hit by these sharp speeches joined in +the laugh at them, and felt no resentment; so that, if any one wished +to say a hard thing of another, he did it under cover of the person of +Master Pasquin, pretending that he had heard it said at his shop,--at +which pretence every one laughed, and no one bore a grudge. But, +Master Pasquin dying, it happened, that, in improving the street, this +broken statue, which lay half imbedded in the ground, serving as a +stepping-stone for passengers, was taken up and set at the side of the +shop. Making use of this good chance, satirical people began to say +that Master Pasquin had come back. The custom soon arose of attaching +to the statue bits of writing; and as it had been allowed to the +tailor to say everything, so by means of the statue any one might +publish what he would not have ventured to speak.[2] + +Thus did Hercules or Alexander change his name for that of Pasquin, +and soon became almost as well known throughout Europe under his new +designation as under his old. If the statue were not dug up, as is +said, until the sixteenth century, its fame spread rapidly; for, +before Luther had made himself feared at Rome, Pasquin was already +well known as the satirist of the vices of Pope and Cardinals, and as +a bold enemy of the abuses of the Church. + +But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is +its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected +series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the +popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording +indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and +of the regard in which they held their rulers. The free speech, which +was prohibited and dangerous to the living subjects of the temporal +power of the Popes, was a privilege which, in spite of prohibition, +Pasquin insisted upon exercising. Whatever precautions might be taken, +whatever penalties imposed, means were always found, when occasion +arose, to affix to the battered marble papers bearing stinging +epigrams or satirical verses, which, once read, fastened themselves in +the memory, and spread quickly by repetition. He could not be +silenced. "Great sums," said he one day, in an epigram addressed to +Paul III., who was Pope from 1534 to 1549, "great sums were formerly +given to poets for singing: how much will you give me, O Paul, to be +silent?" + + "Ut canerent data multa olim sunt vatibus aera: + Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis?" + +In his life of Adrian VI., the successor of Leo X., Paulus Jovius, not +indeed the most trustworthy of authorities, tells a story which, if +not true, might well be so. He says, that the Pope, being vexed at the +free speech of Pasquin, proposed to have him thrown into the Tiber, +thinking thus to stop his tongue; but the Spanish legate dissuaded +him, by suggesting, with grave Spanish wisdom, that all the frogs of +the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of +speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the +assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the +fatal secret about King Midas? + +Pasquin was by no means the only figure in Rome who gave expression to +thoughts and feelings which it would have been dangerous to the living +subjects of the ecclesiastical rule to utter aloud. His most +distinguished companion was Marforio, a colossal statue of an ocean or +river god, which was discovered in the sixteenth century near the +forum of Mars, from which he derived his name. Toward the end of the +same century, he was placed in the lower court of the Palazzo de' +Conservatori, on the Capitol, and here he has since remained. +Dialogues were often carried on between him and his friend Pasquin, +and a share in their conversation was sometimes taken by the Facchino, +or so called Porter of the Palazzo Piombino. In his "Roma Nova," +published in 1660, Sprenger says that Pasquin was assigned to the +nobles, Marforio to the citizens, and the Facchino to the common +people. But besides these there were the Abate Luigi of the Palazzo +Valle,--Madama Lucrezia, who still sits behind the Venetian palace +near the Church of St. Mark,--the Baboon, from which the Via Babbuino +takes its name,--and the marble portrait of Scanderbeg, the great +enemy of the Turks, on the _façade_ of the house which he at one time +occupied in Rome. Each of these personages now and then issued an +epigram or took part in the satirical talk of his companions. Such a +number of cold and secure censors is not surprising in a city like +Rome, where the checks upon open speech are so many, and where priests +and spies exercise so close a scrutiny over the thoughts and words of +men. Oppression begets hypocrisy, and a tyrant adds to the faults of +his subjects the vices of cowardice and secrecy. Caustic Forsyth, +speaking of the Romans, begins with the bitter remark, that "the +national character is the most ruined thing at Rome"; and in the same +section he adds, "Their humor is naturally caustic; but they lampoon, +as they stab, only in the dark. The danger attending open attacks +forces them to confine their satire within epigram; and thus +pasquinade is but the offspring of hypocrisy, the only resource of +wits who are obliged to be grave on so many absurdities in religion, +and respectful to so many upstarts in purple." Thus if the Romans +lampoon only in the dark, the fault is to be charged against their +rulers rather than themselves. The talent for sarcastic epigram is +hereditary with the people. The pointed style of Martial was handed +down through successive generations. The epigram in his hands was no +longer a mere inscription, an idyl, or an elegy; it had lost its +ancient grace, but it took on a new energy, and it set the model, +which the later Romans knew well how to copy, of satire condensed into +wit, in lines each of whose words had a sting. + +The first true Pasquinades--that is, the first of the epigrams which +were affixed to Pasquin, and hence derived their name--are perhaps +those which belong to the reign of Leo X. We at least have found no +earlier ones of undoubted genuineness; but satires similar to those of +Pasquin, and possibly originating with him, as they now go under the +general name of Pasquinades, were published against the Popes who +preceded Leo. The infamous Alexander VI., the Pope who has made his +name synonymous with the worst infamies that disgrace mankind, was not +spared the attacks of the subjects whom he and his children, not +unworthy of such a father, degraded and abused. Two lines could say +much:-- + + "Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit." + +"Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, this also a Sextus" (Alexander +Sextus, that is, Alexander the Sixth): "always under the Sextuses has +Rome been ruined." And as if this were not enough, another distich +struck with more directness at the vices of the Pope:-- + + "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum: + Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest." + +"Alexander sells the keys, the altars, Christ. He bought them first, +and has good right to sell."[3] + +Alexander had gained his election by bribes which he did not pay, and +promises which he did not keep; and Guicciardini tells in a few words +what use he made of his holy office, declaring, that, "with his +immoderate ambition and poisoned infidelity, together with all the +horrible examples of cruelty, luxury and monstrous covetousness, +selling without distinction both holy things and profane things, he +infected the whole world."[4] + +In 1503, after a pontificate of eleven years, Alexander died. Rome +rejoiced. Peace, which for a long time had been banished from her +borders, returned, and she enjoyed for a few days unwonted freedom +from alarm and trouble. Her happiness found expression in verse:-- + + "Dic unde, Alecto, pax haec effulsit, et unde + Tam subito reticent proelia? Sextus obit." + + "Say whence, Alecto, has this peace + shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has + the noise of battle ceased? Alexander + is dead." + +The rule of Borgia's successor, Pius III., lasting only twenty-seven +days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but +the nine years' reign of Julius II., which followed, was a period +whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and +satires to which it gave birth. The impulsive and passionate vigor of +the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises, +the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the +Papal city, are all more or less minutely told. The Pope began his +reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather +sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of +which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the +Papal state. It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he +threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of +Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that +henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul. The story was too good +to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the +one preserved by Bayle is the best:-- + + "Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves, + Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit." + + "Since the keys of Peter profit not for + battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul, + the sword will answer."[5] + +Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard +to grow, and Raphael's noble portrait of him shows what dignity it +gave to his strongly marked face. The beard was also regarded +traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul. "For me," the Pope was +represented as saying, "for me the beard of Paul, the sword of Paul, +all things of Paul: that key-bearer, Peter, is no way to my liking." + + "Huc barbam Pauli, gladium Pauli, omnia Pauli: + Claviger ille nihil ad mea vota Petrus." + +But the most savage epigram against Julius was one that recalled the +name of the great Roman, which the Pope was supposed to have adopted +in emulation of that of Alexander, borne by his predecessor:-- + + "Julius est Romae. Quid abest? Date, numina, Brutum. + Nam quoties Romae est Julius, illa perit." + + "Julius is at Rome. What is wanting? + Ye gods, give us a Brutus! For + when Julius is at Rome, the city is lost." + +Pasquin became a recognized institution, as we have said, under Leo +X., and was taken under the protection of the Roman people.[6] His +popularity was such as to lead to consequences of which he himself +complained. He was made the vehicle of the effusions of worthless +versifiers, and he was forced to cry out, "Woe is me! even the copyist +fixes his verses upon me, and every one bestows on me his silly +trifles." + +The application of these verses was alike appropriate to the life of +the Pope, or to the reigns of Alexander VI., Julius II., and the one +just beginning. + + "Me miserum! Copista etiam mihi carmina figit; + Et tribuit nugas jam mihi quisque suas." + +He seems to have been successful in putting a stop to this injurious +treatment; for not long after he declared, with a sarcasm directed +against the prominent qualities of his fellow-citizens, "There is no +better man at Rome than I. I seek nothing from any one. I am not +wordy. I sit here and am silent." + + "Non homo me melior Rome est. Ego nil peto ab ullo. + Non sum verbosus. Hic sedeo et taceo." + +It had become the custom, upon occasions of public festivity, to adorn +Pasquin with suits of garments, and with paint, forcing him to assume +from time to time different characters according to the fancy of his +protectors. Sometimes he appeared as Neptune, sometimes as Chance or +Fate, as Apollo or Bacchus. Thus, in the year 1515, he became Orpheus, +and, while adorned with the _plectrum_ and the lyre of the poet, +Marforio addressed a distich to him in his new character, which hints +at the popular appreciation of the Pope. The year 1515 was that of the +descent of Francis I, into Italy, and of the bloody battle of +Marignano. "In the midst of war and slaughter and the sound of +trumpets," said Marforio, "you sing and strike your lyre: this is to +understand the temper of your Lord." + + "Inter bella, tubas, caedes, canis ipse, lyramque + Percutis. Hoc sapere est ingenium Domini."[7] + +But the character of most of those pasquinades which belong to the +pontificate of Leo is so coarse as to render them unfit for +reproduction. A general licentiousness pervaded Rome, and the vices of +the Pope and the higher clergy, veiled, but not hidden, under the +displays of sensual magnificence and the pretended refinements of +degraded art, were readily imitated by a people taught to follow and +obey the teachings of their ecclesiastical rulers. Corruption of every +sort was common. Virtue and vice, profane and sacred things, were +alike for sale. The Pope made money by the sale of cardinalates and +traffic in indulgences. "Give me gifts, ye spectators," begged +Pasquin; "bring me not verses: divine Money alone rules the ethereal +gods." + + "Dona date, astantes; versus ne reddite: sola + Imperat aethereis alma Moneta deis." + +Leo's fondness for buffoons, with whom he mercilessly amused himself +by tormenting them and exciting them to make themselves ridiculous, is +recorded in a question put to Pasquin on one of his changes of figure. +"Why have you not asked, O Pasquil, to be made a buffoon? for at Rome +everything is now permitted to the buffoons." + + "Cur non te fingi scurram, Pasquille, rogâsti? + Cum Romae scurris omnia jam liceant." + +Leo died in 1521. His death was sudden, and not without suspicion of +poison. It was said that the last offices of the Church were not +performed for the dying man, and an epigram sharply embodied the +report. "Do you ask why at his last hour Leo could not take the sacred +things? He had sold them." + + "Sacra sub extremâ, si forte requiritis, horâ + Cur Leo non potuit sumere: Vendiderat." + +The spirit of Luther had penetrated through the walls of Rome; and +though all tongues but those of statues might be silenced, eyes were +not blinded, nor could ears be made deaf. Nowhere was the need of +reform so felt as at Rome, but nowhere was there so little hope for +it; for the people stood in equal need of it with the Church, whose +ministers had corrupted them, and whose rulers tyrannized over them. +"Farewell, Rome!" said Pasquin. + + "Roma, vale! Satis est vidisse. Revertar + Quum leno, meretrix, scurra, cinaedus ero." + +When Leo's short-lived successor, the gloomy Fleming, Adrian VI., who +was the author of the proposal to destroy Pasquin, despatched his +nuncio to the diet of Nuremberg to oppose the progress of Luther, he +told him in his instructions to "avow frankly that God has permitted +this schism and this persecution on account of the sins of men, and, +above all, of those of the priests and the prelates of the Church." +Pasquin could not have improved on these words. And when, twenty +months after his elevation to the papacy, this hard old man died, the +inscription--which he ordered to be put upon his tomb was in words fit +to disarm the satirist:--"Here lies Adrian VI., who esteemed nothing +in his life more unhappy than that he had been called to rule": +"_Adrianus VI. hîc situs est, qui nil sibi infelicius in vitâ quam +quod imperaret duxit." + +During the pontificate of Clement VII., Rome suffered under calamities +too terrible and too depressing to admit of the frequent display of +the humor or the satire of Pasquin. The siege and sack of the city by +the army of the Constable de Bourbon wrought too much misery to be set +in verse or to be sharpened in epigram. One shrewd jest of this time +has, indeed, been preserved. Clement was for months a prisoner in the +Castle of Sant' Angelo, unable to stir abroad. "_Papa non potest +errare_" said Pasquin, or one of his friends, with a play on the +double meaning of the last word, and a scoff at Papal pretension: "The +Pope cannot err": he is too well guarded to stray. But when the Pope +died in 1534, Pasquin did not spare his memory. He had lately changed +his physician, and taken one named Matteo Curzio or Curtius; and when +his death took place, not without suspicion of malpractice, the +satisfaction of the people was expressed by the appearance of a +portrait of this new doctor, with the inscription, in words borrowed +from the Vulgate, "_Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi!_" +"Curtius has killed Clement," said Pasquin. "Curtius, who has secured +the public health, should be rewarded." + + "Curtis occidit Clementem. Curtius auro + Donandus, per quem publica parta salus." + +Nor was this all. Pasquin declared, that, on occasion of Clement's +death, a bitter strife arose between Pluto and Saint Peter as to which +should receive the Pope:-- + + "Noluit hunc coelum, noluit hunc barathrum." + +The Saint has no place for him, and the ruler of the lower regions +fears the disturbance that he will make in hell. The quarrel is cut +short by the arrival of Clement himself upon the spot, who, finding no +entrance into heaven, declares that he will force himself into hell:-- + + "Tartara tentemus, facilis descensus Averni." + +The fifteen years of the pontificate of Clement's successor, Paul +III.,--years, for the most part, of quiet and prosperity at +Rome,--afforded ample opportunities for the display of Pasquin's +spirit. The personal character of the Pope, the exactions which he +laid upon the Romans for the profit of his favorites and his family, +and his unblushing nepotism were the subjects of frequent satire. The +Farnese palace, built in great part with stone taken from the +Colosseum, is a standing monument of the justice of Pasquin's rebukes, +the sharpness of which is concentrated in a single telling epigram. +"Let us pray for Pope Paul," said Pasquin, "for zeal for his house is +consuming him":-- + + "Oremus pro Papâ Paulo, quia zelus + Domus suae comedit illum." + +At another time Marforio addressed a letter to Pasquin, in which he +tells him of the Pope's reply to an angel who had been sent to him +with the message, "Feed my sheep" "Charity begins at home," had been +the answer of the Pope. And when the Roman people had prayed Paul to +have pity on his people, Paul had replied, "It is not right to take +the children's bread and give it to dogs." + +But Pasquin was now to be brought into greater notoriety than ever. In +spite of the efforts of the successors of Adrian, the Reformation had +rapidly advanced, and the Reformers, scorning no weapons that might +serve their cause, determined to turn the wit of Pasquin to their +account. In the year 1544, a little, but thick, volume appeared, with +the title, "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." It bore no name of editor or +printer, and professed to be published at Eleutheropolis, the City of +Freedom, or, as it might be rendered in a free translation, the City +of _Luther_. Its 637 pages were filled with satire; it was not merely +a collection of Pasquin's sayings, but it contained epigrams and +dialogues derived from other sources as well. The book was of a kind +to be popular, as well as to excite the bitterest aversion of the +adherents of the Roman Church. It long since became a volume of +excessive rarity, most of the copies having been destroyed by zealous +Romanists. The famous scholar, Daniel Heinsius, within a century after +its publication, believed that a copy which he purchased, at a cost of +a hundred ducats, was the only one remaining in the world, and he +inscribed the following lines upon one of its blank pages:-- + + "Roma meos fratres igni dedit. Unica Phoenix + Vivo, aureis venio centum Heinsio." + + "Rome gave my brothers to the fire. + A solitary Phoenix, I survive, and at cost + of a hundred gold pieces I come to Heinsius." + +But Heinslus was mistaken in supposing his copy to be unique; and +bibliographers of later date, while marking the rarity of the book, +have recorded its existence in various libraries. At this moment two +copies are lying before us, probably the only copies in America.[8] + +The editor of this publication was the Piedmontese scholar and +Reformer, Coelius Secundus Curio. His early life had been eventful, +and he had experienced the tender mercies of the Roman Church. He had +been persecuted, his property had been seized, he himself compelled to +fly, on account of his liberal views. He had been in the prisons of +the Inquisition, from which he had escaped only by a successful and +ingenious stratagem. At length, wearied with contention, he took up +his abode in Protestant Switzerland, where he passed in quiet the +latter years of his useful and honored life.[9] It was while here that +he compiled this book, and sent it as a missile into the camp of his +opponents, the enemies of freedom of thought and of the right of +private judgment. From this time Pasquin's fame became universal. The +words _pasquil_ or _pasquinade_ were adopted info almost every +European tongue, and soon embraced in their widening signification all +sorts of satiric epigrams. A great part of the volume published by +Curio is made up, indeed, of attacks on the Roman Church which have no +connection with Pasquin as their author. The style and the subject of +many of them betray a German origin; and some of the longer pieces so +closely resemble, in point, in humor, and in expression, the +celebrated "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," that there can be little +doubt that Ulrich von Hutten, or some one of his coadjutors in that +clever satire on the monks and clergy, had a hand in their +composition.[10] + +But, leaving the pasquinades of other people, let us come back to the +sayings of Pasquin himself. No one has surpassed him in his own way, +and his store of epigrams, illustrating life and manners at Rome, is +abundant. The pontificate of Sixtus V., from 1585 to 1590, was full of +material for his wit. The only man in Rome who did not tremble under +the rod with which this hard old monk ruled his people and the Church +was the free-spoken marble jester. The very morning after the election +of Sixtus, Pasquin appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the +question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am +taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three +cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new +Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his +adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been +deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick their teeth at +leisure. + +Leti, in his entertaining and gossipping life of this most merciless +of Popes, tells a story of another pasquinade, which exhibits the +temper of Sixtus. One morning Pasquin appeared clothed in a very dirty +shirt, and, upon being asked by Marforio, why he wore such foul linen, +replied, he could get no other, for the Pope had made his washerwoman +a princess,--meaning thereby the Pope's sister, Donna Camilla, who had +formerly been a laundress, but was now established with a fortune and +a palace. "This stinging piece of raillery was carried directly to his +Holiness, who ordered a strict search to be made for the author, but +to no purpose. Upon which he stuck up printed papers in all the public +places of the city, promising, upon the word of a Pope, to give the +author of the pasquinade a thousand pistoles and his life, provided he +would discover himself, but threatened to hang him, if he was found +out by any one else, and offered the thousand pistoles to the +informer." Upon this the author was simple enough to make confession +and to demand the money. Sixtus paid him the sum, and then, saying +that he had indeed promised him his life, but not freedom from +punishment, ordered his hands to be cut off, and his tongue to be +bored, "to prevent him from being so witty for the future." This act, +says Leti, "filled every one with terror and amazement." And well +might such a piece of Oriental barbarity excite the horror of the +Romans.[11] Pasquin, however, was not alarmed, and a few days +afterward he appeared holding a wet shirt to dry in the sun. It was a +Sunday morning, and Marforio, naturally surprised at such a violation +of the day, asked him why he could not wait till Monday before drying +it Pasquin answered, that there was no time to lose; for, if he waited +till to-morrow to dry his shirt, he might have to pay for the +sunshine;--hinting at the heavy taxes which Sixtus had laid upon the +necessaries of life, and from which the sunshine itself might not long +be exempt. + +It was near about this time that a caricature was circulated in Rome, +representing Sixtus as King Stork and the Romans as frogs vainly +attempting to escape from his devouring beak. _Merito haec patimur_, +"We suffer deservedly," was the legend of the picture, and the moral +it conveyed was a true one. Rome was in such a state as to require the +harshest applications, and the despotic severity of Sixtus did much to +restore decency and security to life. He left the Romans in a far +better condition than he found them; and it would have been well for +Rome, if among his successors there had been more to follow his +example in repressing vice and violence,--in a word, had there been +more King Storks and fewer King Logs. + +The most poetic of pasquinades, and one in which wit rises into +imagination, belongs to the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1623-1644.) +This Pope issued a bull excommunicating all persons who took snuff in +the churches of Seville; whereupon Pasquin quoted the following verse +from Job (xiii. 25):--"_Contra folium_ _quod vento rapitur ostendis +potentiam tuam? et stipulam siccam persequeris?_" + +This is a very model of satire in its kind, and of a higher kind than +the pasquil, which Coleridge quotes as an example of wit, upon the +Pope who had employed a committee to rip up the errors of his +predecessors. + +"Some one placed a pair of spurs on the statue of St. Peter, and a +label from the opposite statue of St. Paul. + +"_St. Paul_. Whither, then, are you bound? + +"_St. Peter_. I apprehend danger here;--they'll soon call me in +question for denying my Master. + +"_St. Paul_. Nay, then, I had better be off, too; for they'll question +me for having persecuted the Christians before my conversion."[12] + +In his distinction between the wit of thoughts, of words, and of +images, Coleridge asserts that the first belongs eminently to the +Italians. Such broad assertions are always open to exceptions, and +Pasquin shows that the Romans at least are not less clever in the wit +of words than in that of thoughts. Take, for example, the jest on +Innocent X. which Howel reports in one of his entertaining letters. +This Pope, who, says the candid historian, Mosheim, "to a profound +ignorance of all those things which it was necessary for a Christian +bishop to know, joined the most shameless indolence and the most +notorious profligacy," abandoned his person, his dignity, and his +government to the disposal of Donna Olympia Maldachini, the widow of +his brother. The portrait of the Pope may be seen in the Doria Gallery +at Rome; for it is still esteemed an honor by the noble family to +which the gallery belongs to be able to trace a relationship to a +Pope, even though so vile a one as Innocent "_Magis amat papa Olympiam +quam Olympum_" said Pasquin; and the pun still clings to the memory of +him whom his authorized biographer calls "_religiosissimo nelle cose +divine e prudentissimo nelle umane."_ But superlatives often have a +value in inverse ratio to their intention. There is a curious story +told by the Catholic historian, Novaes, that, after the death of +Innocent, which took place in 1655, no one could be found willing to +assume the charge of burying him. Word was sent to Donna Olympia that +she should provide a coffin for the corpse; but she replied that she +was only a poor widow. Of the cardinals he had made, of the relations +he had enriched, none was to be found who had charity enough to treat +his remains with decency. His body was taken to a room where some +masons were at work, and one of them out of compassion put a tallow +candle at its head, while another, fearing lest the mice, of which +there were many in the apartment, might disturb the corpse, secured a +person to watch it through the night. At length one of the officers of +the court procured a cheap coffin, and one of the canons of Saint +Peter's gave five crowns to pay the expenses of the burial.[13] A +moralist might comment on this story, and might compare it with +another which is told in a life of Innocent, written during the reign +of his successor, and published with approval at Rome. In this we are +told that at the time of his death a marvellous prodigy was observed; +for that, when his corpse was borne on a bier from Monte Cavallo to +the Vatican, at the moment of a violent storm of wind and rain, not a +drop of water fell upon it, but the bier remained perfectly dry, and +the torches with which it was accompanied were none of them +extinguished. What wonder, that, after this, it is added, "that his +memory is venerated in many places at Rome"?[14] Of all the +troublesome race of panegyrists, the Roman variety is the most +ingenious and the least to be trusted. + +When Bishop Burnet was travelling in Italy, in the year 1686, the +doctrines of the Spanish priest Molinos, the founder of the famous +sect of Quietists, had lately become the object of attack of the +Jesuits and of suspicion at the Papal Court. His system of mystical +divinity is still of interest from its connection with the lives of +Fénelon and Madame Guyon, if not from its intrinsic character. Like +most other mystical doctrines, his teachings seem to have been open to +the charge, that, while professedly based on the highest spirituality, +they had a direct tendency to encourage sensuality in its most +dangerous form. Molinos was at first much favored at Rome and by the +Pope himself; but at the time of Burnet's journey he was in the +custody of the Holy Office, while his books were undergoing the +examination which finally led to the formal condemnation of +sixty-eight propositions contained in them, to the renunciation of +these propositions by their author, and to his being sentenced to +perpetual imprisonment Burnet relates that it happened "in one week +that one man had been condemned to the galleys for somewhat he had +said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos +was clapt in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in this, that +men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness. The +Pasquinade upon all this was, "_Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo, +impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all' Sant Uffizio. Eh! che bisogna +fare?_" "If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we +stay quiet, the Inquisition. Eh! what must we do, then?" + +With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material +was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar +talent. Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for +rebuke. Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained. "Do you +wonder," said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his +changes of character, "do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a +new figure? It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the +falling back of men. He who would be pious must depart from Rome." + + "Praeteriens, forsan miraris, turba, quotannis + Cur me Roma novam mutet in effigiem. + Hoc urbis mores varios, hominumque recessus + Indicat: ergo abeat qui cupit esse pius." + +During the eighteenth century Italy did not abound in poets or wits, +and Master Pasquin seems to have shared in the dulness of the times. +Toward its end, however, when Pius VI. was building the palace under +the corner of which the statue was to find shelter, the marble +representative of the tailor watched his proceedings with sharp +observation. Long ago he had rebuked the nepotism of the Popes, but +Pius had forgotten his epigrams. "Cerberus," he had said, "had three +mouths with which he barked; but you have three, or even four, which +bark not, but devour." + + "Tres habuit fauces, et terno Cerberus ore + Latratus intra Tartara nigra dabat. + Et tibi plena fame tria sunt vel quatuor ora + Quae nulli latrant, quemque sed illa vorant." + +Every one who has been in Rome remembers how often, on the repairs of +ancient monuments, and on the pedestals of statues or busts, are to be +seen the words, "_Munificentiâ Pii Sexti_" thrusting themselves into +notice, and occupying the place which should be filled with some +nobler inscription. The bad taste and impertinence of this epigraph +are often enhanced by the slightness of the work or the gift which it +commemorates. During a season of dearth at Rome, in the time of Pius, +when the bakers had reduced the size of their loaves, Pasquin took the +opportunity to satirize the selfishness and vanity of the Pope, by +exhibiting one of these diminished loaves bearing the familiar words, +"_Munificentiâ Pii VI._" + +The French Revolution, the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, the +brilliant essays of liberalism of Pius IX., the Republic, the siege of +Rome, the reactionary government of late years, have alike supplied +matter for Master Pasquin, which he has shaped according to the +fashion of the times. He still pursues his ancient avocation. _Res acu +tetigit._ But the point of the needle is not the means by which the +rents in the garment of Rome are to be mended,--much less by which her +wounds are to be cauterized and healed. The sharp satiric tongue may +prick her moral sense into restlessness, but the Roman spirit is not +thus to be roused to action. Still Pasquin deserves credit for his +efforts; and while other liberty is denied, the Romans may be glad +that there is a single voice that cannot be silenced, and a single +censor who is not to be corrupted. + +[Footnote 1: Bernini, being asked what was the most beautiful statue +in Rome, replied, "That of Pasquin." This reply the sensible Milizia +taxes with affectation,--saying, that, although an artist may discover +in the work some marks of good design, it is now too maimed to pass +for a beautiful statue. Possibly Bernini was thinking of his own works +in comparison with it.] + +[Footnote 2: Andreas Schott,--who published an Itinerary of Italy +about the beginning of the seventeenth century, copies this account, +and adds,--"At present this custom is prohibited under the heaviest +penalties."] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Piozzi, in her amusing _Journey through Italy_, ii. +113, quotes these verses and gives a translation of them which shows +that she quite mistook their point. In spite of her quoting Latin, +Greek, and even on occasion Hebrew, her scholarship was not very +accurate or deep.] + +[Footnote 4: The Historie of Guicciardin, reduced into English by +Geffray Fenton. 1579. p. 308. Another epigram of barbarous bitterness +against Alexander refers, if we understand it aright, to one of the +gloomiest events of his pontificate, the murder of his son Giovanni, +Duca di Gandia, by his other son, Caesar Borgia. Giovanni was killed +at night, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, from which it was +recovered the next morning. + + Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sexte, putemus, + Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum." + + "Lest we should not fancy you, O Sextus, + a fisher of men, you fish for your own son + with nets."] + +[Footnote 5: Vasari relates, that Michel Angelo, when he was making +the bronze statue of Julius, at Bologna, having asked the Pope if he +should put a book in his left hand,--"No," replied the fiery old man, +"put a sword in it, for I know not letters": "_Mettivi una spada, che +io non so lettere._"] + +[Footnote 6: At the beginning of his pontificate, upon occasion of +Leo's taking possession of the Lateran with a solemn procession, an +arch of triumph was erected at the bridge of Sant' Angelo, which bore +an inscription worthy of the tailor's successor:-- + + "Olim habuit Cypria sua tempera, tempora Mavors + Olim habuit, sua nunc tempora Pallas habet." + + "Venus once had her time, Mars also has + had his, but now Minerva rules."] + +[Footnote 7: In Murray's _Handbook for Rome_, a book for the most part +of great accuracy, there is a curious blunder in the account of +Pasquin. It is said, that, "on the election of Pope Leo X., in 1440, +the following satirical acrostic appeared, to mark the date +MCCCCXL:--'_Multi caeci cardinales creaverunt caecum decimum (X) +Leonem:_ 'Many blind cardinals have created a tenth blind Lion.'" Now +in 1440 Leo was not born, and no Pope was chosen in that year. Leo was +not made Pope till 1513, and the acrostic has apparently nothing to do +with the date of his accession to the pontificate.] + +[Footnote 8: One of those copies was formerly in the Royal Library at +Munich, and sold as a duplicate. The other has the bookplate of the +Baron de Warenghien. Colonel Stanley's copy sold for £11 lls. The book +was printed at Basle, by Jean Oporin. See Clément, _Bibl. Cur. Hist, +et Crit._, vii. 371. See also, for an account of it, Salleugre, _M.m. +de Litt._, ii. 6, 203; and Schelhorn, _Amoen. Lit._, iii. 151.] + +[Footnote 9: An entertaining and curious account of Curio and his +family is to be found in a commemorative oration delivered in 1570 +before the Academy of Basle by Stupanus, and printed by Schelhorn in +_Amoen. Lit._, Tom. xiv.] + +[Footnote 10: In two or three of the dialogues Hutten is introduced as +one of the speakers; and several of the poetic epigrams are ascribed +to him by name.] + +[Footnote 11: In Luther's _Table-Talk_, he says, "Whoso in Rome is +heard to speak one word against the Pope received either a +Strappecordo or is punished with death, for his name is _Noli me +tangere._" Pasquin himself has hardly said a shrewder saying than +this. _Noli me tangere_ is the name under which Pius IX. pleads +against the diminution of his temporal power, while he threatens his +opponents with the Strappecorde.] + +[Footnote 12: _Lectures upon Shakespeare and other Dramatists_, ii. +90.] + +[Footnote 13: Novaes, x. 56. Artaud de Montor, _Hist. des Pont. Rom._, +v. 523.] + +[Footnote 14: _Vita d' Innocenzio X._, dal Cav. Ant. Bagatta.] + + * * * * * + + +THE SUMMONS. + + My ear is full of summer sounds, + With summer sights my languid eye; + Beyond the dusty village bounds + I loiter in my daily rounds, + And in the noon-time shadows lie. + + The wild bee winds his drowsy horn, + The bird swings on the ripened wheat, + The long, green lances of the corn + Are tilting in the winds of morn, + The locust shrills his song of heat. + + Another sound my spirit hears, + A deeper sound that drowns them all,-- + A voice of pleading choked with tears, + The call of human hopes and fears, + The Macedonian cry to Paul! + + The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; + I know the word and countersign; + Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, + Where stand or fall her friends or foes, + I know the place that should be mine. + + Shamed be the hands that idly fold, + And lips that woo the reed's accord, + When laggard Time the hour has tolled + For true with false and new with old + To fight the battles of the Lord! + + O brothers! blest by partial Fate + With power to match the will and deed, + To him your summons comes too late, + Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, + And has no answer but God-speed! + + * * * * * + + +DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. + +The origin of species, like all origination, like the institution of +any other natural state or order, is beyond our immediate ken. We see +or may learn how things go on; we can only frame hypotheses as to how +they began. + +Two hypotheses divide the scientific world, very unequally, upon the +origin of the existing diversity of the plants and animals which +surround us. One assumes that the actual kinds are primordial; the +other, that they are derivative. One, that all kinds originated +supernaturally and directly as such, and have continued unchanged in +the order of Nature; the other, that the present kinds appeared in +some sort of genealogical connection with other and earlier kinds, +that they became what they now are in the course of time and in the +order of Nature. + +Or, bringing in the word _species_, which is well defined as "the +perennial succession of individuals," commonly of very like +individuals,--as a close corporation of individuals perpetuated by +generation, instead of election,--and reducing the question to +mathematical simplicity of statement: species are lines of individuals +coming down from the past and running on to the future,--lines +receding, therefore, from our view in either direction. Within our +limited view they appear to be parallel lines, as a general thing +neither approaching to nor diverging from each other. The first +hypothesis assumes that they were parallel from the unknown beginning +and will be to the unknown end. The second hypothesis assumes that the +apparent parallelism is not real and complete, at least aboriginally, +but approximate or temporary; that we should find the lines convergent +in the past, if we could trace them far enough; that some of them, if +produced back, would fall into certain fragments of lines, which have +left traces in the past, lying not exactly in the same direction, and +these farther back into others to which they are equally unparallel. +It will also claim that the present lines, whether on the whole really +or only approximately parallel, sometimes fork or send off branches on +one side or the other, producing new lines, (varieties,) which run for +a while, and for aught we know indefinitely, when not interfered with, +near and approximately parallel to the parent line. This claim it can +establish; and it may also show that these close subsidiary lines may +branch or vary again, and that those branches or varieties which are +best adapted to the existing conditions may be continued, while others +stop or die out. And so we may have the basis of a real _theory_ of +the _diversification_ of species; and here, indeed, there is a real, +though a narrow, established ground to build upon. But, as systems of +organic Nature, both are equally _hypotheses_, are suppositions of +what there is no proof of from experience, assumed in order to account +for the observed phenomena, and supported by such indirect evidence as +can be had. Even when the upholders of the former and more popular +system mix up revelation with scientific discussion,--which we decline +to do,--they by no means thereby render their view other than +hypothetical. Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by +Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we +call secondary causes. The record of the fiat--"Let the earth bring +forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "and it was so"; "let the +earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and +creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was +so"--seems even to imply them. Agreeing that they were formed of "the +dust of the ground" and of thin air only leads to the conclusion that +the pristine individuals were corporeally constituted like existing +individuals, produced through natural agencies. To agree that they +were created "after their kinds" determines nothing as to what were +the original kinds, nor in what mode, during what time, and in what +connections it pleased the Almighty to introduce the first individuals +of each sort upon the earth. Scientifically considered, the two +opposing doctrines are equally hypothetical. + +The two views very unequally divide the scientific world; so that +believers in "the divine right of majorities" need not hesitate which +side to take, at least for the present. Up to a time within the memory +of a generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the nature of +light very unequally divided the scientific world. But the small +minority has already prevailed: the emission theory has gone out; the +undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation, has reached high +tide, and is now the pervading, the fully established system. There +was an intervening time during which most physicists held their +opinions in suspense. + +The adoption of the undulatory theory of light called for the +extension of the same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and +this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material +connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute +suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not +already established as a system, it promises soon to become so. At +least, it is generally received as a tenable and probably true +hypothesis. + +Parallel to this, however less cogent the reasons, Darwin and others, +having shown it likely that some varieties of plants or animals have +diverged in time into cognate species, or into forms as different as +species, are led to infer that all species of a genus may have thus +diverged from a common stock, and thence to suppose a higher community +of origin in ages still farther back, and so on. Following the safe +example of the physicists, and acknowledging the fact of the +diversification of a once homogeneous species into varieties, we may +receive the theory of the evolution of these into species, even while +for the present we hold the hypothesis of a further evolution in cool +suspense or in grave suspicion. In respect to very many questions a +wise man's mind rests long in a state neither of belief nor of +unbelief. But your intellectually short-sighted people are apt to be +preternaturally clear-sighted, and to find their way very plain to +positive conclusions upon one side or the other of every mooted +question. + +In fact, most people, and some philosophers, refuse to hold questions +in abeyance, however incompetent they may be to decide them. And, +curiously enough, the more difficult, recondite, and perplexing the +questions or hypotheses are, such, for instance, as those about +organic Nature, the more impatient they are of suspense. Sometimes, +and evidently in the present case, this impatience grows out of a fear +that a new hypothesis may endanger cherished and most important +beliefs. Impatience under such circumstances is not unnatural, though +perhaps needless, and, if so, unwise. + +To us the present revival of the derivative hypothesis, in a more +winning shape than it ever before had, was not unexpected. We wonder +that any thoughtful observer of the course of investigation and of +speculation in science should not have foreseen it, and have learned +at length to take its inevitable coming patiently; the more so as in +Darwin's treatise it comes in a purely scientific form, addressed only +to scientific men. The notoriety and wide popular perusal of this +treatise appear to have astonished the author even more than the book +itself has astonished the reading world. Coming, as the new +presentation does, from a naturalist of acknowledged character and +ability, and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not +always been reciprocated, we have thought it simply right to set forth +the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could. There are plenty +to decry it, and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack. For the +arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse +publications which Darwin's volume has already called out, and +especially to those reviews which propose directly to refute it. +Taking various lines and reflecting very diverse modes of thought, +these hostile critics may be expected to concentrate and enforce the +principal objections which can be brought to bear against the +derivative hypothesis in general, and Darwin's new exposition of it in +particular. + +Upon the opposing side of the question we have read with attention, 1. +an article in the "North American Review" for April last; 2. one in +the "Christian Examiner," Boston, for May; 3. M. Pictet's article in +the "Bibliothèque Universelle," which we have already made +considerable use of, which seems throughout most able and correct, and +which in tone and fairness is admirably in contrast with, 4. the +article in the "Edinburgh Review" for May, attributed--although +against a large amount of internal presumptive evidence--to the most +distinguished British comparative anatomist; 5. an article in the +"North British Review" for May; 6. finally, Professor Agassiz has +afforded an early opportunity to peruse the criticisms he makes in the +forthcoming third volume of his great work by a publication of them in +advance in the "American Journal of Science" for July. + +In our survey of the lively discussion which has been raised, it +matters little how our own particular opinions may incline. But we may +confess to an impression, thus far, that the doctrine of the permanent +and complete immutability of species has not been established, and may +fairly be doubted. We believe that species vary, and that "Natural +Selection" works; but we suspect that its operation, like every +analogous natural operation, may be limited by something else. Just as +every species by its natural rate of reproduction would soon fill any +country it could live in, but does not, being checked by some other +species or some other condition,--so it may be surmised that Variation +and Natural Selection have their Struggle and consequent Check, or are +limited by something inherent in the constitution of organic beings. +We are disposed to rank the derivative hypothesis in its fulness with +the nebular hypothesis, and to regard both as allowable, as not +unlikely to prove tenable in spite of some strong objections, but as +not therefore demonstrably true. Those, if any there be, who regard +the derivative hypothesis as satisfactorily proved must have loose +notions as to what proof is. Those who imagine it can be easily +refuted and cast aside must, we think, have imperfect or very +prejudiced conceptions of the facts concerned and of the questions at +issue. + +We are not disposed nor prepared to take sides for or against the new +hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to +watch the discussion, and criticize those objections which are +seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who +have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed +with a sense of their great inequality. Some strike us as excellent +and perhaps unanswerable; some, as incongruous with other views of the +same writers; others, when carried out, as incompatible with general +experience or general beliefs, and therefore as proving too much; +still others, as proving nothing at all: so that, on the whole, the +effect is rather confusing and disappointing. We certainly expected a +stronger adverse case than any which the thorough-going opposers of +Darwin appear to have made out. Wherefore, if it be found that the new +hypothesis has grown upon our favor as we proceeded, this must be +attributed not so much to the force of the arguments of the book +itself as to the want of force of several of those by which it has +been assailed. Darwin's arguments we might resist or adjourn; but some +of the refutations of it give us more concern than the book itself +did. + +These remarks apply mainly to the philosophical and theological +objections which have been elaborately urged, almost exclusively by +the American reviewers. The "North British" reviewer, indeed, roundly +denounces the book as atheistical, but evidently deems the case too +clear for argument. The Edinburgh reviewer, on the contrary, scouts +all such objections,--as well he may, since he records his belief in +"a continuous creative operation," "a constantly operating secondary +creational law," through which species are successively produced; and +he emits faint, but not indistinct, glimmerings of a transmutation +theory of his own;[1] so that he is equally exposed to all the +philosophical objections advanced by Agassiz, and to most of those +urged by the other American critics, against Darwin himself. + +Proposing now to criticize the critics, so far as to see what their +most general and comprehensive objections amount to, we must needs +begin with the American reviewers, and with their arguments adduced to +prove that a derivative hypothesis _ought not to be true_, or is not +possible, philosophical, or theistic. + +It must not be forgotten that on former occasions very confident +judgments have been pronounced by very competent persons, which have +not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth +century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as +philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other +objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. +The nebular hypothesis--a natural consequence of the theory of +gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and +astronomical discovery--has been denounced as atheistical even down to +our own day. But it is now largely adopted by the most theistical +natural philosophers as a tenable and perhaps sufficient hypothesis, +and where not accepted is no longer objected to, so far as we know, on +philosophical or religious grounds. + +The gist of the philosophical objections urged by the two Boston +reviewers against an hypothesis of the derivation of species--or at +least against Darwin's particular hypothesis--is, that it is +incompatible with the idea of any manifestation of design in the +universe, that it denies final causes. A serious objection this, and +one that demands very serious attention. + +The proposition, that things and events in Nature were not designed to +be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism. +Yet most people believe that some were designed and others were not, +although they fall into a hopeless maze whenever they undertake to +define their position. So we should not like to stigmatize as +atheistically disposed a person who regards certain things and events +as being what they are through designed laws, (whatever that +expression means,) but as not themselves specially ordained, or who, +in another connection, believes in general, but not in particular +Providence. We could sadly puzzle him with questions; but in return he +might equally puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially +designed to be what it is is one proposition; while to deny that the +Designer supernaturally or immediately made it so is another: though +the reviewers appear not to recognize the distinction. + +Also, "scornfully to repudiate" or to "sneer at the idea of any +manifestation of design in the material universe"[2] is one thing; +while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which +attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to +certain instances is quite another thing: yet the Boston reviewers, we +regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference. +Whatever be thought of Darwin's doctrine, we are surprised that he +should be charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of others, +upon such a subject. Perhaps Darwin's view is incompatible with final +causes;--we will consider that question presently;--but as to the +"Examiner's" charge, that he "sneers at the idea of any manifestation +of design in the material universe," though we are confident that no +misrepresentation was intended, we are equally confident that it is +not at all warranted by the two passages cited in support of it. Here +are the passages:-- + +"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not know that there +were many black and pied kinds, I dare say that we should have thought +that the green color was a beautiful adaptation to hide this +tree-frequenting bird from its enemies." + +"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of +inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though +we may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less +perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as +perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be +withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes +the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?" + +If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the detached extracts, +(one of them wanting the end of the sentence,) it is, if possible, +more imperceptible when read with the context. Moreover, this perusal +inclines us to think that the "Examiner" has misapprehended the +particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, of the author in +these passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against +the inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration +of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty +assumption is apt to involve,--considerations probably analogous to +those which induced Lord Bacon rather disrespectfully to style final +causes "sterile virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that +"sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section +from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary +question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, but, we +suppose, wholly unconscious of denying "any manifestation of design in +the material universe." He concludes the first sentence:-- + + ----"and consequently that it was a character of importance, and + might have been acquired through natural selection; as it is, I + have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct cause, + probably to sexual selection." + +After an illustration from the vegetable creation, Darwin adds:-- + + "The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked at as a + _direct_ adaptation for wallowing in putridity; _and so it may be_, + or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid matter; but + we should be very cautious in drawing any such inference, when we + see that the skin on the head of the clean-feeding male turkey is + likewise naked. The sutures in the skulls of young mammals have been + advanced as a beautiful adaptation for aiding parturition, and no + doubt they facilitate or may be indispensable for this act; but as + sutures occur in the skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have + only to escape from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure + has arisen from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage + of in the parturition of the higher animals." + +All this, simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain +scientifically how any designed result is accomplished savors of +impropriety. + +In the other place, Darwin is contemplating the patent fact, that +"perfection here below" is relative, not absolute,--and illustrating +this by the circumstance, that European animals, and especially +plants, are now proving to be better adapted for New Zealand than many +of the indigenous ones,--that "the correction for the aberration of +light is said, on high authority, not to be quite perfect even in that +most perfect organ, the eye." And then follows the second extract of +the reviewer. But what is the position of the reviewer upon his own +interpretation of these passages? If he insists that green woodpeckers +were specifically created so in order that they might be less liable +to capture, must he not equally hold that the black and pied ones were +specifically made of these colors in order that they might be more +liable to be caught? And would an explanation of the mode in which +those woodpeckers came to be green, however complete, convince him +that the color was undesigned? + +As to the other illustration, is the reviewer so complete an optimist +as to insist that the arrangement and the weapon are wholly perfect +(_quoad_ the insect) the normal use of which often causes the animal +fatally to injure or to disembowel itself? Either way it seems to us +that the argument here, as well as the insect, performs _hari-kari_. + +The "Examiner" adds:--"We should in like manner object to the word +_favorable_, as implying that some species are placed by the Creator +under _unfavorable_ circumstances, at least under such as might be +advantageously modified." But are not many individuals and some races +of men placed by the Creator "under unfavorable circumstances, at +least under such as might be advantageously modified"? Surely these +reviewers must be living in an ideal world, surrounded by "the +faultless monsters which _our_ world ne'er saw," in some elysium where +imperfection and distress were never heard of! Such arguments resemble +some which we often hear against the Bible, holding that book +responsible as if it originated certain facts on the shady side of +human nature or the apparently darker lines of Providential dealing, +though the facts are facts of common observation and have to be +confronted upon any theory. + +The "North American" reviewer also has a world of his own,--just such +a one as an idealizing philosopher would be apt to devise,--that is, +full of sharp and absolute distinctions: such, for instance, as the +"absolute invariableness of instinct"; an absolute want of +intelligence in any brute animal; and a complete monopoly of instinct +by the brute animals, so that this "instinct is a great matter" for +them only, since it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion +of organic Nature from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from +man on the other: most convenient views for argumentative purposes, +but we suppose not borne out in fact. + +In their scientific objections the two reviewers take somewhat +different lines; but their philosophical and theological arguments +strikingly coincide. They agree in emphatically asserting that +Darwin's hypothesis of the origination of species through variation +and natural selection "repudiates the whole doctrine of final causes," +and "all indication of design or purpose in the organic world,"--"is +neither more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that +of a blind chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or +instincts of created beings." "It is in vain that the apologists of +this hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode +and time to the Divine agency,--that all the qualities subsequently +appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, and remained +latent in the original pair." Such a view, the Examiner declares, "is +nowhere stated in this book, and would be, we are sure, disclaimed by +the author." We should like to be informed of the grounds of this +sureness. The marked rejection of spontaneous generation,--the +statement of a belief that all animals have descended from four or +five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number, or, +perhaps, if constrained to it by analogy, "from some one primordial +form into which life was first breathed."--coupled with the +expression, "To my mind it accords better with what we know of the +laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and +extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should +have been due to secondary causes," than "that each species has been +independently created,"--those and similar expressions lead us to +suppose that the author probably does accept the kind of view which +the "Examiner" is sure he would disclaim. At least, we see nothing in +his scientific theory to hinder his adoption of Lord Bacon's +Confession of Faith in this regard,--"that, notwithstanding God hath +rested and ceased from creating, [in the sense of supernatural +origination,] yet, nevertheless, He doth accomplish and fulfil His +divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as +fully and exactly by providence as He could by miracle and new +creation, though His working be not immediate and direct, but by +compass; not violating Nature, which is His own law upon the +creature." + +However that may be, it is undeniable that Mr. Darwin has purposely +been silent upon the philosophical and theological applications of his +theory. This reticence, under the circumstances, argues design, and +raises inquiry as to the final cause or reason why. Here, as in higher +instances, confident as we are that there is a final cause, we must +not be overconfident that we can infer the particular or true one. +Perhaps the author is more familiar with natural-historical than with +philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided which particular +theory about efficient cause is best founded, he meanwhile argues the +scientific questions concerned--all that relates to secondary +causes--upon purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case. +Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will finally be +adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction in hearing it denounced +as sheer atheism by the inconsiderate, and afterwards, when it takes +its place with the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment +reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event. + +Whatever Mr. Darwin's philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a +matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important +questions, whether a theory to account for the origination and +diversification of animal and vegetable forms through the operation of +secondary causes does or does not exclude design; and whether the +establishment by adequate evidence of Darwin's particular theory of +diversification through variation and natural selection would +essentially alter the present scientific and philosophical grounds for +theistic views of Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment +rendered by the two Boston reviewers--evidently able and practised +reasoners--"must give us pause." We hesitate to advance our +conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious +consideration, we are constrained to say, that, in our opinion, the +adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwin's particular +hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final +causes, utility, and special design just where they were before. We do +not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every +view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it +removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we +cannot perceive that Darwin's theory brings in any new kind of +scientific difficulty, that is, any with which philosophical +naturalists were not already familiar. + +Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the +scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species--no less than of +a theory of dynamics--must needs be the same to the theist as to the +atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to +the question of primary cause--a question which belongs to philosophy. +Wherefore, Darwin's reticence about efficient cause does not disturb +us. He considers only the scientific questions. As already stated, we +think that a theistic view of Nature is implied in his book, and we +must charitably refrain from suggesting the contrary until the +contrary is logically deduced from his positions. If, however, he +anywhere maintains that the natural causes through which species are +diversified operate without an ordaining and directing intelligence, +and that the orderly arrangements and admirable adaptations we see all +around us are fortuitous or blind, undesigned results,--that the eye, +though it came to see, was not designed for seeing, nor the hand for +handling,--then, we suppose, he is justly chargeable with denying, and +very needlessly denying, all design in organic Nature; otherwise we +suppose not. Why, if Darwin's well-known passage about the +eye[3]--equivocal or unfortunate though some of the language be--does +not imply ordaining and directing intelligence, then he refutes his +own theory as effectually as any of his opponents are likely to do. He +asks,-- + + "May we not believe that"--under variation proceeding long enough, + generation multiplying the better variations times enough, and + natural selection securing the improvements--"a living optical + instrument might be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the + works of the Creator are to those of man?" + +This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument +was made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an +intelligent First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is +asserted; and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why +must we believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a +living instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be +originated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the +fitting way? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that +by the Creator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or +necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it. +For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptations of +means to specific ends,--which is absurd enough,--but better adjusted +and more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, +human intellect) can contrive and human skill execute,--which no sane +person will believe. + +On the other hand, if Darwin even admits--we will not say adopts--the +theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the +endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate +form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be +derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite +number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and +purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born +only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his +theory,--rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,--the theistic +view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do +not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor +produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason +for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, +failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur; +but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as +upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even +over-strictly insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws, +namely, that successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at +all, from their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and +impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe that the species were +designed, and that natural propagation was designed, how can we say +that the actual varieties of the species were not equally designed? +Have we not similar grounds for inferring design in the supposed +varieties of a species, that we have in the case of the supposed +species of a genus? When a naturalist comes to regard as three +closely-related species what he before took to be so many varieties of +one species, how has he thereby strengthened our conviction that the +three forms were designed to have the differences which they actually +exhibit? Wherefore, so long as gradated, orderly, and adapted forms in +Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of +variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. +Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation +has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a +sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural +selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet +their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them +forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner +unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should +believe that the distribution was designed. + +To insist, therefore, that the new hypothesis of the derivative origin +of the actual species is incompatible with final causes and design is +to take a position which we must consider philosophically untenable. +We must also regard it as unwise or dangerous, in the present state +and present prospects of physical and physiological science. We should +expect the philosophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground; also, +until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical believer; but +we should think that the thoughtful theistic philosopher would take +the other side. Not to do so seems to concede that only supernatural +events can be shown to be designed, which no theist can admit,--seems +also to misconceive the scope and meaning of all ordinary arguments +for design in Nature. This misconception is shared both by the +reviewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses expressions +which seem to imply that the natural forms which surround us, because +they have a history or natural sequence, could have been only +generally, but not particularly designed,--a view at once superficial +and contradictory; whereas his true line should be, that his +hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the _how_ and not the +_why_ of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just +where it was before. + +To illustrate this first from the theist's point of view. Transfer the +question for a moment from the origination of species to the +origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. +Because natural, that is, "stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the +less designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our +maker,--not merely the originator of the race, but _our_ maker as +individuals,--and none the less so because it pleased Him to make us +in the way of ordinary generation. If any of us were born unlike our +parents and grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, +would the case be altered in this regard? The whole argument in +natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a +final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the +veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural +generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, +supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the +supposition of the descent of men from Chimpanzees and Gorillas, since +those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more +supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is +convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland +dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from +similar parents, would it be at all weakened, if, in tracing his +genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the +mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came +(as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for +design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the +supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary +wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is +from some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this +post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf? +And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our +present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single +organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous +natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a +cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any +dogs? Again, suppose we have two well-known and very decidedly +different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their +structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as +valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever +presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B +and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is +the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted +to, at all weakened by the discovered intermediate forms? Rather does +not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that +all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of +intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations +to be closer yet, as close as those between the various sorts of dogs, +or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as +shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any +weaker than it was in the case of A and D? Whoever contends that it +would be should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals +by generation is incompatible with design, and so take a consistent +atheistical view of Nature. Perhaps we might all have confidently +thought so, antecedently to experience of the fact of reproduction. +Let our experience teach us wisdom. + +These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from +structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual +animal or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the +history of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and +takes nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and +results; and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, +unless infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. +Testimony is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to +purpose is. Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but +may leave us in doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are +notable examples, compel belief with a force not appreciably short of +demonstration. Clearly to settle that these must have been designed +goes far towards proving that other organs and other seemingly less +explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and +clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is +a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange +contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of +certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift deposits, prove +design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to +use in animals and vegetables do not _a fortiori_ argue design. + +We could not affirm that the arguments for design in Nature are +conclusive to all minds. But we may insist, upon grounds already +intimated, that whatever they were good for before Darwin's book +appeared, they are good for now. To our minds the argument from design +always appeared conclusive of the being and continued operation of an +intelligent First Cause, the Ordainer of Nature; and we do not see +that the grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted by the +adoption of Darwin's hypothesis. We are not blind to the philosophical +difficulties which the thorough-going implication of design in Nature +has to encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them. It suffices +us to know that they are not new nor peculiar difficulties,--that, as +Darwin's theory and our reasonings upon it did not raise these +perturbing spirits, they are not bound to lay them. Meanwhile, that +the doctrine of design encounters the very same difficulties in the +material that it does in the moral world is just what ought to be +expected. + +So the issue between the skeptic and the theist is only the old one, +long ago argued out,--namely, whether organic Nature is a result of +design or of chance. Variation and natural selection open no third +alternative; they concern only the question, How the results, whether +fortuitous or designed, may have been brought about. Organic Nature +abounds with unmistakable and irresistible indications of design, and, +being a connected and consistent system, this evidence carried the +implication of design throughout the whole. On the other hand, chance +carries no probabilities with it, can never be developed into a +consistent system; but, when applied to the explanation of orderly or +beneficial results, heaps up improbabilities at every step beyond all +computation. To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The +alternative is a designed Cosmos. + +It is very easy to assume, that, because events in Nature are in one +sense accidental, and the operative forces which bring them to pass +are themselves blind and unintelligent, (all forces are,) therefore +they are undirected, or that he who describes these events as the +results of such forces thereby assumes that they are undirected. This +is the assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agassiz, who +insists that the only alternative to the doctrine, that all organized +beings were supernaturally created as they are, is, that they have +arisen _spontaneously_ through the _omnipotence of matter_.[4] + +As to all this, nothing is easier than to bring out in the conclusion +what you introduce in the premises. If you import atheism into your +conception of variation and natural selection, you can readily exhibit +it in the result. If you do not put it in, perhaps there need be none +to come out. While the mechanician is considering a steamboat or +locomotive engine as a material organism, and contemplating the fuel, +water, and steam, the source of the mechanical forces and how they +operate, he may not have occasion to mention the engineer. But, the +orderly and special results accomplished, the _why_ the movement is in +this or that particular direction, etc., are inexplicable without him. +If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have +occurred and the results we behold were undirected and undesigned, or +if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers +phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show +that such belief is atheism. But the admission of the phenomena and of +these natural processes and forces does not necessitate any such +belief, nor even render it one whit less improbable than before. + +Surely, too, the accidental element may play its part in Nature +without negativing design in the theist's view. He believes that the +earth's surface has been very gradually prepared for man and the +existing animal races, that vegetable matter has through a long series +of generations imparted fertility to the soil in order that it may +support its present occupants, that even beds of coal have been stored +up for man's benefit. Yet what is more accidental, and more simply the +consequence of physical agencies, than the accumulation of vegetable +matter in a peat-bog, and its transformation into coal? No scientific +person at this day doubts that our solar system is a progressive +development, whether in his conception he begins with molten masses, +or aëriform or nebulous masses, or with a fluid revolving mass of vast +extent, from which the specific existing worlds have been developed +one by one. What theist doubts that the actual results of the +development in the inorganic worlds are not merely compatible with +design, but are in the truest sense designed results? Not Mr. Agassiz, +certainly, who adopts a remarkable illustration of design directly +founded on the nebular hypothesis, drawing from the position and times +of revolution of the worlds so originated "direct evidence that the +physical world has been ordained in conformity with laws which obtain +also among living beings." But the reader of the interesting +exposition [5] will notice that the designed result has been brought +to pass through what, speaking after the manner of men, might be +called a chapter of accidents. A natural corollary of this +demonstration would seem to be, that a material connection between a +series of created things--such as the development of one of them from +another, or of all from a common stock--is highly compatible with +their intellectual connection, namely, with their being designed and +directed by one mind. Yet, upon some ground, which is not explained, +and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the +contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists, that, because the +members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot +be the result of a material differentiation of the objects +themselves,"[6] that is, they cannot have had a genealogical +connection. But is there not as much intellectual connection between +successive generations of any species as there is between the several +species of a genus or the several genera of an order? As the +intellectual connection here is realized through the material +connection, why may it not be so in the case of species and genera? On +all sides, therefore, the implication seems to be quite the other way. + +Returning to the accidental element, it is evident that the strongest +point against the compatibility of Darwin's hypothesis with design in +Nature is made when natural selection is referred to as picking out +those variations which are improvements from a vast number which are +not improvements, but perhaps the contrary, and therefore useless or +purposeless, and born to perish. But even here the difficulty is not +peculiar; for Nature abounds with analogous instances. Some of our +race are useless, or worse, as regards the improvement of mankind; yet +the race may be designed to improve, and may be actually improving. +The whole animate life of a country depends absolutely upon the +vegetation; the vegetation upon the rain. The moisture is furnished by +the ocean, is raised by the sun's heat from the ocean's surface, and +is wafted inland by the winds. But what multitudes of rain-drops fall +back into the ocean, are as much without a final cause as the +incipient varieties which come to nothing! Does it, therefore, follow +that the rains which are bestowed upon the soil with such rule and +average regularity were not designed to support vegetable and animal +life? Consider, likewise, the vast proportion of seeds and pollen, of +ova and young,--a thousand or more to one,--which come to nothing, and +are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and only in the same +sense, as are Darwin's unimproved and unused slight variations. The +world is full of such cases; and these must answer the argument,--for +we cannot, except by thus showing that it proves too much. + +Finally, it is worth noticing, that, though natural selection is +scientifically explicable, variation is not. Thus far the cause of +variation, or the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike the +parents, is just as mysterious as the reason why it is generally like +the parents. It is now as inexplicable as any other origination; and +if ever explained, the explanation will only carry up the sequence of +secondary causes one step farther, and bring us in face of a somewhat +different problem, which will have the same element of mystery that +the problem of variation has now. Circumstances may preserve or may +destroy the variations; man may use or direct them; but selection, +whether artificial or natural, no more originates them than man +originates the power which turns a wheel, when he dams a stream and +lets the water fall upon it. The origination of this power is a +question about efficient cause. The tendency of science in respect to +this obviously is not towards the omnipotence of matter, as some +suppose, but towards the omnipotence of spirit. + +So the real question we come to is as to the way in which we are to +conceive intelligent and efficient cause to be exerted, and upon what +exerted. Are we bound to suppose efficient cause in all cases exerted +upon nothing to evoke something into existence,--and this thousands of +times repeated, when a slight change in the details would make all the +difference between successive species? Why may not the new species, or +some of them, be designed diversifications of the old? + +There are, perhaps, only three views of efficient cause which may +claim to be both philosophical and theistic. + +1. The view of its exertion at the beginning of time, endowing matter +and created things with forces which do the work and produce the +phenomena. + +2. This same view, with the theory of insulated interpositions, or +occasional direct action, engrafted upon it,--the view that events and +operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at +the first, but that now and then, and only now and then, the Deity +puts his hand directly to the work. + +3. The theory of the immediate, orderly, and constant, however +infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause. + +It must be allowed, that, while the third is preëminently the +Christian view, all three are philosophically compatible with design +in Nature. The second is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most +thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view towards the first or +the third,--adopting the first on some occasions, the third on others. +Those philosophers who like and expect to settle all mooted questions +will take one or the other extreme. The "Examiner" inclines towards, +the "North American" reviewer fully adopts, the third view, to the +logical extent of maintaining that "_the origin of an individual_, as +well as the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained only by +the _direct_ action of an intelligent creative cause." This is the +line for Mr. Darwin to take; for it at once and completely relieves +his scientific theory from every theological objection which his +reviewers have urged against it. + +At present we suspect that our author prefers the first conception, +though he might contend that his hypothesis is compatible with either +of the three. That it is also compatible with an atheistic or +pantheistic conception of the universe is an objection which, being +shared by all physical science, and some ethical or moral, cannot +specially be urged against Darwin's system. As he rejects spontaneous +generation, and admits of intervention at the beginning of organic +life, and probably in more than one instance, he is not wholly +excluded from adopting the middle view, although the interventions he +would allow are few and far back. Yet one interposition admits the +principle as well as more. Interposition presupposes particular +necessity or reason for it, and raises the question, When and how +often it may have been necessary. It would be the natural supposition, +if we had only one set of species to account for, or if the successive +inhabitants of the earth had no other connections or resemblances than +those which adaptation to similar conditions might explain. But if +this explanation of organic Nature requires one to "believe, that, at +innumerable periods in the earth's history, certain elemental atoms +have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues," and when +the results are seen to be all orderly, according to a few types, we +cannot wonder that such interventions should at length be considered, +not as interpositions or interferences, but rather as "exertions so +frequent and beneficent that we come to regard them as the ordinary +action of Him who laid the foundations of the earth, and without whom +not a sparrow falleth to the ground."[7] + +What does the difference between Mr. Darwin and his reviewer now +amount to? If we say that according to one view the origination of +species is _natural_, according to the other _miraculous_, Mr. Darwin +agrees that "what is natural as much requires and presupposes an +intelligent mind to render it so,--that is, to effect it continually +or at stated times,--as what is supernatural does to effect it for +once."[8] He merely inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind +us that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation of matter) +were transformations or actions in and upon natural things, and will +ask how many times and how frequently may the origination of +successive species be repeated before the supernatural merges in the +natural. + +In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of a species, no less +than that of an individual, is natural. The reviewer, that the natural +origination of an individual, no less than the origination of a +species, requires and presupposes Divine power. _A fortiori_, then, +the origination of a variety requires and presupposes Divine power. +And so between the scientific hypothesis of the one and the +philosophical conception of the other no contrariety remains. "A +proper view of the nature of causation.... places the vital doctrine +of the being and the providence of a God on ground that can never be +shaken."[9] A true and worthy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to +the denunciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far as +philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If a writer must needs +use his own favorite dogma as a weapon with which to give _coup de +grace_ to a pernicious theory, he should be careful to seize it by the +handle, and not by the blade. + +We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical objection of the +"North American" reviewer, which the "Examiner" also raises, though +less explicitly. Like all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time in +the most unlimited manner. He is not peculiar in this regard. Mr. +Agassiz tells us that the conviction is "now universal among +well-informed naturalists, that this globe has been in existence for +innumerable ages, and that the length of time elapsed since it first +became inhabited cannot be counted in years." Pictet, that the +imagination refuses to calculate the immense number of years and of +ages during which the faunas of thirty or more epochs have succeeded +one another, and developed their long succession of generations. Now +the reviewer declares that such indefinite succession of ages is +"virtually infinite," "lacks no characteristic of eternity except its +name,"--at least, that "the difference between such a conception and +that of the strictly infinite, if any, is not appreciable." But +infinity belongs to metaphysics. Therefore, he concludes, Darwin +supports his theory, not by scientific, but by metaphysical evidence; +his theory is "essentially and completely metaphysical in character, +resting altogether upon that idea of 'the infinite' which the human +mind can neither put aside nor comprehend."[10] And so a theory which +will be generally objected to as much too physical is transposed by a +single syllogism to metaphysics. + +Well, physical geology must go with it: for, even on the soberest +view, it demands an indefinitely long time antecedent to the +introduction of organic life upon our earth. _A fortiori_ is physical +astronomy a branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still larger +"instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls them, both as to time +and number. Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now +relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural +philosopher informs us, "we have to regard as the results of an +infinite number of infinitely small material particles, acting on each +other at infinitely small distances,"--a triad of infinites,--and so +_physics_ becomes the most _metaphysical_ of sciences. + +Verily, on this view, + + "Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, + And nought is everything, and everything is + nought." + +The leading objection of Mr. Agassiz is likewise of a philosophical +character. It is, that species exist only "as categories of +thought,"--that, having no material existence, they can have had no +material variation, and no material community of origin. Here the +predication is of species in the subjective sense, while the inference +is applied to them in the objective sense. Reduced to plain terms, the +argument seems to be: Species are ideas; therefore the objects from +which the idea is derived cannot vary or blend, cannot have had a +genealogical connection. + +The common view of species is, that, although they are +generalizations, yet they have a direct objective ground in Nature, +which genera, orders, etc., have not. According to the succinct +definition of Jussieu,--and that of Linnaeus is identical in +meaning,--a species is the perennial succession of similar individuals +in continued generations. The species is the chain of which the +individuals are the links. The sum of the genealogically connected +similar individuals constitutes the species, which thus has an +actuality and ground of distinction not shared by genera and other +groups which were not supposed to be genealogically connected. How a +derivative hypothesis would modify this view, in assigning to species +only a temporary fixity, is obvious. Yet, if naturalists adopt this +hypothesis, they will still retain Jussieu's definition, which leaves +untouched the question as to how and when the "perennial successions" +were established. The practical question will only be, How much +difference between two sets of individuals entitles them to rank under +distinct species; and that is the practical question now, on whatever +theory. The theoretical question is--as stated at the beginning of +this long article--whether these specific lines were always as +distinct as now. + +Mr. Agassiz has "lost no opportunity of urging the idea, that, while +species have no material existence, they yet exist as categories of +thought in the same way [and only in the same way] as genera, +families, orders, classes," etc. He "has taken the ground, that all +the natural divisions in the animal kingdom are primarily distinct, +founded upon different categories of characters, and that all exist in +the same way, that is, as categories of thought, embodied in +individual living forms. I have attempted to show that branches in the +animal kingdom are founded upon different plans of structure, and for +that very reason have embraced from the beginning representatives +between which there could be no community of origin; that classes are +founded upon different modes of execution of these plans, and +therefore they also embrace representatives which could have no +community of origin; that orders represent the different degrees of +complication in the mode of execution of each class, and therefore +embrace representatives which could not have a community of origin any +more than the members of different classes or branches; that families +are founded upon different patterns of form, and embrace +representatives equally independent in their origin; that genera are +founded upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, embracing +representatives which, from the very nature of their peculiarities, +could have no community of origin; and that, finally, species are +based upon relations and proportions that exclude, as much as all the +preceding distinctions, the idea of a common descent. + +"As the community of characters among the beings belonging to these +different categories arises from the intellectual connection which +shows them to be categories of thought, they cannot be the result of a +gradual material differentiation of the objects themselves. The +argument on which these views are founded may be summed up in the +following few words: Species, genera, families, etc., exist as +thoughts, individuals as facts."[11] + +An ingenious dilemma caps the argument:-- + +"It seems to me that there is much confusion of ideas in the general +statement of the variability of species so often repeated lately. If +species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation +theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, +how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the +variability of species?" + +Now we imagine that Mr. Darwin need not be dangerously gored by either +horn of this curious dilemma. Although we ourselves cherish +old-fashioned prejudices in favor of the probable permanence, and +therefore of a more stable objective ground of species, yet we +agree--and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with Mr. Agassiz--that species, +and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, +as cognizable distinctions,--which is all that we can make of the +phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. +Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts +or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material +things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify +the present almost innumerable categories of thought, or embodiments +of Divine thoughts in material forms, or--viewed on the human side--in +forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and +differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, +orders, etc., and to our reason the inference of a Divine original? We +have no clear idea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in +saying that branches are founded upon different plans of structure, +classes upon different modes of execution of these plans, orders on +different degrees of complication in the mode of execution, families +upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities of +structure, and species upon relations and proportions. That is, we do +not perceive how these several "categories of thought" exclude the +possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or +suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of origin. Moreover, +Mr. Darwin would insinuate that the particular philosophy of +classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely +hypothetical and as little accepted as his own doctrine. If both are +pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the +one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, +there is no use in making the attempt. + +As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it upon that category of +thought which we call _chair_. This is a genus, comprising the common +chair, (_Sella vulgaris_,) the arm or easy chair, (_S. cathedra_,) the +rocking chair, (_S. oscillans_,) widely distributed in the United +States, and some others,--each of which has _sported_, as the +gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the +_species_ have no material existence, how can they vary? If +individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed +among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by +asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or +the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that +our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest +manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are +manifested in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can +we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what has no material +existence can have had no material connection and no material +variation, we should yet infer that what had intellectual existence +and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the +individuals which represent the species, we do not see how all this +shows that they may not vary. Observation shows us that they do. +Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do vary, we +safely infer that the idea or intention must have varied, and that +this variation of the individual representatives proves the +variability of the species, whether subjectively or objectively +regarded. + +Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and +one species shades off by gradations into another. And--note it +well--these numerous and successively slight variations and +gradations, far from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to +their forms, are very proofs of design. + +Again, _edifice_ is a generic category of thought. Egyptian, Grecian, +Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are well-marked species, of which each +individual building of the sort is a material embodiment. Now the +question is, whether these categories of thought may not have been +evolved, one from another, in succession, or from some primal, less +specialized, edificial category. What better evidence for such +hypothesis could we have than the variations and grades which connect +one of these species with another? We might extend the parallel, and +get some good illustrations of natural selection from the history of +architecture, the probable origin of the different styles, and their +adaptation to different climates and conditions. Two qualifying +considerations are noticeable. One, that houses do not propagate, so +as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is +of small moment on Agassiz's view, he holding that genealogical +connection is not of the essence of species at all. The other, that +the formation and development of the ideas upon which human works +proceed is gradual; or, as the same great naturalist well states it, +"while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." +But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action. + +We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general +scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, +after all, we are not so anxious just now to know whether the new +theory is well founded on facts as whether it would be harmless, if it +were. Besides, we feel quite unable to answer some of these +objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he +can. + +Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is +that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the +intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. Here all +that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of +the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, +withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his +opponents urge it,--so much so, indeed, that two of his English +critics turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with +actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar +difficulties,--as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not +in spite of them;--a handsome return for his candor! + +As to this imperfection of the geological record, perhaps we should +get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the +existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and +products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and +that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by +the New Zealand fleet on its way to explore the ruins of London, +undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a +catalogue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close of +the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a +surface exploration, what a beggarly account it must be! How many of +the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts +official reports would it be likely to contain? + +Another unanswerable question asked by the Boston reviewers is, Why, +when structure and instinct or habit vary,--as they must have varied, +on Darwin's hypothesis,--they vary together and harmoniously, instead +of vaguely. We cannot tell, because we cannot tell why either should +vary at all. Yet, as they both do vary in successive generations,--as +is seen under domestication,--and are correlated, we can only adduce +the fact. Darwin may be precluded from this answer, but we may say +that they vary together because designed to do so. A reviewer says +that the chance of their varying together is inconceivably small; yet, +if they do not, the variant individuals must perish. Then it is well +that it is not left to chance. As to the fact: before we were born, +nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took place in a certain +way. But the moment we were ushered into this breathing world, our +actions promptly conformed, both as to respiration and nourishment, to +the before unused structure and to the new surroundings. + +"Now," says the "Examiner," "suppose, for instance, the gills of an +aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a +continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?" No doubt. +But--simply contemplating the facts, instead of theorizing--we notice +that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to +be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without +supernatural interposition,--just as Darwin would have it, if the +development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as +natural as a metamorphosis. + +"Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly +inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a +cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the +animal would be no better supported than the objection. Darwin makes +very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even +poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an +elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a +squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; but might +not the length of the leap be increased by practice? + +The "North American" reviewer's position, that the higher brute +animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a +heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and +monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as +they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of +knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to +contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that +instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the +scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate +proportions,[12] we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an +animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes +himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his partner's +eggs,--which he tends and regulates the heat of about as carefully and +skilfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobion.[13] As to the +real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a +far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we +yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of +dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable portion of poor +humanity," nor indulge the hope, or, indeed, the desire, of a renewed +acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.[14] + +The assertion, that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired +structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can +refute. + +That "the human mind has become what it is out of a developed +instinct"[15] is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we +presume, would not accept. As to his having us believe that individual +animals acquire their instincts gradually,[16] this statement must +have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of +instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book. + +It has been attempted to destroy the very foundation of Darwin's +hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, +for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to +prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary +to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot +be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not +essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, we could +show, if our space permitted. + +As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as +absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and +varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. +That it subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so +designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this +sterility proves nothing against the derivative origin of the actual +species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those +forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence as those which +were always thus distinct. + +The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity +with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals, preserved in +Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St. +Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a +gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against +Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the +perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent +breed. For Darwin clearly maintains--what the facts warrant--that the +mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it +may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede +the parent form, but it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the +least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, +unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be +expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long +as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to +occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the +fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their +tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the +permanence of the common sort of fowl. + +As to the objection, that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's +theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, replaced by +higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave +below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization +is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the +contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given +space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the +conditions, seems to be aimed at, and this is effected by +diversification. + +Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative +theory, as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never +will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in +a blind faith that species--that the manifold sorts and forms of +existing animals and vegetables--"have no secondary cause." The +contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become +more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative +hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic +ground. + +Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial,--an +hypothesis thus far not untenable,--a trial just now very useful to +science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious +assailants temporarily make it so. + +One good effect is already manifest: its enabling the advocates of the +hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double +insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be +of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be +expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must +admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent +varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian +hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize a +diversity of human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such +species were primordial and supernatural in the common sense of the +word. + +The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of +materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to +be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, +but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a +line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into +the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The +wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis +leaves the argument for design, and therefore for a Designer, as valid +as it ever was;--that to do any work by an instrument must require, +and therefore presuppose, the exertion rather of more than of less +power than to do it directly;--that whoever would be a consistent +theist should believe that Design in the natural world is coextensive +with Providence, and hold fully to the one as he does to the other, in +spite of the wholly similar and apparently insuperable difficulties +which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to develop the idea +into a complete system, either in the material and organic, or in the +moral world. It is enough, in the way of obviating objections, to show +that the philosophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only +the same, as of the other. + +[Footnote 1: Whatever it may be, it is not "the homoeopathic form of +the transmutative hypothesis," as Darwin's is said to be, (p. 252, +Amer. reprint,) so happily that the prescription is repeated in the +second (p. 259) and third (p. 271) dilutions, no doubt, on Hahnemann's +famous principle, with an increase of potency at each dilution. +Probably the supposed transmutation is _per saltus_. "Homoeopathic +doses of transmutation," indeed! Well, if we really must swallow +transmutation in some form or other, as this reviewer intimates, we +might prefer the mild homoeopathic doses of Darwin's formula to the +allopathic bolus which the Edinburgh general practitioner appears to +be compounding.] + +[Footnote 2: Vide _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 475, +and _Christian Examiner_, for May, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 3: Page 188, English ed.] + +[Footnote 4: In _American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, pp. 148, +149.] + +[Footnote 5: In _Contributions to the Nat. Hist. of U. S._, Vol. i. +pp. 128, 129.] + +[Footnote 6: _Contr. Nat. Hist. U.S._, Vol. i. p. 130; and _Amer. +Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + + +[Footnote 7: _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 506.] + +[Footnote 8: _Vide_ mottoes to the second edition of Darwin's work.] + +[Footnote 9: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 504.] + +[Footnote 10: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 487, _et passim._] + +[Footnote 11: _In American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + +[Footnote 12: _Vide_ article by Mr. C. Wright, in the _Mathematical +Monthly_ for May last.] + +[Footnote 13: Vide _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1860, article on +"Acclimatization," etc.] + +[Footnote 14: _Contributions; Essay on Classification_, etc., Vol. i. +pp. 60-66.] + +[Footnote 15: _North Amer. Review_, April, 1860, p. 475.] + +[Footnote 16: _Amer. Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 146.] + + * * * * * + + +A MODERN CINDERELLA: + +OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE. + +HOW IT WAS LOST. + +Among green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, +mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the +eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it +about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the +slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had +stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and +found them young. + +One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers +in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the +hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain +humble history began. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Di." + +And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the +open door in answer to the call. + +"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,'--there's a dear. +It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm +once fairly laid." + +As she spoke, Di pushed up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the +couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page +of her book. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for +the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon +the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a +certain plain sinner. + +"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's +the only thing fit for me this hot weather." + +And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more +gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she +was drawing. + +"Little daughter!" + +"Yes, father." + +"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at +three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I +shall be in the lower garden." + +The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that +domestic purgatory on a summer day,--the kitchen. There were vines +about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it +was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied +incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which +such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the +priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories +of wasted temper, time, and toil. + +Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,--hurried, having many +cares those happy little housewives never know,--and disappointed in a +hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to +make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too +patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too +light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe +holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly +of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service +of less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward +enough. + +To and fro she went, silent and diligent, giving the grace of +willingness to every humble or distasteful task the day had brought +her; but some malignant sprite seemed to have taken possession of her +kingdom, for rebellion broke out everywhere. The kettles would boil +over most obstreperously,--the mutton refused to cook with the meek +alacrity to be expected from the nature of a sheep,--the stove, with +unnecessary warmth of temper, would glow like a fiery furnace,--the +irons would scorch,--the linens would dry,--and spirits would fail, +though patience never. + +Nan tugged on, growing hotter and wearier, more hurried and more +hopeless, till at last the crisis came; for in one fell moment she +tore her gown, burnt her hand, and smutched the collar she was +preparing to finish in the most unexceptionable style. Then, if she +had been a nervous woman, she would have scolded; being a gentle girl, +she only "lifted up her voice and wept." + +"Behold, she watereth her linen with salt tears, and bewaileth herself +because of much tribulation. But, lo! help cometh from afar: a strong +man bringeth lettuce wherewith to stay her, plucketh berries to +comfort her withal, and clasheth cymbals that she may dance for joy." + +The voice came from the porch, and, with her hope fulfilled, Nan +looked up to greet John Lord, the house-friend, who stood there with a +basket on his arm; and as she saw his honest eyes, kind lips, and +helpful hands, the girl thought this plain young man the comeliest, +most welcome sight she had beheld that day. + +"How good of you, to come through all this heat, and not to laugh at +my despair!" she said, looking up like a grateful child, as she led +him in. + +"I only obeyed orders, Nan; for a certain dear old lady had a motherly +presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me +as a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and +came to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment in the tent of +friendship." + +As he spoke, John gave his own gift in his mother's name, and bestowed +himself in the wide window-seat, where morning-glories nodded at him, +and the old butternut sent pleasant shadows dancing to and fro. + +His advent, like that of Orpheus in Hades, seemed to soothe all +unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The fire began to slacken, +the kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to +cool, the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the +collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the +change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take +compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to +lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul. He +took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish +from the closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries' +blood. + +"Oh, John, you needn't do that; I shall have time when I've turned the +meat, made the pudding, and done these things. See, I'm getting on +finely now;--you're a judge of such matters; isn't that nice?" + +As she spoke, Nan offered the polished absurdity for inspection with +innocent pride. + +"Oh that I were a collar, to sit upon that hand!" sighed +John,--adding, argumentatively, "As to the berry question, I might +answer it with a gem from Dr. Watts, relative to 'Satan' and 'idle +hands,' but will merely say, that, as a matter of public safety, you'd +better leave me alone; for such is the destructiveness of my nature, +that I shall certainly eat something hurtful, break something +valuable, or sit upon something crushable, unless you let me +concentrate my energies by knocking off these young fellows' hats, and +preparing them for their doom." + +Looking at the matter in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went +cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought +ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the blessings of her +lot. + +"Where's Sally?" asked John, looking vainly for the energetic +functionary who usually pervaded that region like a domestic +police-woman, a terror to cats, dogs, and men. + +"She has gone to her cousin's funeral, and won't be back till Monday. +There seems to be a great fatality among her relations; for one dies, +or comes to grief in some way, about once a month. But I don't blame +poor Sally for wanting to get away from this place now and then. I +think I could find it in my heart to murder an imaginary friend or +two, if I had to stay here long." + +And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her. + +"Where's Di?" asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all +at once. + +"She is in Germany with 'Wilhelm Meister'; but, though 'lost to sight, +to memory dear'; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how +clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don't understand at +all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight. Yes, +she's a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a +crowbar, and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when +the 'divine afflatus' descends upon her, I'm afraid." + +And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di's forlorn hose and inky +pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"Where is Laura?" proceeded the inquisitor. + +"Well, I might say that _she_ was in Italy; for she is copying some +fine thing of Raphael's, or Michel Angelo's, or some great creature's +or other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting +before her easel, that it's really a sight to behold, and I've peeped +two or three times to see how she gets on." + +And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish wherewith her +picturesque sister desired to prolong her artistic existence. + +"Where is your father?" John asked again, checking off each answer +with a nod and a little frown. + +"He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the +beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition +in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the +middle of each. Why, bless the dear man! I forgot it was time for the +cider. Wouldn't you like to take it to him, John? He'd love to consult +you; and the lane is so cool, it does one's heart good to look at it." + +John glanced from the steamy kitchen to the shadowy path, and answered +with a sudden assumption of immense industry,-- + +"I couldn't possibly go, Nan,--I've so much on my hands. You'll have +to do it yourself. 'Mr. Robert of Lincoln' has something for your +private ear; and the lane is so cool, it will do one's heart good to +see you in it. Give my regards to your father, and, in the words of +'Little Mabel's' mother, with slight variations,-- + + 'Tell the dear old body + This day I cannot run, + For the pots are boiling over + And the mutton isn't done.'" + +"I will; but please, John, go in to the girls and be comfortable; for +I don't like to leave you here," said Nan. + +"You insinuate that I should pick at the pudding or invade the cream, +do you? Ungrateful girl, leave me!" And, with melodramatic sternness, +John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass +like a poisoned goblet. + +Nan took it, and went smiling away. But the lane might have been the +Desert of Sahara, for all she knew of it; and she would have passed +her father as unconcernedly as if he had been an apple-tree, had he +not called out,-- + +"Stand and deliver, little woman!" + +She obeyed the venerable highway-man, and followed him to and fro, +listening to his plans and directions with a mute attention that quite +won his heart. + +"That hop-pole is really an ornament now, Nan; this sage-bed needs +weeding,--that's good work for you girls; and, now I think of it, +you'd better water the lettuce in the cool of the evening, after I'm +gone." + +To all of which remarks Nan gave her assent; though the hop-pole took +the likeness of a tall figure she had seen in the porch, the sage-bed, +curiously enough, suggested a strawberry ditto, the lettuce vividly +reminded her of certain vegetable productions a basket had brought, +and the bob-o-link only sung in his cheeriest voice, "Go home, go +home! he is there!" + +She found John--he having made a freemason of himself, by assuming her +little apron--meditating over the partially spread table, lost in +amaze at its desolate appearance; one half its proper paraphernalia +having been forgotten, and the other half put on awry. Nan laughed +till the tears ran over her cheeks, and John was gratified at the +efficacy of his treatment; for her face had brought a whole harvest of +sunshine from the garden, and all her cares seemed to have been lost +in the windings of the lane. + +"Nan, are you in hysterics?" cried Di, appearing, book in hand. "John, +you absurd man, what are you doing?" + +"I'm helpin' the maid of all work, please marm." And John dropped a +curtsy with his limited apron. + +Di looked ruffled, for the merry words were a covert reproach; and +with her usual energy of manner and freedom of speech she tossed +"Wilhelm" out of the window, exclaiming, irefully,-- + +"That's always the way; I'm never where I ought to be, and never think +of anything till it's too late; but it's all Goethe's fault. What does +he write books full of smart 'Phillinas' and interesting 'Meisters' +for? How can I be expected to remember that Sally's away, and people +must eat, when I'm hearing the 'Harper' and little 'Mignon'? John, how +dare you come here and do my work, instead of shaking me and telling +me to do it myself? Take that toasted child away, and fan her like a +Chinese mandarin, while I dish up this dreadful dinner." + +John and Nan fled like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of +remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the +potatoes' jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair. +Laura had a vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost +among the lights and shadows of Minerva's helmet, forgot to appear +till dinner had been evoked from chaos and peace was restored. + +At three o'clock, Di performed the coronation-ceremony with her +father's best hat; Laura re-tied his old-fashioned neck-cloth, and +arranged his white locks with an eye to saintly effect; Nan appeared +with a beautifully written sermon, and suspicious ink-stains on the +fingers that slipped it into his pocket; John attached himself to the +bag; and the patriarch was escorted to the door of his tent with the +triumphal procession which usually attended his out-goings and +in-comings. Having kissed the female portion of his tribe, he ascended +the venerable chariot, which received him with audible lamentation, as +its rheumatic joints swayed to and fro. + +"Good-bye, my dears! I shall be back early on Monday morning; so take +care of yourselves, and be sure you all go and hear Mr. Emerboy preach +to-morrow. My regards to your mother, John. Come, Solon!" + +But Solon merely cocked one ear, and remained a fixed fact; for long +experience had induced the philosophic beast to take for his motto the +Yankee maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" He knew things +were not right; therefore he did not go ahead. + +"Oh, by-the-way, girls, don't forget to pay Tommy Mullein for bringing +up the cow: he expects it to-night. And, Di, don't sit up till +daylight, nor let Laura stay out in the dew. Now, I believe, I'm off. +Come, Solon!" + +But Solon only cocked the other ear, gently agitated his mortified +tail, as premonitory symptoms of departure, and never stirred a hoof, +being well aware that it always took three "comes" to make a "go." + +"Bless me! I've forgotten my spectacles. They are probably shut up in +that volume of Herbert on my table. Very awkward to find myself +without them ten miles away. Thank you, John. Don't neglect to water +the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little 'Martha.' +Come"---- + +At this juncture, Solon suddenly went off, like "Mrs. Gamp," in a sort +of walking swoon, apparently deaf and blind to all mundane matters, +except the refreshments awaiting him ten miles away; and the benign +old pastor disappeared, humming "Hebron" to the creaking accompaniment +of the bulgy chaise. + +Laura retired to take her _siesta_; Nan made a small _carbonaro_ of +herself by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of +penance for past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in +which she soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping +every third stitch, and seaming _ad libitum_. If John had been a +gentlemanly creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his +feet and made a nuisance of himself by indulging in a "weed"; but +being only an uncultivated youth, with a rustic regard for pure air +and womankind in general, he kept his head uppermost, and talked like +a man, instead of smoking like a chimney. + +"It will probably be six months before I sit here again, tangling your +threads and maltreating your needles, Nan. How glad you must feel to +hear it!" he said, looking up from a thoughtful examination of the +hard-working little citizens of the Industrial Community settled in +Nan's work-basket. + +"No, I'm very sorry; for I like to see you coming and going as you +used to, years ago, and I miss you very much when you are gone, John," +answered truthful Nan, whittling away in a sadly wasteful manner, as +her thoughts flew back to the happy times when a little lad rode a +little lass in the big wheelbarrow, and never spilt his load,--when +two brown heads bobbed daily side by side to school, and the favorite +play was "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to +cover the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. +Nan sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the +battered thimble on his fingertip with increased benignity of aspect +as he heard the sound. + +"When are you going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that +disagreeable hardware concern?" demanded Di, pausing after an exciting +"round," and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a +veritable pugilistic encounter. + +"I intend to make it by plunging still deeper into 'that disagreeable +hardware concern'; for, next year, if the world keeps rolling, and +John Lord is alive, he will become a partner, and then--and then"---- + +The color sprang up into the young man's cheek, his eyes looked out +with a sudden shine, and his hand seemed involuntarily to close, as if +he saw and seized some invisible delight. + +"What will happen then, John?" asked Nan, with a wondering glance. + +"I'll tell you in a year, Nan,--wait till then." And John's strong +hand unclosed, as if the desired good were not to be his yet. + +Di looked at him, with a knitting-needle stuck into her hair, saying, +like a sarcastic unicorn,-- + +"I really thought you had a soul above pots and kettles, but I see you +haven't; and I beg your pardon for the injustice I have done you." + +Not a whit disturbed, John smiled, as if at some mighty pleasant fancy +of his own, as he replied,-- + +"Thank you, Di; and as a further proof of the utter depravity of my +nature, let me tell you that I have the greatest possible respect for +those articles of ironmongery. Some of the happiest hours of my life +have been spent in their society; some of my pleasantest associations +are connected with them; some of my best lessons have come to me from +among them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to show my gratitude +by taking three flat-irons rampant for my coat of arms." + +Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns on her hand; but Di +elevated the most prominent feature of her brown countenance, and +sighed despondingly,-- + +"Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this is! I no sooner build a +nice castle in Spain, and settle a smart young knight therein, than +down it comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth, who might fight +dragons, if he chose, insists on quenching his energies in a saucepan, +and making a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life on a series +of gridirons. Ah, if _I_ were only a man, I would do something better +than that, and prove that heroes are not all dead yet. But, instead of +that, I'm only a woman, and must sit rasping my temper with +absurdities like this." And Di wrestled with her knitting as if it +were Fate, and she were paying off the grudge she owed it. + +John leaned toward her, saying, with a look that made his plain face +handsome,-- + +"Di, my father began the world as I begin it, and left it the richer +for the useful years he spent here,--as I hope I may leave it some +half-century hence. His memory makes that dingy shop a pleasant place +to me; for there he made an honest name, led an honest life, and +bequeathed to me his reverence for honest work. That is a sort of +hardware, Di, that no rust can corrupt, and which will always prove a +better fortune than any your knights can achieve with sword and +shield. I think I am not quite a clod, or quite without some +aspirations above money-getting; for I sincerely desire that courage +which makes daily life heroic by self-denial and cheerfulness of +heart; I am eager to conquer my own rebellious nature, and earn the +confidence of innocent and upright souls; I have a great ambition to +become as good a man and leave as green a memory behind me as old John +Lord." + +Di winked violently, and seamed five times in perfect silence; but +quiet Nan had the gift of knowing when to speak, and by a timely word +saved her sister from a thunder-shower and her stocking from +destruction. + +"John, have you seen Philip since you wrote about your last meeting +with him?" + +The question was for John, but the soothing tone was for Di, who +gratefully accepted it, and perked up again--with speed. + +"Yes; and I meant to have told you about it," answered John, plunging +into the subject at once. "I saw him a few days before I came home, +and found him more disconsolate than ever,--'just ready to go to the +Devil,' as he forcibly expressed himself. I consoled the poor lad as +well as I could, telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposed +expedition, and go on as steadily as he had begun,--thereby proving +the injustice of your father's prediction concerning his want of +perseverance, and the sincerity of his affection. I told him the +change in Laura's health and spirits was silently working in his +favor, and that a few more months of persistent endeavor would conquer +your father's prejudice against him, and make him a stronger man for +the trial and the pain. I read him bits about Laura from your own and +Di's letters, and he went away at last as patient as Jacob, ready to +serve another 'seven years' for his beloved Rachel." + +"God bless you for it, John!" cried a fervent voice; and, looking up, +they saw the cold, listless Laura transformed into a tender girl, all +aglow with love and longing, as she dropped her mask, and showed a +living countenance eloquent with the first passion and softened by the +first grief of her life. + +John rose involuntarily in the presence of an innocent nature whose +sorrow needed no interpreter to him. The girl read sympathy in his +brotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendly voice that asked, +half playfully, half seriously,-- + +"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, even for an Apollo? that +Laura the artist has not conquered Laura the woman? and predict that +the good daughter will yet prove the happy wife?" + +With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to +bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with +hope deferred. + +"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things, and that I never can +forget." + +Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving the prints of two loving, +but grimy hands upon her shoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, +though rather stony-hearted regarding the cause, she fully appreciated +the effect; and John, turning to the window, received the +commendations of a robin swaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on its +ruddy breast. + +The clock struck five, and John declared that he must go; for, being +an old-fashioned soul, he fancied that his mother had a better right +to his last hour than any younger woman in the land,--always +remembering that "she was a widow, and he her only son." + +Nan ran away to wash her hands, and came back with the appearance of +one who had washed her face also: and so she had; but there was a +difference in the water. + +"Play I'm your father, girls, and remember it will be six months +before 'that John' will trouble you again." + +With which preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as +heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished +him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate. But +times were changed now; for Di grew alarmingly rigid during the +ceremony; Laura received the salute like a grateful queen; and Nan +returned it with heart and eyes and tender lips, making such an +improvement on the childish fashion of the thing, that John was moved +to support his paternal character by softly echoing her father's +words,--"Take care of yourself, my little 'Martha.'" + +Then they all streamed after him along the garden-path, with the +endless messages and warnings girls are so prone to give; and the +young man, with a great softness at his heart, went away, as many +another John has gone, feeling better for the companionship of +innocent maidenhood, and stronger to wrestle with temptation, to wait +and hope and work. + +"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dear old 'Mrs. Gummage' did +after 'David' and the 'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always have +old shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'" cried Di, with one of +her eccentric inspirations. + +Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along the dusty road, with a +sudden longing to become that auspicious article of apparel, that the +omen might not fail. + +Looking backward from the hill-top, John answered the meek shout +cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the +shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over +the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her +brown hair with gold. He waved his hat and turned away; but the music +seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer +landscape his eye saw nothing but the little figure at the gate. + +"Bless and save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a +toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines +will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm. + +Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of +mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating +themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the +squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," +and, being used to ground-and-lofty tumbling, didn't mind it. + +When the pedestrians passed, the door was decorously closed, and no +one visible but a young man, who snatched something out of the road, +and marched away again, whistling with more vigor of tone than +accuracy of tune, "Only that, and nothing more." + + * * * * * + +HOW IT WAS FOUND. + +Summer ripened into autumn, and something fairer than + + "Sweet-peas and mignonette + In Annie's garden grew." + +Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-side grove, where as a +child she had read her fairy tales, and now as a woman turned the +first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the +many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the +little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and +full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and +there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped +their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the +moss that kissed the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full +of vernal odors for the grateful sense, silvery birches shimmered like +spirits of the wood, larches gave their green tassels to the wind, and +pines made airy music sweet and solemn, as they stood looking +heavenward through veils of summer sunshine or shrouds of wintry snow. +Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood; for when she came into +its precincts, once so full of solitude, all things seemed to wear one +shape, familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in the grass, +familiar words sounded in the whisper of the leaves, and she grew +conscious that an unseen influence filled the air with new delights, +and touched earth and sky with a beauty never seen before. Slowly +these May-flowers budded in her maiden heart, rosily they bloomed, and +silently they waited till some lover of such lowly herbs should catch +their fresh aroma, should brush away the fallen leaves, and lift them +to the sun. + +Though the eldest of the three, she had long been overtopped by the +more aspiring maids. But though she meekly yielded the reins of +government, whenever they chose to drive, they were soon restored to +her again; for Di fell into literature, and Laura into love. Thus +engrossed, these two forgot many duties which even blue-stockings and +_innamoratas_ are expected to perform, and slowly all the homely +humdrum cares that housewives know became Nan's daily life, and she +accepted it without a thought of discontent. Noiseless and cheerful as +the sunshine, she went to and fro, doing the tasks that mothers do, +but without a mother's sweet reward, holding fast the numberless +slight threads that bind a household tenderly together, and making +each day a beautiful success. + +Di, being tired of running, riding, climbing, and boating, decided at +last to let her body rest and put her equally active mind through what +classical collegians term "a course of sprouts." Having undertaken to +read and know _everything_, she devoted herself to the task with great +energy, going from Sue to Swedenborg with perfect impartiality, and +having different authors as children have sundry distempers, being +fractious while they lasted, but all the better for them when once +over. Carlyle appeared like scarlet-fever, and raged violently for a +time; for, being anything but a "passive bucket," Di became prophetic +with Mahomet, belligerent with Cromwell, and made the French +Revolution a veritable Reign of Terror to her family. Goethe and +Schiller alternated like fever and ague; Mephistopheles became her +hero, Joan of Arc her model, and she turned her black eyes red over +Egmont and Wallenstein. A mild attack of Emerson followed, during +which she was lost in a fog, and her sisters rejoiced inwardly when +she emerged informing them that + + "The Sphinx was drowsy, + Her wings were furled." + +Poor Di was floundering slowly to her proper place; but she splashed +up a good deal of foam by getting out of her depth, and rather +exhausted herself by trying to drink the ocean dry. + +Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream" that often comes to girls +of seventeen, woke up to find that youth and love were no match for +age and common sense. Philip had been flying about the world like a +thistle-down for five-and-twenty years, generous-hearted, frank, and +kind, but with never an idea of the serious side of life in his +handsome head. Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismay of the +enamored thistle-down, when the father of his love mildly objected to +seeing her begin the world in a balloon with a very tender but very +inexperienced aeronaut for a guide. + +"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, and you are too unstable to +assume the part of lord and master, Philip. Go and prove that you have +prudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and I will give you my +girl,--but not before. I must seem cruel, that I may be truly kind; +believe this, and let a little pain lead you to great happiness, or +show you where you would have made a bitter blunder." + +The lovers listened, owned the truth of the old man's words, bewailed +their fate, and--yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for +love of her. He went away to build a firm foundation for his castle in +the air, and Laura retired into an invisible convent, where she cast +off the world, and regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate +of superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she +worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers. +She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly +fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane +matter, but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons, +bread-crusts, and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her +one pleasure was to sit pale and still before her easel, day after +day, filling her portfolios with the faces he had once admired. Her +sisters observed that every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or Dying Gladiator +bore some likeness to a comely countenance that heathen god or hero +never owned; and seeing this, they privately rejoiced that she had +found such solace for her grief. + +Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newly written page in her +son's heart,--his first chapter of that romance, begun in Paradise, +whose interest never flags, whose beauty never fades, whose end can +never come till Love lies dead. With womanly skill she divined the +secret, with motherly discretion she counselled patience, and her son +accepted her advice, feeling, that, like many a healthful herb, its +worth lay in its bitterness. + +"Love like a man, John, not like a boy, and learn to know yourself +before you take a woman's happiness into your keeping. You and Nan +have known each other all your lives; yet, till this last visit, you +never thought you loved her more than any other childish friend. It is +too soon to say the words so often spoken hastily,--so hard to be +recalled. Go back to your work, dear, for another year; think of Nan +in the light of this new hope; compare her with comelier, gayer girls; +and by absence prove the truth of your belief. Then, if distance only +makes her dearer, if time only strengthens your affection, and no +doubt of your own worthiness disturbs you, come back and offer her +what any woman should be glad to take,--my boy's true heart." + +John smiled at the motherly pride of her words, but answered with a +wistful look. + +"It seems very long to wait, mother. If I could just ask her for a +word of hope, I could be very patient then." + +"Ah, my dear, better bear one year of impatience now than a lifetime +of regret hereafter. Nan is happy; why disturb her by a word which +will bring the tender cares and troubles that come soon enough to such +conscientious creatures as herself? If she loves you, time will prove +it; therefore let the new affection spring and ripen as your early +friendship has done, and it will be all the stronger for a summer's +growth. Philip was rash, and has to bear his trial now, and Laura +shares it with him. Be more generous, John; make _your_ trial, bear +_your_ doubts alone, and give Nan the happiness without the pain. +Promise me this, dear,--promise me to hope and wait." + +The young man's eye kindled, and in his heart there rose a better +chivalry, a truer valor, than any Di's knights had ever known. + +"I'll try, mother," was all he said; but she was satisfied, for John +seldom tried in vain. + +"Oh, girls, how splendid you are! It does my heart good to see my +handsome sisters in their best array," cried Nan, one mild October +night, as she put the last touches to certain airy raiment fashioned +by her own skilful hands, and then fell back to survey the grand +effect. + +Di and Laura were preparing to assist at an "event of the season," and +Nan, with her own locks fallen on her shoulders, for want of sundry +combs promoted to her sisters' heads, and her dress in unwonted +disorder, for lack of the many pins extracted in exciting crises of +the toilet, hovered like an affectionate bee about two very full-blown +flowers. + +"Laura looks like a cool Undine, with the ivy-wreaths in her shining +hair; and Di has illuminated herself to such an extent with those +scarlet leaves, that I don't know what great creature she resembles +most," said Nan, beaming with sisterly admiration. + +"Like Juno, Zenobia, and Cleopatra simmered into one, with a touch of +Xantippe by way of spice. But, to my eye, the finest woman of the +three is the dishevelled young person embracing the bed-post; for she +stays at home herself, and gives her time and taste to making homely +people fine,--which is a waste of good material, and an imposition on +the public." + +As Di spoke, both the fashion-plates looked affectionately at the +gray-gowned figure; but, being works of art, they were obliged to nip +their feelings in the bud, and reserve their caresses till they +returned to common life. + +"Put on your bonnet, and we'll leave you at Mrs. Lord's on our way. It +will do you good, Nan; and perhaps there may be news from John," added +Di, as she bore down upon the door like a man-of-war under full sail. + +"Or from Philip," sighed Laura, with a wistful look. + +Whereupon Nan persuaded herself that her strong inclination to sit +down was owing to want of exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a +freak of imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffled plumage, she +ran down to tell her father of the new arrangement. + +"Go, my dear, by all means. I shall be writing; and you will be +lonely, if you stay. But I must see my girls; for I caught glimpses of +certain surprising phantoms flitting by the door." + +Nan led the way, and the two pyramids revolved before him with the +rigidity of lay-figures, much to the good man's edification; for with +his fatherly pleasure there was mingled much mild wonderment at the +amplitude of array. + +"Yes, I see my geese are really swans, though there is such a cloud +between us that I feel a long way off, and hardly know them. But this +little daughter is always available, always my 'cricket on the +hearth.'" + +As he spoke, her father drew Nan closer, kissed her tranquil face, and +smiled content. + +"Well, if ever I see picters, I see 'em now, and I declare to goodness +it's as interestin' as play-actin', every bit. Miss Di, with all them +boughs in her head, looks like the Queen of Sheby, when she went +a-visitin' What's-his-name; and if Miss Laura a'n't as sweet as a +lally-barster figger, I should like to know what is." + +In her enthusiasm, Sally gambolled about the girls, flourishing her +milk-pan like a modern Miriam about to sound her timbrel for excess of +joy. + +Laughing merrily, the two Mont Blancs bestowed themselves in the +family ark, Nan hopped up beside Patrick, and Solon, roused from his +lawful slumbers, morosely trundled them away. But, looking backward +with a last "Good night!" Nan saw her father still standing at the +door with smiling countenance, and the moonlight falling like a +benediction on his silver hair. + +"Betsey shall go up the hill with you, my dear, and here's a basket of +eggs for your father. Give him my love, and be sure you let me know +the next time he is poorly," Mrs. Lord said, when her guest rose to +depart, after an hour of pleasant chat. + +But Nan never got the gift; for, to her great dismay, her hostess +dropped the basket with a crash, and flew across the room to meet a +tall shape pausing in the shadow of the door. There was no need to ask +who the new-comer was; for, even in his mother's arms, John looked +over her shoulder with an eager nod to Nan, who stood among the ruins +with never a sign of weariness in her face, nor the memory of a care +at her heart,--for they all went out when John came in. + +"Now tell us how and why and when you came. Take off your coat, my +dear! And here are the old slippers. Why didn't you let us know you +were coming so soon? How have you been? and what makes you so late +to-night? Betsey, you needn't put on your bonnet. And--oh, my dear +boy, _have_ you been to supper yet?" + +Mrs. Lord was a quiet soul, and her flood of questions was purred +softly in her son's ear; for, being a woman, she _must_ talk, and, +being a mother, _must_ pet the one delight of her life, and make a +little festival when the lord of the manor came home. A whole drove of +fatted calves were metaphorically killed, and a banquet appeared with +speed. + +John was not one of those romantic heroes who can go through three +volumes of hairbreadth escapes without the faintest hint of that +blessed institution, dinner; therefore, like "Lady Leatherbridge," he +"partook copiously of everything," while the two women beamed over +each mouthful with an interest that enhanced its flavor, and urged +upon him cold meat and cheese, pickles and pie, as if dyspepsia and +nightmare were among the lost arts. + +Then he opened his budget of news and fed _them_. + +"I was coming next month, according to custom; but Philip fell upon +and so tempted me, that I was driven to sacrifice myself to the cause +of friendship, and up we came to-night. He would not let me come here +till we had seen your father, Nan; for the poor lad was pining for +Laura, and hoped his good behavior for the past year would satisfy his +judge and secure his recall. We had a fine talk with your father; and, +upon my life, Phil seemed to have received the gift of tongues, for he +made a most eloquent plea, which I've stored away for future use, I +assure you. The dear old gentleman was very kind, told Phil he was +satisfied with the success of his probation, that he should see Laura +when he liked, and, if all went well, should receive his reward in the +spring. It must be a delightful sensation to know you have made a +fellow-creature as happy as those words made Phil to-night." + +John paused, and looked musingly at the matronly tea-pot, as if he saw +a wondrous future in its shine. + +Nan twinkled off the drops that rose at the thought of Laura's joy, +and said, with grateful warmth,-- + +"You say nothing of your own share in the making of that happiness, +John; but we know it, for Philip has told Laura in his letters all +that you have been to him, and I am sure there was other eloquence +beside his own before father granted all you say he has. Oh, John, I +thank you very much for this!" + +Mrs. Lord beamed a whole midsummer of delight upon her son, as she saw +the pleasure these words gave him, though he answered simply,-- + +"I only tried to be a brother to him, Nan; for he has been most kind +to me. Yes, I said my little say to-night, and gave my testimony in +behalf of the prisoner at the bar, a most merciful judge pronounced +his sentence, and he rushed straight to Mrs. Leigh's to tell Laura the +blissful news. Just imagine the scene when he appears, and how Di will +open her wicked eyes and enjoy the spectacle of the dishevelled lover, +the bride-elect's tears, the stir, and the romance of the thing. +She'll cry over it to-night, and caricature it to-morrow." + +And John led the laugh at the picture he had conjured up, to turn the +thoughts of Di's dangerous sister from himself. + +At ten Nan retired into the depths of her old bonnet with a far +different face from the one she brought out of it, and John, resuming +his hat, mounted guard. + +"Don't stay late, remember, John!" And in Mrs. Lord's voice there was +a warning tone that her son interpreted aright. + +"I'll not forget, mother." + +And he kept his word; for though Philip's happiness floated temptingly +before him, and the little figure at his side had never seemed so +dear, he ignored the bland winds, the tender night, and set a seal +upon his lips, thinking manfully within himself, "I see many signs of +promise in her happy face; but I will wait and hope a little longer +for her sake." + +"Where is father, Sally?" asked Nan, as that functionary appeared, +blinking owlishly, but utterly repudiating the idea of sleep. + +"He went down the garding, miss, when the gentlemen cleared, bein' a +little flustered by the goin's on. Shall I fetch him in?" asked Sally, +as irreverently as if her master were a bag of meal. + +"No, we will go ourselves." And slowly the two paced down the +leaf-strewn walk. + +Fields of yellow grain were waving on the hill-side, and sere +corn-blades rustled in the wind, from the orchard came the scent of +ripening fruit, and all the garden-plots lay ready to yield up their +humble offerings to their master's hand. But in the silence of the +night a greater Reaper had passed by, gathering in the harvest of a +righteous life, and leaving only tender memories for the gleaners who +had come so late. + +The old man sat in the shadow of the tree his own hands planted; its +fruitful boughs shone ruddily, and its leaves still whispered the low +lullaby that hushed him to his rest. + +"How fast he sleeps! Poor father! I should have come before and made +it pleasant for him." + +As she spoke, Nan lifted up the head bent down upon his breast, and +kissed his pallid cheek. + +"Oh, John, this is not sleep!" + +"Yes, dear, the happiest he will ever know." + +For a moment the shadows flickered over three white faces and the +silence deepened solemnly. Then John reverently bore the pale shape +in, and Nan dropped down beside it, saying, with a rain of grateful +tears,-- + +"He kissed me when I went, and said a last 'good night!'" + +For an hour steps went to and fro about her, many voices whispered +near her, and skilful hands touched the beloved clay she held so fast; +but one by one the busy feet passed out, one by one the voices died +away, and human skill proved vain. Then Mrs. Lord drew the orphan to +the shelter of her arms, soothing her with the mute solace of that +motherly embrace. + + * * * * * + +"Nan, Nan! here's Philip! come and see!" + +The happy call reëchoed through the house, and Nan sprang up as if her +time for grief were past. + +"I must tell them. Oh, my poor girls, how will they bear it?--they +have known so little sorrow!" + +But there was no need for her to speak; other lips had spared her the +hard task. For, as she stirred to meet them, a sharp cry rent the air, +steps rang upon the stairs, and two wild-eyed creatures came into the +hush of that familiar room, for the first time meeting with no welcome +from their father's voice. + +With one impulse, Di and Laura fled to Nan, and the sisters clung +together in a silent embrace, far more eloquent than words. John took +his mother by the hand, and led her from the room, closing the door +upon the sacredness of grief. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, we are poorer than we thought; but when everything is settled, +we shall get on very well. We can let a part of this great house, and +live quietly together until spring; then Laura will be married, and Di +can go on their travels with them, as Philip wishes her to do. We +shall be cared for; so never fear for us, John." + +Nan said this, as her friend parted from her a week later, after the +saddest holiday he had ever known. + +"And what becomes of you, Nan?" he asked, watching the patient eyes +that smiled when others would have wept. + +"I shall stay in the dear old house; for no other place would seem +like home to me. I shall find some little child to love and care for, +and be quite happy till the girls come back and want me." + +John nodded wisely, as he listened, and went away prophesying within +himself,-- + +"She shall find something more than a child to love; and, God willing, +shall be very happy till the girls come home and--cannot have her." + +Nan's plan was carried into effect. Slowly the divided waters closed +again, and the three fell back into their old life. But the touch of +sorrow drew them closer; and, though invisible, a beloved presence +still moved among them, a familiar voice still spoke to them in the +silence of their softened hearts. Thus the soil was made ready, and in +the depth of winter the good seed was sown, was watered with many +tears, and soon sprang up green with the promise of a harvest for +their after years. + +Di and Laura consoled themselves with their favorite employments, +unconscious that Nan was growing paler, thinner, and more silent, as +the weeks went by, till one day she dropped quietly before them, and +it suddenly became manifest that she was utterly worn out with many +cares and the secret suffering of a tender heart bereft of the +paternal love which had been its strength and stay. + +"I'm only tired, dear girls. Don't be troubled, for I shall be up +to-morrow," she said cheerily, as she looked into the anxious faces +bending over her. + +But the weariness was of many months' growth, and it was weeks before +that "tomorrow" came. + +Laura installed herself as nurse, and her devotion was repaid +four-fold; for, sitting at her sister's bedside, she learned a finer +art than that she had left. Her eye grew clear to see the beauty of a +self-denying life, and in the depths of Nan's meek nature she found +the strong, sweet virtues that made her what she was. + +Then remembering that these womanly attributes were a bride's best +dowry, Laura gave herself to their attainment, that she might become +to another household the blessing Nan had been to her own; and turning +from the worship of the goddess Beauty, she gave her hand to that +humbler and more human teacher, Duty,--learning her lessons with a +willing heart, for Philip's sake. + +Di corked her inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as +if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but +scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. +Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di +had undisputed sway; but if dish-pans and dusters had tongues, direful +would have been the history of that crusade against frost and fire, +indolence and inexperience. But they were dumb, and Di scorned to +complain, though her struggles were pathetic to behold, and her +sisters went through a series of messes equal to a course of "Prince +Benreddin's" peppery tarts. Reality turned Romance out of doors; for, +unlike her favorite heroines in satin and tears, or helmet and shield, +Di met her fate in a big checked apron and dust-cap, wonderful to see; +yet she wielded her broom as stoutly as "Moll Pitcher" shouldered her +gun, and marched to her daily martyrdom in the kitchen with as heroic +a heart as the "Maid of Orleans" took to her stake. + +Mind won the victory over matter in the end, and Di was better all her +days for the tribulations and the triumphs of that time; for she +drowned her idle fancies in her wash-tub, made burnt-offerings of +selfishness and pride, and learned the worth of self-denial, as she +sang with happy voice among the pots and kettles of her conquered +realm. + +Nan thought of John, and in the stillness of her sleepless nights +prayed Heaven to keep him safe, and make her worthy to receive and +strong enough to bear the blessedness or pain of love. + +Snow fell without, and keen winds howled among the leafless elms, but +"herbs of grace" were blooming beautifully in the sunshine of sincere +endeavor, and this dreariest season proved the most fruitful of the +year; for love taught Laura, labor chastened Di, and patience fitted +Nan for the blessing of her life. + +Nature, that stillest, yet most diligent of housewives, began at last +that "spring-cleaning" which she makes so pleasant that none find the +heart to grumble as they do when other matrons set their premises +a-dust. Her handmaids, wind and rain and sun, swept, washed, and +garnished busily, green carpets were unrolled, apple-boughs were hung +with draperies of bloom, and dandelions, pet nurslings of the year, +came out to play upon the sward. + +From the South returned that opera troupe whose manager is never in +despair, whose tenor never sulks, whose prima donna never fails, and +in the orchard _bonâ fide_ matinées were held, to which buttercups and +clovers crowded in their prettiest spring hats, and verdant young +blades twinkled their dewy lorgnettes, as they bowed and made way for +the floral belles. + +May was bidding June good-morrow, and the roses were just dreaming +that it was almost time to wake, when John came again into the quiet +room which now seemed the Eden that contained his Eve. Of course there +was a jubilee; but something seemed to have befallen the whole group, +for never had they all appeared in such odd frames of mind. John was +restless, and wore an excited look, most unlike his usual serenity of +aspect. + +Nan the cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be +extracted by any hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky +over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she +looked as if she would go off like a torpedo, at a touch; but through +all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression +in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang +like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was +always, "Philip, my king." + +John felt that there had come a change upon the three, and silently +divined whose unconscious influence had wrought the miracle. The +embargo was off his tongue, and he was in a fever to ask that question +which brings a flutter to the stoutest heart; but though the "man" had +come, the "hour" had not. So, by way of steadying his nerves, he paced +the room, pausing often to take notes of his companions, and each +pause seemed to increase his wonder and content. + +He looked at Nan. She was in her usual place, the rigid little chair +she loved, because it once was large enough to hold a curly-headed +playmate and herself. The old work-basket was at her side, and the +battered thimble busily at work; but her lips wore a smile they had +never worn before, the color of the unblown roses touched her cheek, +and her downcast eyes were full of light. + +He looked at Di. The inevitable book was on her knee, but its leaves +were uncut; the strong-minded knob of hair still asserted its +supremacy aloft upon her head, and the triangular jacket still adorned +her shoulders in defiance of all fashions, past, present, or to come; +but the expression of her brown countenance had grown softer, her +tongue had found a curb, and in her hand lay a card with "Potts, +Kettel, & Co." inscribed thereon, which she regarded with never a +scornful word for the "Co." + +He looked at Laura. She was before her easel, as of old; but the pale +nun had given place to a blooming girl, who sang at her work, which +was no prim Pallas, but a Clytie turning her human face to meet the +sun. + +"John, what are you thinking of?" + +He stirred as if Di's voice had disturbed his fancy at some pleasant +pastime, but answered with his usual sincerity,-- + +"I was thinking of a certain dear old fairy tale called 'Cinderella.'" + +"Oh!" said Di; and her "Oh" was a most impressive monosyllable. "I see +the meaning of your smile now; and though the application of the story +is not very complimentary to all parties concerned, it is very just +and very true." + +She paused a moment, then went on with softened voice and earnest +mien:-- + +"You think I am a blind and selfish creature. So I am, but not so +blind and selfish as I have been; for many tears have cleared my eyes, +and much sincere regret has made me humbler than I was. I have found a +better book than any father's library can give me, and I have read it +with a love and admiration that grew stronger as I turned the leaves. +Henceforth I take it for my guide and gospel, and, looking back upon +the selfish and neglectful past, can only say, Heaven bless your dear +heart, Nan!" + +Laura echoed Di's last words; for, with eyes as full of tenderness, +she looked down upon the sister she had lately learned to know, +saying, warmly,-- + +"Yes, 'Heaven bless your dear heart, Nan!' I never can forget all you +have been to me; and when I am far away with Philip, there will always +be one countenance more beautiful to me than any pictured face I may +discover, there will be one place more dear to me than Rome. The face +will be yours, Nan,--always so patient, always so serene; and the +dearer place will be this home of ours, which you have made so +pleasant to me all these years by kindnesses as numberless and +noiseless as the drops of dew." + +"Dear girls, what have I ever done, that you should love me so?" cried +Nan, with happy wonderment, as the tall heads, black and golden, bent +to meet the lowly brown one, and her sisters' mute lips answered her. + +Then Laura looked up, saying, playfully,-- + +"Here are the good and wicked sisters;--where shall we find the +Prince?" + +"There!" cried Di, pointing to John; and then her secret went off like +a rocket; for, with her old impetuosity, she said,-- + +"I have found you out, John, and am ashamed to look you in the face, +remembering the past. Girls, you know, when father died, John sent us +money, which he said Mr. Owen had long owed us and had paid at last? +It was a kind lie, John, and a generous thing to do; for we needed it, +but never would have taken it as a gift. I know you meant that we +should never find this out; but yesterday I met Mr. Owen returning +from the West, and when I thanked him for a piece of justice we had +not expected of him, he gruffly told me he had never paid the debt, +never meant to pay it, for it was outlawed, and we could not claim a +farthing. John, I have laughed at you, thought you stupid, treated you +unkindly; but I know you now, and never shall forget the lesson you +have taught me. I am proud as Lucifer, but I ask you to forgive me, +and I seal my real repentance so--and so." + +With tragic countenance, Di rushed across the room, threw both arms +about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss +upon his cheek. There was a momentary silence; for Di finely +illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of +her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried +to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a +supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own. And Nan sat with +drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender pride,-- + +"They know him now, and love him for his generous heart." + +Di spoke first, rallying to her colors, though a little daunted by her +loss of self-control. + +"Don't laugh, John,--I couldn't help it; and don't think I'm not +sincere, for I am,--I am; and I will prove it by growing good enough +to be your friend. That debt must all be paid, and I shall do it; for +I'll turn my books and pen to some account, and write stories full of +dear old souls like you and Nan; and some one, I know, will like and +buy them, though they are not 'works of Shakspeare.' I've thought of +this before, have felt I had the power in me; _now_ I have the motive, +and _now_ I'll do it." + +If Di had proposed to translate the Koran, or build a new Saint +Paul's, there would have been many chances of success; for, once +moved, her will, like a battering-ram, would knock down the obstacles +her wits could not surmount. John believed in her most heartily, and +showed it, as he answered, looking into her resolute face,-- + +"I know you will, and yet make us very proud of our 'Chaos,' Di. Let +the money lie, and when you have made a fortune, I'll claim it with +enormous interest; but, believe me, I feel already doubly repaid by +the esteem so generously confessed, so cordially bestowed, and can +only say, as we used to years ago,--'Now let's forgive and so +forget.'" + +But proud Di would not let him add to her obligation, even by +returning her impetuous salute; she slipped away, and, shaking off the +last drops, answered with a curious mixture of old freedom and new +respect,-- + +"No more sentiment, please, John. +We know each other now; and when I find a friend, I never let him go. +We have smoked the pipe of peace; so let us go back to our wigwams and +bury the feud. Where were we when I lost my head? and what were we +talking about?" + +"Cinderella and the Prince." + +As he spoke, John's eye kindled, and, turning, he looked down at Nan, +who sat diligently ornamenting with microscopic stitches a great patch +going on, the wrong side out. + +"Yes,--so we were; and now taking pussy for the godmother, the +characters of the story are well personated,--all but the slipper," +said Di, laughing, as she thought of the many times they had played it +together years ago. + +A sudden movement stirred John's frame, a sudden purpose shone in his +countenance, and a sudden change befell his voice, as he said, +producing from some hiding-place a little worn-out shoe,-- + +"I can supply the slipper;--who will try it first?" + +Di's black eyes opened wide, as they fell on the familiar object; then +her romance-loving nature saw the whole plot of that drama which needs +but two to act it. A great delight flushed up into her face, as she +promptly took her cue, saying,-- + +"No need for us to try it, Laura; for it wouldn't fit us, if our feet +were as small as Chinese dolls';--our parts are played out; therefore +'Exeunt wicked sisters to the music of the wedding-bells.'" And +pouncing upon the dismayed artist, she swept her out and closed the +door with a triumphant bang. + +John went to Nan, and, dropping on his knee as reverently as the +herald of the fairy tale, he asked, still smiling, but with lips grown +tremulous,-- + +"Will Cinderella try the little shoe, and--if it fits--go with the +Prince?" + +But Nan only covered up her face, weeping happy tears, while all the +weary work strayed down upon the floor, as if it knew her holiday had +come. + +John drew the hidden face still closer, and while she listened to his +eager words, Nan heard the beating of the strong man's heart, and knew +it spoke the truth. + +"Nan, I promised mother to be silent till I was sure I loved you +wholly,--sure that the knowledge would give no pain when I should tell +it, as I am trying to tell it now. This little shoe has been my +comforter through this long year, and I have kept it as other lovers +keep their fairer favors. It has been a talisman more eloquent to me +than flower or ring; for, when I saw how worn it was, I always thought +of the willing feet that came and went for others' comfort all day +long; when I saw the little bow you tied, I always thought of the +hands so diligent in serving any one who knew a want or felt a pain; +and when I recalled the gentle creature who had worn it last, I always +saw her patient, tender, and devout,--and tried to grow more worthy of +her, that I might one day dare to ask if she would walk beside me all +my life and be my 'angel in the house.' Will you, dear? Believe me, +you shall never know a weariness or grief I have the power to shield +you from." + +Then Nan, as simple in her love as in her life, laid her arms about +his neck, her happy face against his own, and answered softly,-- + +"Oh, John, I never can be sad or tired any more!" + + * * * * * + + +THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. + + A poet came singing along the vale,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the dear old days! + They come no more as they did of yore + By the flowing river of Aise." + + He piped through the meadow, he piped through the grove,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the good old days! + They have all gone by, and I sit and sigh + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "Knights and ladies and shields and swords,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the grand old days! + Castles and moats, and the bright steel coats, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The lances are shivered, the helmets rust,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the stern old days! + And the clarion's blast has rung its last, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And the warriors that swept to glory and death,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the brave old days! + They have fought and gone, and I sit here alone + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The strength of limb and the mettle of heart,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the strong old days! + They have withered away, mere butterflies' play, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The queens of beauty, whose smile was life,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rare old days! + With love and despair in their golden hair, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "They have flitted away from hall and bower,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rich old days! + Like the sun they shone, like the sun they have gone, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And buried beneath the pall of the past,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the proud old days! + Lie valor and worth and the beauty of earth, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And I sit and sigh by the idle stream,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the bright old days! + For nothing remains for the poet's strains + But the flowing river of Aise." + + Then a voice rang out from the oak overhead,-- + "Why well-a-day for the old, old days? + The world is the same, if the bard has an aim, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There's beauty and love and truth and power,-- + Cease well-a-day for the old, old days! + The humblest home is worth Greece and Rome, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are themes enough for the poet's strains,-- + Leave well-a-day for the quaint old days! + Take thine eyes from the ground, look up and around + From the flowing river of Aise. + + "To-day is as grand as the centuries past,-- + Leave well-a-day for the famed old days! + There are battles to fight, there are troths to plight, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are hearts as true to love, to strive,-- + No well-a-day for the dark old days! + Go put into type the age that is ripe + By the flowing river of Aise." + + Then the merry Poet piped down the vale,-- + "Farewell, farewell to the dead old days! + By day and by night there's music and light + By the flowing river of Aise." + + * * * * * + + +THE ICEBERG OF TORBAY. + +TORBAY. + +Torbay, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. R.T.S. Lowell, +is an arm of the sea, a short strong arm with a slim hand and finger, +reaching into the rocky land and touching the water-falls and rapids +of a pretty brook. Here is a little village, with Romish and +Protestant steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the +universal appendages of fishing-houses, boats, and "flakes." One +seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and wild. The rocks slope +steeply down to the wonderfully clear water. Thousands of poles +support half-acres of the spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, +cool region, crossed with foot-paths, and not unfrequently sprinkled +and washed by the surf,--a most kindly office on the part of the sea, +you will allow, when once you have scented the fish-offal perpetually +dropping from the evergreen fish-house above. These little buildings +on the flakes are conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as +if they had just wandered away from the woodlands. + +There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, or upon the +extreme end of that part of it which runs off frequently over the +water like a wharf, an assemblage of huts and halls, bowers and +arbors, a curious huddle made of poles and sweet-smelling branches and +sheets of birch-bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce +at noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we see in old +pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the stranger only a kind of +buoy by which he is to steer his way through the darkness. To come off +then without pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is +the merest chance. Strange! one is continually allured into these +piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. In spite of the chilly, +salt air, and the repulsive smells about the tables where they dress +the fish, I have a fancy for these queer structures. Their front door +opens upon the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading down +to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also about fine fishes, +fresh from the net and the hook,--the salmon, for example, whose pink +and yellow flesh has given a name to one of the most delicate hues of +Art or Nature. + +THE CLIFFS. + +But where was the iceberg? We were not a little disappointed when all +Torbay was before us, and nothing but dark water to be seen. To our +surprise, no one had ever seen or heard of it. It must lie off Flat +Rock Harbor, a little bay below, to the north. We agreed with the +supposition that the berg must lie below, and made speedy preparations +to pursue, by securing the only boat to be had in the village,--a +substantial fishing-barge, laden rather heavily in the stern with at +least a cord of cod-seine, but manned by six stalwart men, a motive +power, as it turned out, none too large for the occasion. We embarked +at the foot of a fish-house ladder, being carefully handed down by the +kind-hearted men, and took our seats forward on the little bow-deck. +All ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars with the +skill and deliberation of lifelong practice, and we moved out upon the +broad, glassy swells of the bay towards the open sea, not indeed with +the rapidity of a Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable +steadiness, and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, +which, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with lights and +shadows. + +We were presently met by a breeze, which increased the swell, and made +it easier to fail in close under the northern shore, a line of +stupendous precipices, to which the ocean goes deep home. The ride +beneath these mighty cliffs was by far the finest boat-ride of my +life. While they do not equal the rocks of the Saguenay, yet, with all +their appendages of extent, structure, complexion, and adjacent sea, +they are sufficiently lofty to produce an almost appalling sense of +sublimity. The surges lave them at a great height, sliding from angle +to angle, and fretting into foam as they slip obliquely along the face +of the vast walls. They descend as deeply as two hundred feet, and +rise perpendicularly two, three, and four hundred feet from the water. +Their stratifications are up and down, and of different shades of +light and dark, a ribbed and striped appearance that increases the +effect of height, and gives variety and spirit to the surface. At one +point, where the rocks advance from the main front, and form a kind of +headland, the strata, six and eight feet thick, assume the form of a +pyramid,--from a broad base of a hundred yards or more running up to +meet in a point. The heart of this vast cone has partly fallen out, +and left the resemblance of an enormous tent with cavernous recesses +and halls, in which the shades of evening were already lurking, and +the surf was sounding mournfully. Occasionally it was musical, pealing +forth like the low tones of a great organ with awful solemnity. Now +and then, the gloomy silence of a minute was broken by the crash of a +billow far within, when the reverberations were like the slamming of +great doors. + +After passing this grand specimen of the architecture of the sea, +there appeared long rocky reaches like Egyptian temples,--old, dead +cliffs of yellowish gray, checked off by lines and seams into squares, +and having the resemblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean, +of doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. Presently we +came to a break, where there were grassy slopes and crags +intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in +the warm sunshine. A knot of kids--the reckless little creatures--were +sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to +witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single +misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in +proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the +goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a +few days before: a lad playing about the steep fell into the sea, and +was drowned. + +We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to +behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef that flanked +the small cape, in the finest style,--a beautiful dance of breakers of +dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward, +and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our +hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. "There it +is!" one exclaimed. An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the +next headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming down upon +us from the broad waters, and covering the very tract where the berg +was expected to be seen. Farther and farther out the long, strong +sweep of the great oars carried us, until the depth of the bay between +us and the next headland was in full view. It may appear almost too +trifling a matter over which to have had any feeling worth mentioning +or remembering, but I shall not soon forget the disappointment, when +from the deck of our barge, as it rose and sank on the large swells, +we stood up and looked around and saw, that, if the iceberg, over +which our very hearts had been beating with delight for twenty-four +hours, was anywhere, it was somewhere in the depths of that untoward +fog. It might as well have been in the depths of the ocean. + +While the pale cloud slept there, there was nothing left for us but to +wait patiently where we were, or retreat. We chose the latter. C. gave +the word to pull for the settlement at the head of the little bay just +mentioned, and so they rounded the breakers on the reef, and we turned +away for the second time, when the game was fairly ours. Even the +hardy fishermen, no lovers of "islands-of-ice," as they call them, +felt for us, as they read in our looks the disappointment, not to say +a little vexation. While on our passage in, we filled a half-hour with +questions and discussions about that iceberg. + +"We certainly saw it yesterday evening; and a soldier of Signal Hill +told us that it had been close in at Torbay for several days. And you, +my man there, say that you had a glimpse of it last evening. How +happens it to be away just now? Where do you think it is?" + +"Indeed, Sir, he must be out in the fog, a mile or over. De'il a bit +can a man look after a thing in a fog, more nor into a snow-bank. +Maybe, Sir, he's foundered; or he might be gone off to sea, +altogether, as they sometimes do." + +"Well, this is rather remarkable. Huge as these bergs are, they escape +very easily under their old cover. No sooner do we think we have them, +than they are gone. No jackal was ever more faithful to his lion, no +pilot-fish to his shark, than the fog to its berg. We will run in +yonder and inquire about it. We may get the exact bearing, and reach +it yet, even in the fog." + +THE FISHERMAN'S. + +The wind and sea being in our favor, we soon reached a fishery-ladder, +which we now knew very well how to climb, and wound our "dim and +perilous way" through the evergreen labyrinth of fish bowers, emerging +on the solid rock, and taking the path to the fisherman's house. Here +lives and works and wears himself out William Waterland, a +deep-voiced, broad-chested, round-shouldered man, dressed, not in +cloth of gold, but of oil, with the foxy remnant of a last winter's +fur cap clinging to his large, bony head, a little in the style of a +piece of turf to a stone. You seldom look into a more kindly, patient +face, or into an eye that more directly lets up the light out of a +large, warm heart. His countenance is one sober shadow of honest +brown, occasionally lighted by a true and guileless smile. William +Waterland has seen the "island-of-ice." "It lies off there, two miles +or more, grounded on a bank, in forty fathoms water." + +It was nearly six o'clock; and yet, as there were signs of the fog +clearing away, we thought it prudent to wait. A dull, long hour passed +by, and still the sun was high in the northwest. That heavy cod-seine, +a hundred fathoms long, sank the stern of our barge rather deeply, and +made it row heavily. For all that, there was time enough yet, if we +could only use it. The fog still came in masses from the sea, sweeping +across the promontory between us and Torbay, and fading into air +nearly as soon as it was over the land. In the mean time, we sat upon +the rocks, upon the wood-pile, stood around and talked, looked out +into the endless mist, looked at the fishermen's houses, their +children, their fowls and dogs. A couple of young women, that might +have been teachers of the village school, had there been a school, +belles of the place, rather neatly dressed, and with hair nicely +combed, tripped shyly by, each with an arm about the other's waist, +and very merry until abreast of us, when they were as silent and +downcast as if they had been passing by their sovereign queen or the +Great Mogul. Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amusing. +We speculated upon the astonishment that would have seized upon their +simple, innocent hearts, had they beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our +city fashionables in full bloom. + +At length we accepted an invitation to walk into the house, and sat, +not under the good man's roof, but under his chimney, a species of +large funnel, into which nearly one end of the house resolved itself. +Here we sat upon some box-like benches before a wood fire, and warmed +ourselves, chatting with the family. While we were making ourselves +comfortable and agreeable, we made the novel and rather funny +discovery of a hen sitting on her nest just under the bench, with her +red comb at our fingers' ends. A large griddle hung suspended in the +more smoky regions of the chimney, ready to be lowered for the baking +of cakes or frying fish. Having tarred my hand, the fisherman's wife, +kind woman, insisted upon washing it herself. After rubbing it with a +little grease, she first scratched it with her finger-nail, and then +finished with soap and water and a good wiping with a coarse towel. I +begged that she would spare herself the trouble, and allow me to help +myself. But it was no trouble at all for her, and the greatest +pleasure. And what should I know about washing off tar? They were +members of the Church of England, and seemed pleased when they found +that I was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. They had a pastor who +visited them and others in the village occasionally, and held divine +service on Sunday at Torbay, where they attended, going in boats in +summer, and over the hills on snow-shoes in the winter. The woman told +me, in an undertone, that the family relations were not all agreed in +their religious faith, and that they could not stop there any longer, +but had gone to "America," which they liked much better. It was a hard +country, any way, no matter whether one were Protestant or Papist. +Three months were all their summer, and nearly all their time for +getting ready for the long, cold winter. To be sure, they had codfish +and potatoes, flour and butter, tea and sugar; but then it took a deal +of hard work to make ends meet. The winter was not as cold as we +thought, perhaps; but then it was so long and snowy! The snow lay +five, six, and seven feet deep. Wood was a great trouble. There was a +plenty of it, but they could not keep cattle or horses to draw it +home. Dogs were their only teams, and they could fetch but small loads +at a time. In the mean while, a chubby little boy, with cheeks like a +red apple, had ventured from behind his young mother, where he had +kept dodging as she moved about the house, and edged himself up near +enough to be patted on the head, and rewarded for his little liberties +with a half-dime. + +THE ICEBERG. + +The sunshine was now streaming in at a bit of a window, and I went out +to see what prospect of success. C., who had left some little time +before, was nowhere to be seen. The fog seemed to be in sufficient +motion to disclose the berg down some of the avenues of clear air that +were opened occasionally. They all ended, however, with fog instead of +ice. I made it convenient to walk to the boat, and pocket a few cakes, +brought along as a kind of scattering lunch. C. was descried, at +length, climbing the broad, rocky ridge, the eastern point of which we +had doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up the crags by a +short cut, I joined him on the verge of the promontory pretty well +heated and out of breath. The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was +dispersing in the sunny air around us; the ocean was clearing off; the +surge was breaking with a pleasant sound below. At the foot of the +precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in +length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times +abreast, and then in single file, or disorderly, round and round they +went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then +plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large +movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no +muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more +flexibility in their motions than if they had been built of timber. +They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale might be supposed to +move down a mighty rapid, roiling and plunging and borne along +irresistibly by the current. As they rose, we could see their mouths +occasionally, and the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went +under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the +screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then +one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote +sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a +novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they +were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along +these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath +the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast +with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above the +whales the water was green, a darker green as they descended, a +lighter green as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green +water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with +the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were +gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, +there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the +breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of +whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, +was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness +another of a more brilliant character. + +To the north and east, the ocean, dark and sparkling, was, by the +magic action of the wind, entirely clear of fog; and there, about two +miles distant, stood revealed the iceberg in all its cold and solitary +glory. It was of a greenish white, and of the Greek-temple form, +seeming to be over a hundred feet high. We gazed some minutes with +silent delight on the splendid and impressive object, and then +hastened down to the boat, and pulled away with all speed to reach it, +if possible, before the fog should cover it again, and in time for C. +to paint it. The moderation of the oarsmen and the slowness of our +progress were quite provoking. I watched the sun, the distant fog, the +wind and waves, the increasing motion of the boat, and the seemingly +retreating berg. A good half-hour's toil had carried us into broad +waters, and yet, to all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was +freshening from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists, a species +of scout from the main body of the fog lying off in the east, were +scudding across our track. James Goss, our captain, threw out a hint +of a little difficulty in getting back. But Yankee energy was +indomitable. C. quietly arranged his painting--apparatus, and I, +wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck, +a sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves on our way +back, as the black, angry-looking swells chased us up, and flung the +foam upon the bow and stern. All at once, whole squadrons of fog swept +up, and swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, white +obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves foiled again. But still +the word was, "On!" And on they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, now +flushed and moist with rowing. Again the ice was visible, but dimly, +in his misty drapery. There was no time to be lost. Now, or not at +all. And so C. began. For half an hour, pausing occasionally for +passing flocks of fog, he plied the brush with a rapidity not usual, +and under disadvantages that would have mastered a less experienced +hand. We were getting close down upon the berg, and in fearfully rough +water. In their curiosity to catch glimpses of the advancing sketch, +the men pulled with little regularity, and trimmed the boat very +badly. We were rolling frightfully to a landsman. C. begged of them to +keep their seats, and hold the barge just there as near as possible. +To amuse them, I passed an opera-glass around among them, with which +they examined the iceberg and the coast. They turned out to be +excellent good fellows, and entered into the spirit of the thing in a +way that pleased us. I am sure they would have held on willingly till +dark, if C. had only said the word, so much interest did they feel in +the attempt to paint the "island-of-ice." The hope was to linger about +it until sunset, for its colors, lights, and shadows. That, however, +was suddenly extinguished. Heavy fog came on, and we retreated, not +with the satisfaction of a conquest, nor with the disappointment of a +defeat, but cheered with the hope of complete success, perhaps the +next day, when C. thought that we could return upon our game in a +little steamer, and so secure it beyond the possibility of escape. The +seine was hauled from the stern to the centre of the barge, and the +men pulled away for Torbay, a long six miles, rough and chilly. For my +part, I was trembling with cold, and found it necessary to lend a hand +at the oars, an exercise which soon made the weather feel several +degrees warmer, and rendered me quite comfortable. After a little the +wind lulled, the fog dispersed again, and the iceberg seemed to +contemplate our slow departure with complacent serenity. We regretted +that the hour forbade a return. It would have been pleasant to play +around that Parthenon of the sea in the twilight. The best that was +left us was to look back and watch the effects of light, which were +wonderfully fine, and had the charm of entire novelty. The last view +was the very finest. All the east front was a most tender blue; the +fissures on the southern face, from which we were rowing directly +away, were glittering green; the western front glowed in the yellow +sunlight; around were the dark waters, and above one of the most +beautiful of skies. + +We fell under the land presently, and passed near the northern cape of +Flat-Rock Bay, a grand headland of red sandstone, a vast and dome-like +pile, fleeced at the summit with green turf and shrubs of fir. The +sun, at last, was really setting. There was the old magnificence of +the king of day,--airy deeps of ineffable blue and pearl, stained with +scarlets and crimsons, and striped with living gold. A blaze of white +light, deepening into the richest orange, crowned the distant ridge +behind which the sun was vanishing. A vapory splendor, rose-color and +purple, was dissolving in the atmosphere; and every wave of the ocean, +a dark violet, nearly black, was "a flash of golden fire." Bathed with +this almost supernatural glory, the headland, in itself richly +complexioned with red, brown, and green, was at once a spectacle of +singular grandeur and solemnity. I have no remembrance of more +brilliant effects of light and color. The view filled us with emotions +of delight. We shot from beneath the great cliff into Flat-Rock Bay, +rounding, at length, the breakers and the cape into the smoother +waters of Torbay. As the oars dipped regularly into the polished +swells, reflecting the heavens and the wonderful shores, all lapsed +into silence. In the gloom of evening the rocks assumed an unusual +height and sublimity. Gliding quietly below them, we were saluted +every now and then by the billows thundering in some adjacent cavern. +The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite +unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the +chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, +muffled into stillness by the stupendous masses. + +Thus ended our first real hunting of an iceberg. When we landed, we +were thoroughly chilled. Our man was waiting with his wagon, and so +was a little supper in a house near by, which we enjoyed with an +appetite that assumed several phases of keenness as we proceeded. +There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread and butter and +bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried silently, without remark, at +the point of knife and fork. We were a forlorn-hope of two, and fell +to, winning the victory in the very breach. We drove back over the +fine gravel road at a round trot, watching the last edge of day in the +northwest and north, where it no sooner fades than it buds again to +bloom into morning. We lived the new iceberg-experience all over +again, and planned for the morrow. The stars gradually came out of the +cool, clear heavens, until they filled them with their sparkling +multitudes. For every star we seemed to have a lively and pleasurable +thought, which came out and ran among our talk, a thread of light. +When we looked at the hour, as we sat fresh and wakeful, warming at +our English inn in St. John's, it was after midnight. + + * * * * * + + +THEODORE PARKER. + + "Sir Launcelot! ther thou lyest; thou were never matched of none + earthly knights hands; thou were the truest freende to thy lover + that ever bestrood horse; and thou were the kindest man that ever + strooke with sword; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall + foe that ever put spere in the rest." _La Morte d'Arthur._ + +In the year 1828 there was a young man of eighteen at work upon a farm +in Lexington, performing bodily labor to the extent of twenty hours in +a day sometimes, and that for several days together, and at other +times studying intensely when work was less pressing. Thirty years +after, that same man sat in the richest private library in Boston, +working habitually from twelve to seventeen hours a day in severer +toil. The interval was crowded with labors, with acquisitions, with +reproaches, with victories, with honors; and he who experienced all +this died exhausted at the end of it, less than fifty years old, but +looking seventy. That man was Theodore Parker. + +The time is far distant when out of a hundred different statements of +contemporaries some calm biographer will extract sufficient materials +for a true picture of the man; and meanwhile all that each can do is +to give fearlessly his own honest impressions, and so tempt others to +give theirs. Of the multitude of different photographers, each +perchance may catch some one trait without which the whole portraiture +would have remained incomplete; and the time to secure this is now, +while his features are fresh in our minds. It is a daring effort, but +it needs to be made. + +Yet Theodore Parker was so strong and self-sufficing upon his own +ground, he needed so little from any other, while giving so freely to +all, that one would hardly venture to add anything to the +autobiographies he has left, but for the high example he set of +fearlessness in dealing with the dead. There may be some whose fame is +so ill-established, that one shrinks from speaking of them precisely +as one saw them; but this man's place is secure, and that friend best +praises him who paints him just as he seemed. To depict him as he +_was_ must be the work of many men, and no single observer, however +intimate, need attempt it. + +The first thing that strikes an observer, in listening to the words of +public and private feeling elicited by his departure, is the +predominance in them all of the sentiment of love. His services, his +speculations, his contests, his copious eloquence, his many languages, +these come in as secondary things, but the predominant testimony is +emotional. Men mourn the friend even more than the warrior. No fragile +and lovely girl, fading untimely into heaven, was ever more +passionately beloved than this white-haired and world-weary man. As he +sat in his library, during his lifetime, he was not only the awakener +of a thousand intellects, but the centre of a thousand hearts;--he +furnished the natural home for every foreign refugee, every hunted +slave, every stray thinker, every vexed and sorrowing woman. And never +was there one of these who went away uncomforted, and from every part +of this broad nation their scattered hands now fling roses upon his +grave. + +This immense debt of gratitude was not bought by any mere isolated +acts of virtue; indeed, it never is so bought; love never is won but +by a nobleness which, pervades the life. In the midst of his greatest +cares there never was a moment when he was not all too generous of his +time, his wisdom, and his money. Borne down by the accumulation of +labors, grudging, as a student grudges, the precious hour that once +lost can never be won back, he yet was always holding himself at the +call of some poor criminal, at the Police Office, or some sick girl in +a suburban town, not of his recognized parish perhaps, but longing for +the ministry of the only preacher who had touched her soul. Not a mere +wholesale reformer, he wore out his life by retailing its great +influences to the poorest comer. Not generous in money only,--though +the readiness of his beneficence in that direction had few equals,--he +always hastened past that minor bestowal to ask if there were not some +other added gift possible, some personal service or correspondence, +some life-blood, in short, to be lavished in some other form, to eke +out the already liberal donation of dollars. + +There is an impression that he was unforgiving. Unforgetting he +certainly was; for he had no power of forgetfulness, whether for good +or evil. He had none of that convenient oblivion which in softer +natures covers sin and saintliness with one common, careless pall. So +long as a man persisted in a wrong attitude before God or man, there +was no day so laborious or exhausting, no night so long or drowsy, but +Theodore Parker's unsleeping memory stood on guard full-armed, ready +to do battle at a moment's warning. This is generally known; but what +may not be known so widely is, that, the moment the adversary lowered +his spear, were it for only an inch or an instant, that moment +Theodore Parker's weapons were down and his arms open. Make but the +slightest concession, give him but the least excuse to love you, and +never was there seen such promptness in forgiving. His friends found +it sometimes harder to justify his mildness than his severity. I +confess that I, with others, have often felt inclined to criticize a +certain caustic tone of his, in private talk, when the name of an +offender was alluded to; but I have also felt almost indignant at his +lenient good-nature to that very person, let him once show the +smallest symptom of contrition, or seek, even in the clumsiest way, or +for the most selfish purpose, to disarm his generous antagonist. His +forgiveness in such cases was more exuberant than his wrath had ever +been. + +It is inevitable, in describing him, to characterize his life first by +its quantity. He belonged to the true race of the giants of learning; +he took in knowledge at every pore, and his desires were insatiable. +Not, perhaps, precocious in boyhood,--for it is not precocity to begin +Latin at ten and Greek at eleven, to enter the Freshman class at +twenty and the professional school at twenty-three,--he was equalled +by few students in the tremendous rate at which he pursued every +study, when once begun. With strong body and great constitutional +industry, always acquiring and never forgetting, he was doubtless at +the time of his death the most variously learned of living Americans, +as well as one of the most prolific of orators and writers. + +Why did Theodore Parker die? He died prematurely worn out through this +enormous activity,--a warning, as well as an example. To all appeals +for moderation, during the latter years of his life, he had but one +answer,--that he had six generations of long-lived farmers behind him, +and had their strength to draw upon. All his physical habits, except +in this respect, were unexceptionable: he was abstemious in diet, but +not ascetic, kept no unwholesome hours, tried no dangerous +experiments, committed no excesses. But there is no man who can +habitually study from twelve to seventeen hours a day (his friend Mr. +Clarke contracts it to "from six to twelve," but I have Mr. Parker's +own statement of the fact) without ultimate self-destruction. Nor was +this the practice during his period of health alone, but it was pushed +to the last moment: he continued in the pulpit long after a withdrawal +was peremptorily prescribed for him; and when forbidden to leave home +for lecturing, during the winter of 1858, he straightway prepared the +most laborious literary works of his life, for delivery as lectures in +the Fraternity Course at Boston. + +He worked thus, not from ambition, nor altogether from principle, but +from an immense craving for mental labor, which had become second +nature to him. His great omnivorous, hungry intellect must have +constant food,--new languages, new statistics, new historical +investigations, new scientific discoveries, new systems of Scriptural +exegesis. He did not for a day in the year nor an hour in the day make +rest a matter of principle, nor did he ever indulge in it as a +pleasure, for he knew no enjoyment so great as labor. Wordsworth's +"wise passiveness" was utterly foreign to his nature. Had he been a +mere student, this had been less destructive. But to take the standard +of study of a German Professor, and superadd to that the separate +exhaustions of a Sunday-preacher, a lyceum-lecturer, a radical leader, +and a practical philanthropist, was simply to apply half a dozen +distinct suicides to the abbreviation of a single life. And, as his +younger companions long since assured him, the tendency of his career +was not only to kill himself, but them; for each assumed that he must +at least attempt what Theodore Parker accomplished. + +It is very certain that his career was much shortened by these +enormous labors, and it is not certain that its value was increased in +a sufficient ratio to compensate for that evil. He justified his +incessant winter-lecturing by the fact that the whole country was his +parish, though this was not an adequate excuse. But what right had he +to deprive himself even of the accustomed summer respite of ordinary +preachers, and waste the golden July hours in studying Sclavonic +dialects? No doubt his work in the world was greatly aided both by the +fact and the fame of learning, and, as he himself somewhat +disdainfully said, the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was "a +convenience" in theological discussions; but, after all, his popular +power did not mainly depend on his mastery of twenty languages, but of +one. Theodore Parker's learning was undoubtedly a valuable possession +to the community, but it was not worth the price of Theodore Parker's +life. + +"Strive constantly to concentrate yourself," said the laborious +Goethe, "never dissipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever +kind, leads finally to bankruptcy." But Theodore Parker's whole +endeavor was to multiply his channels, and he exhausted his life in +the effort to do all men's work. He was a hard man to relieve, to +help, or to cooperate with. Thus, the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review" +began with quite a promising corps of contributors; but when it +appeared that its editor, if left alone, would willingly undertake all +the articles,--science, history, literature, everything,--of course +the others yielded to inertia and dropped away. So, some years later, +when some of us met at his room to consult on a cheap series of +popular theological works, he himself was so rich in his own private +plans that all the rest were impoverished; nothing could be named but +he had been planning just that for years, and should by-and-by get +leisure for it, and there really was not enough left to call out the +energies of any one else. Not from any petty egotism, but simply from +inordinate activity, he stood ready to take all the parts. + +In the same way he distanced everybody; every companion-scholar found +soon that it was impossible to keep pace with one who was always +accumulating and losing nothing. Most students find it necessary to be +constantly forgetting some things to make room for later arrivals; but +the peculiarity of his memory was that he let nothing go. I have more +than once heard him give a minute analysis of the contents of some +dull book read twenty years before, and have afterwards found the +statement correct and exhaustive. His great library,--the only private +library I have ever seen which reminded one of the Astor,--although +latterly collected more for public than personal uses, was one which +no other man in the nation, probably, had sufficient bibliographical +knowledge single-handed to select, and we have very few men capable of +fully appreciating its scholarly value, as it stands. It seems as if +its possessor, putting all his practical and popular side into his +eloquence and action, had indemnified himself by investing all his +scholarship in a library of which less than a quarter of the books +were in the English language. + +All unusual learning, however, brings with it the suspicion of +superficiality; and in this country, where, as Mr. Parker himself +said, "every one gets a mouthful of education, but scarce one a full +meal,"--where every one who makes a Latin quotation is styled "a ripe +scholar,"--it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the true from the +counterfeit. It is, however, possible to apply some tests. I remember, +for instance, that one of the few undoubted classical scholars, in the +old-fashioned sense, whom New England has seen,--the late John Glen +King of Salem,--while speaking with very limited respect of the +acquirements of Rufus Choate in this direction, and with utter +contempt of those of Daniel Webster, always became enthusiastic on +coming to Theodore Parker. "He is the only man," said Mr. King more +than once to the writer, "with whom I can sit down and seriously +discuss a disputed reading and find him familiar with all that has +been written upon it." Yet Greek and Latin were only the preliminaries +of Mr. Parker's scholarship. + +I know, for one,--and there are many who will bear the same +testimony,--that I never went to Mr. Parker to talk over a subject +which I had just made a speciality, without finding that on that +particular matter he happened to know, without any special +investigation, more than I did. This extended beyond books, sometimes +stretching into things where his questioner's opportunities of +knowledge had seemed considerably greater,--as, for instance, in +points connected with the habits of our native animals and the +phenomena of out-door Nature. Such were his wonderful quickness and +his infallible memory, that glimpses of these things did for him the +work of years. But, of course, it was in the world of books that this +wonderful superiority was chiefly seen, and the following example may +serve as one of the most striking among many. + +It happened to me, some years since, in the course of some historical +inquiries, to wish for fuller information in regard to the barbarous +feudal codes of the Middle Ages,--as the Salic, Burgundian, and +Ripuarian,--before the time of Charlemagne. The common historians, +even Hallam, gave no very satisfactory information and referred to no +very available books; and supposing it to be a matter of which every +well-read lawyer would at least know something, I asked help of the +most scholarly member of that profession within my reach. He regretted +his inability to give me any aid, but referred me to a friend of his, +who was soon to visit him, a young man, who was already eminent for +legal learning. The friend soon arrived, but owned, with some regret, +that he had paid no attention to that particular subject, and did not +even know what books to refer to; but he would at least ascertain what +they were, and let me know. (N.B. I have never heard from him since.) +Stimulated by ill-success, I aimed higher, and struck at the Supreme +Bench of a certain State, breaking in on the mighty repose of His +Honor with the name of Charlemagne. "Charlemagne?" responded my lord +judge, rubbing his burly brow,--"Charlemagne lived, I think, in the +sixth century?" Dismayed, I retreated, with little further inquiry; +and sure of one man, at least, to whom law meant also history and +literature, I took refuge with Charles Sumner. That accomplished +scholar, himself for once at fault, could only frankly advise me to do +at last what I ought to have done at first,--to apply to Theodore +Parker. I did so. "Go," replied he instantly, "to alcove twenty-four, +shelf one hundred and thirteen, of the College Library at Cambridge, +and you will find the information you need in a thick quarto, bound in +vellum, and lettered 'Potgiesser de Statu Servorum.'" I straightway +sent for Potgiesser, and found my fortune made, it was one of those +patient old German treatises which cost the labor of one man's life to +compile and another's to exhaust, and I had no reason to suppose that +any reader had disturbed its repose until that unwearied industry had +explored the library. + +Amid such multiplicity of details he must sometimes have made +mistakes, and with his great quickness of apprehension he sometimes +formed hasty conclusions. But no one has a right to say that his great +acquirements were bought by any habitual sacrifice of thoroughness. To +say that they sometimes impaired the quality of his thought would +undoubtedly be more just; and this is a serious charge to bring. +Learning is not accumulation, but assimilation; every man's real +acquirements must pass into his own organization, and undue or hasty +nutrition does no good. The most priceless knowledge is not worth the +smallest impairing of the quality of the thinking. The scholar cannot +afford, any more than the farmer, to lavish his strength in clearing +more land than he can cultivate; and Theodore Parker was compelled by +the natural limits of time and strength to let vast tracts lie fallow, +and to miss something of the natural resources of the soil. One +sometimes wished that he had studied less and dreamed more,--for less +encyclopedic information, and more of his own rich brain. + +But it was in popularizing thought and knowledge that his great and +wonderful power lay. Not an original thinker, in the same sense with +Emerson, he yet translated for tens of thousands that which Emerson +spoke to hundreds only. No matter who had been heard on any subject, +the great mass of intelligent, "progressive" New-England thinkers +waited to hear the thing summed up by Theodore Parker. This popular +interest went far beyond the circle of his avowed sympathizers; he +might be a heretic, but nobody could deny that he was a marksman. No +matter how well others seemed to have hit the target, his shot was the +triumphant one, at last. Thinkers might find no new thought in the new +discourse, leaders of action no new plan, yet, after all that had been +said and done, his was the statement that told upon the community. He +knew this power of his, and had analyzed some of the methods by which +he attained it, though, after all, the best part was an unconscious +and magnetic faculty. But he early learned, so he once told me, that +the New-England people dearly love two things,--a philosophical +arrangement, and a plenty of statistics. To these, therefore, he +treated them thoroughly; in some of his "Ten Sermons" the demand made +upon the systematizing power of his audience was really formidable; +and I have always remembered a certain lecture of his on the +Anglo-Saxons as the most wonderful instance that ever came within my +knowledge of the adaptation of solid learning to the popular +intellect. Nearly two hours of almost unadorned fact,--for there was +far less than usual of relief and illustration,--and yet the +lyceum-audience listened to it as if an angel sang to them. So perfect +was his sense of purpose and of power, so clear and lucid was his +delivery, with such wonderful composure did he lay out, section by +section, his historical chart, that he grasped his hearers as +absolutely as he grasped his subject: one was compelled to believe +that he might read the people the Sanscrit Lexicon, and they would +listen with ever fresh delight. Without grace or beauty or melody, his +mere elocution was sufficient to produce effects which melody and +grace and beauty might have sighed for in vain. And I always felt that +he well described his own eloquence while describing Luther's, in one +of the most admirably moulded sentences he ever achieved,--"The homely +force of Luther, who, in the language of the farm, the shop, the boat, +the street, or the nursery, told the high truths that reason or +religion taught, and took possession of his audience by a storm of +speech, then poured upon them all the riches of his brave plebeian +soul, baptizing every head anew,--a man who with the people seemed +more mob than they, and with kings the most imperial man." + +Another key to his strong hold upon the popular mind was to be found +in his thorough Americanism of training and sympathy. Surcharged with +European learning, he yet remained at heart the Lexington +farmer's-boy, and his whole atmosphere was indigenous, not exotic. Not +haunted by any of the distrust and over-criticism which are apt to +effeminate the American scholar, he plunged deep into the current of +hearty national life around him, loved it, trusted it, believed in it; +and the combination of this vital faith with such tremendous criticism +of public and private sins formed an irresistible power. He could +condemn without crushing,--denounce mankind, yet save it from despair. +Thus his pulpit became one of the great forces of the nation, like the +New York "Tribune." His printed volumes had but a limited circulation, +owing to a defective system of publication, which his friends tried in +vain to correct; but the circulation of his pamphlet-discourses was +very great; he issued them faster and faster, latterly often in pairs, +and they instantly spread far and wide. Accordingly he found his +listeners everywhere; he could not go so far West but his abundant +fame had preceded him; his lecture-room in the remotest places was +crowded, and his hotel-chamber also, until late at night. Probably +there was no private man in the nation, except, perhaps, Beecher and +Greeley, whom personal strangers were so eager to see; while from a +transatlantic direction he was sought by visitors to whom the two +other names were utterly unknown. Learned men from the continent of +Europe always found their way, first or last, to Exeter Place; and it +is said that Thackeray, on his voyage to this country, declared that +the thing in America which he most desired was to hear Theodore Parker +talk. + +Indeed, his conversational power was so wonderful that no one could go +away from a first interview without astonishment and delight. There +are those among us, it may be, more brilliant in anecdote or repartee, +more eloquent, more profoundly suggestive; but for the outpouring of +vast floods of various and delightful information, I believe that he +could have had no Anglo-Saxon rival, except Macaulay. And in Mr. +Parker's case, at least, there was no alloy of conversational +arrogance or impatience of opposition. He monopolized, not because he +was ever unwilling to hear others, but because they did not care to +hear themselves when he was by. The subject made no difference; he +could talk on anything. I was once with him in the society of an +intelligent Quaker farmer, when the conversation fell on agriculture: +the farmer held his own ably for a time; but long after he was drained +dry, our wonderful companion still flowed on exhaustless, with +accounts of Nova Scotia ploughing and Tennessee hoeing, and all things +rural, ancient and modern, good and bad, till it seemed as if the one +amusing and interesting theme in the universe were the farm. But it +soon proved that this was only one among his thousand departments, and +his hearers felt, as was said of old Fuller, as if he had served his +time at every trade in town. + +But it must now be owned that these astonishing results were bought by +some intellectual sacrifices which his nearer friends do not all +recognize, but which posterity will mourn. Such a rate of speed is +incompatible with the finest literary execution. A delicate literary +ear he might have had, perhaps, but he very seldom stopped to +cultivate or even indulge it. This neglect was not produced by his +frequent habit of extemporaneous speech alone; for it is a singular +fact, that Wendell Phillips, who rarely writes a line, yet contrives +to give to his hastiest efforts the air of elaborate preparation, +while Theodore Parker's most scholarly performances were still +stump-speeches. Vigorous, rich, brilliant, copious, they yet seldom +afford a sentence which falls in perfect cadence upon the ear; under a +show of regular method, they are loose and diffuse, and often have the +qualities which he himself attributed to the style of John Quincy +Adams,--"disorderly, ill-compacted, and homely to a fault." He said of +Dr. Channing,--"Diffuseness is the old Adam of the pulpit. There are +always two ways of hitting the mark,--one with a single bullet, the +other with a shower of small shot: Dr. Channing chose the latter, as +most of our pulpit orators have done." Theodore Parker chose it also. + +Perhaps Nature and necessity chose it for him. If not his temperament, +at least the circumstances of his position, cut him off from all high +literary finish. He created the congregation at the Music Hall, and +that congregation, in turn, moulded his whole life. For that great +stage his eloquence became inevitably a kind of brilliant +scene-painting,--large, fresh, profuse, rapid, showy;--masses of light +and shade, wonderful effects, but farewell forever to all finer +touches and delicate gradations! No man can write for posterity, while +hastily snatching a half-day from a week's lecturing, during which to +prepare a telling Sunday harangue for three thousand people. In the +perpetual rush and hurry of his life, he had no time to select, to +discriminate, to omit anything, or to mature anything. He had the +opportunities, the provocatives, and the drawbacks which make the work +and mar the fame of the professional journalist. His intellectual +existence, after he left the quiet of West Roxbury, was from hand to +mouth. Needing above all men to concentrate himself, he was compelled +by his whole position to lead a profuse and miscellaneous life. + +All popular orators must necessarily repeat themselves,--preachers +chiefly among orators, and Theodore Parker chiefly among preachers. +The mere frequency of production makes this inevitable,--a fact which +always makes every finely organized intellect, first or last, grow +weary of the pulpit. But in his case there were other compulsions. +Every Sunday a quarter part of his vast congregation consisted of +persons who had never, or scarcely ever, heard him before, and who +might never hear him again. Not one of those visitors must go away, +therefore, without hearing the great preacher define his position on +every point,--not theology alone, but all current events and permanent +principles, the Presidential nomination or message, the laws of trade, +the laws of Congress, woman's rights, woman's costume, Boston +slave-kidnappers, and Dr. Banbaby,--he must put it all in. His ample +discourse must be like an Oriental poem, which begins with the +creation of the universe, and includes all subsequent facts +incidentally. It is astonishing to look over his published sermons and +addresses, and see under how many different names the same stirring +speech has been reprinted;--new illustrations, new statistics, and all +remoulded with such freshness that the hearer had no suspicions, nor +the speaker either,--and yet the same essential thing. Sunday +discourse, lyceum lecture, convention speech, it made no difference, +he must cover all the points every time. No matter what theme might be +announced, the people got the whole latitude and longitude of Theodore +Parker, and that was precisely what they wanted. He broke down the +traditional non-committalism of the lecture-room, and oxygenated all +the lyceums of the land. He thus multiplied his audience very greatly, +while perhaps losing to some degree the power of close logic and of +addressing a specific statement to a special point. Yet it seemed as +if he could easily leave the lancet to others, grant him only the +hammer and the forge. + +Ah, but the long centuries, where the reading of books is concerned, +set aside all considerations of quantity, of popularity, of immediate +influence, and sternly test by quality alone,--judge each author by +his most golden sentence, and let all else go. The deeds make the man, +but it is the style which makes or dooms the writer. History, which +always sends great men in groups, gave us Emerson by whom to test the +intellectual qualities of Parker. They cooperated in their work from +the beginning, in much the same mutual relation as now; in looking +back over the rich volumes of the "Dial," the reader now passes by the +contributions of Parker to glean every sentence of Emerson's, but we +have the latter's authority for the fact that it was the former's +articles which originally sold the numbers. Intellectually, the two +men form the complement to each other; it is Parker who reaches the +mass of the people, but it is probable that all his writings put +together have not had so profound an influence on the intellectual +leaders of the nation as the single address of Emerson at Divinity +Hall. + +And it is difficult not to notice, in that essay in which Theodore +Parker ventured on higher intellectual ground, perhaps, than anywhere +else in his writings,--his critique on Emerson in the "Massachusetts +Quarterly,"--the indications of this mental disparity. It is in many +respects a noble essay, full of fine moral appreciations, bravely +generous, admirable in the loyalty of spirit shown towards a superior +mind, and all warm with a personal friendship which could find no +superior. But so far as literary execution is concerned, the beautiful +sentences of Emerson stand out like fragments of carved marble from +the rough plaster in which they are imbedded. Nor this alone; but, on +drawing near the vestibule of the author's finest thoughts, the critic +almost always stops, unable quite to enter their sphere. Subtile +beauties puzzle him; the titles of the poems, for instance, giving by +delicate allusion the key-note of each,--as "Astraea," "Mithridates," +"Hamatreya," and "Étienne de la Boéce,"--seem to him the work of "mere +caprice"; he pronounces the poem of "Monadnoc" "poor and weak"; he +condemns and satirizes the "Wood-notes," and thinks that a pine-tree +which should talk like Mr. Emerson's ought to be cut down and cast +into the sea. + +The same want of fine discrimination was usually visible in his +delineations of great men in public life. Immense in accumulation of +details, terrible in the justice which held the balance, they yet left +one with the feeling, that, after all, the delicate main-springs of +character had been missed. Broad contrasts, heaps of good and evil, +almost exaggerated praises, pungent satire, catalogues of sins that +seemed pages from some Recording Angel's book,--these were his mighty +methods; but for the subtilest analysis, the deepest insight into the +mysteries of character, one must look elsewhere. It was still +scene-painting, not portraiture; and the same thing which overwhelmed +with wonder, when heard in the Music Hall, produced a slight sense of +insufficiency, when read in print. It was certainly very great in its +way, but not in quite the highest way; it was preliminary work, not +final; it was Parker's Webster, not Emerson's Swedenborg or Napoleon. + +The same thing was often manifested in his criticisms on current +events. The broad truths were stated without fear or favor, the finer +points passed over, and the special trait of the particular phase +sometimes missed. His sermons on the last revivals, for instance, had +an enormous circulation, and told with great force upon those who had +not been swept into the movement, and even upon some who had been. The +difficulty was that they were just such discourses as he would have +preached in the time of Edwards and the "Great Awakening"; and the +point which many thought the one astonishing feature of the new +excitement, its almost entire omission of the "terrors of the Lord," +the far gentler and more winning type of religion which it displayed, +and from which it confessedly drew much of its power, this was +entirely ignored in Mr. Parker's sermons. He was too hard at work in +combating the evangelical theology to recognize its altered phases. +Forging lightning-rods against the tempest, he did not see that the +height of the storm had passed by. + +These are legitimate criticisms to make on Theodore Parker, for he was +large enough to merit them. It is only the loftiest trees of which it +occurs to us to remark that they do not touch the sky, and a man must +comprise a great deal before we complain of him for not comprising +everything. But though the closest scrutiny may sometimes find cases +where he failed to see the most subtile and precious truth, it will +never discover one where, seeing, he failed to proclaim it, or, +proclaiming, failed to give it force and power. He lived his life much +as he walked the streets of Boston,--not quite gracefully, nor yet +statelily, but with quick, strong, solid step, with sagacious eyes +wide open, and thrusting his broad shoulders a little forward, as if +butting away the throng of evil deeds around him, and scattering whole +atmospheres of unwholesome cloud. Wherever he went, there went a +glance of sleepless vigilance, an unforgetting memory, a tongue that +never faltered, and an arm that never quailed. Not primarily an +administrative nor yet a military mind, he yet exerted a positive +control over the whole community around him, by sheer mental and moral +strength. He mowed down harvests of evil as in his youth he mowed the +grass, and all his hours of study were but whetting the scythe. + +And for this great work it was not essential that the blade should +have a razor's edge. Grant that Parker was not also Emerson; no +matter, he was Parker. If ever a man seemed sent into the world to +find a certain position, and found it, he was that man. Occupying a +unique sphere of activity, he filled it with such a wealth of success, +that there is now no one in the nation whom it would not seem an +absurdity to nominate for his place. It takes many instruments to +complete the orchestra, but the tones of this organ the Music Hall +shall never hear again. + +One feels, since he is gone, that he made his great qualities seem so +natural and inevitable, we forgot that all did not share them. We +forgot the scholar's proverbial reproach of timidity and selfishness, +in watching him. While he lived, it seemed a matter of course that the +greatest acquirements and the heartiest self-devotion should go +together. Can we keep our strength, without the tonic of his example? +How petty it now seems to ask for any fine-drawn subtilties of poet or +seer in him who gave his life to the cause of the humblest! Life +speaks the loudest. We do not ask what Luther said or wrote, but only +what he did; and the name of Theodore Parker will not only long +outlive his books, but will last far beyond the special occasions out +of which he moulded his grand career. + + * * * * * + + +ICARUS. + +I. + +_Io triumphe!_ Lo, thy certain art, +My crafty sire, releases us at length! +False Minos now may knit his baffled brows, +And in the labyrinth by thee devised +His brutish horns in angry search may toss +The Minotaur,--but thou and I are free! +See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast +Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, +Thy glory and our prison! Either hand +Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad +In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows, +Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top +The sun, discovering first an earthly throne, +Sits down in splendor: lucent vapors rise +From folded glens among the awaking hills, +Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread +In airy planes beneath us, hearths of air +Whereon the morning burns her hundred fires. + +II. + +Take thou thy way between the cloud and wave, +O Daedalus, my father, steering forth +To friendly Samos, or the Carian shore! +But me the spaces of the upper heaven +Attract, the height, the freedom, and the joy. +For now, from that dark treachery escaped, +And tasting power which was the lust of youth, +Whene'er the white blades of the sea-gull's wings +Flashed round the headland, or the barbéd files +Of cranes returning clanged across the sky, +No half-way flight, no errand incomplete +I purpose. Not, as once in dreams, with pain +I mount, with fear and huge exertion hold +Myself a moment, ere the sickening fall +Breaks in the shock of waking. Launched, at last, +Uplift on powerful wings, I veer and float +Past sunlit isles of cloud, that dot with light +The boundless archipelago of sky. +I fan the airy silence till it starts +In rustling whispers, swallowed up as soon; +I warm the chilly ether with my breath; +I with the beating of my heart make glad +The desert blue. Have I not raised myself +Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar? +The curious eagles wheel about my path: +With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me, +With harsh, impatient screams they menace me, +Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship +Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,-- +Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds, +I claim the azure empire of the air! +Henceforth I breast the current of the morn, +Between her crimson shores: a star, henceforth, +Upon the crawling dwellers of the earth +My forehead shines. The steam of sacred blood, +The smoke of burning flesh on altars laid, +Fumes of the temple-wine, and sprinkled myrrh, +Shall reach my palate ere they reach the Gods. + +III. + +Nay, am not I a God? What other wing, +If not a God's, could in the rounded sky +Hang thus in solitary poise? What need, +Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes +Should grow, like yonder eagle's, from the nest? +It may be, ere my crafty father's line +Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer, +Who found you roaming wingless on the hills, +Naked, asserting godship in the dearth +Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same. +Thence did you seize Olympus; thence your pride +Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear +The temple from the mountain's marble womb, +To carve you shapes more beautiful than they, +To sate your idle nostrils with the reek +Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold. + +IV. + +Lo, where Hyperion, through the glowing air +Approaching, drives! Fresh from his banquet-meats, +Flushed with Olympian nectar, angrily +He guides his fourfold span of furious steeds, +Convoyed by that bold Hour whose ardent torch +Burns up the dew, toward the narrow beach, +This long, projecting spit of cloudy gold +Whereon I wait to greet him when he comes. +Think not I fear thine anger: this day, thou, +Lord of the silver bow, shalt bring a guest +To sit in presence of the equal Gods +In your high hall: wheel but thy chariot near, +That I may mount beside thee! + ----What is this? +I hear the crackling hiss of singéd plumes! +The stench of burning feathers stifles me! +My loins are stung with drops of molten wax!-- +Ai! ai! my ruined vans!--I fall! I die! + + * * * * * + +Ere the blue noon o'erspanned the bluer strait +Which parts Icaria from Samos, fell, +Amid the silent wonder of the air, +Fell with a shock that startled the still wave, +A shrivelled wreck of crisp, entangled plumes, +A head whence eagles' beaks had plucked the eyes, +And clots of wax, black limbs by eagles torn +In falling: and a circling eagle screamed +Around that floating horror of the sea +Derision, and above Hyperion shone. + + * * * * * + + +WALKER. + +I confess to knowledge of a large book bearing the above title,--a +title which is no less appropriate for this brief, disrupted +biographical memorandum. That I have a right to act as I have done, in +adopting it, will presently appear,--as well as that the honored name +thus appropriated by me refers neither io the dictionary nor the +_filibustero_, both of which articles appear to have been superseded +by newer and better things. + +At the first flush, Fur would seem to be rather a sultry subject to +open either a store or a story with, in these glowing days of a justly +incensed thermometer. + +And yet there is a fine bracing mountain-air to be drawn from the +material, as with a spigot, if you will only favor your mind with a +digression from the tangible article to the wild-rose associations in +which it is enveloped. + +Think of the high, wind-swept ridges, among the clefts of which are +the only homesteads of the hardy pioneers by whose agency alone one +kind of luxury is kept up to the standard demand for it in the great +cities. It might not be so likely a place to get fancy drinks in as +Broome Street, certainly, we must admit, as we picture to ourselves +some brushy ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set +out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed +"fisher-cat,"--but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a +brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the +fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the +mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more +conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy in cool images +connected with fur and its finders, we shall see what contrasts will +arise. The blue shadow of a cottonwood-tree stretching over a +mountain-spring. By the edge of the sparkling water sits, embroidering +buckskin, a red-legged squaw, keeper of the wigwam to the ragged +mountain-man who set the traps that caught the martens which furnished +the tails that mark so gracefully the number of skins of which the +rich banker's wife's _fichu-russe_ is composed. Here is a striking +contrast, in which extremes meet,--not the martens' tails, but the two +men's wives, the banker's and the trapper's, brought into antithetical +relation by the simple circumstance of a _fichu-russe_, the material +of which was worn in some ravine of the wilderness, mayhap not a +twelvemonth since, by a creature faster even than a banker's wife. +Great is the hereafter of the marten-cat, whose skin may be looked +upon as the soul by which the animal is destined to attain a sort of +modified immortality in the Elysian abodes of Wealth and Fashion,--the +place where good martens go! + +The men through whose intervention eventual felicity is thus secured +to the fur-creature are as much a race in themselves as the Gypsies. +No genuine type of them ever approaches nearer to the confines of +civilization than a frontier settlement beckons him. Old Adams, the +bear-tutor, might have been of this type once, but he is adulterated +with sawdust and gas-light now, with city cookery and spurious +groceries. Many men of French Canadian origin are to be found trading +and trapping in the Far West; although, taken in the aggregate, there +are no people less given to stirring enterprise than these colonial +descendants of the Gaul. The only direction, almost, in which they +exhibit any expansive tendency is in the border trade and general +adventure business, in which figure the names of many of them +conspicuously and with honor. The Chouteaus are of that stock; and of +that stock came the late Major Aubry, renowned among the guides and +trappers of the southwestern wilderness; and if J.C. Fremont is not a +French Canadian by birth, the strong efforts made about the time of +the last Presidential election to establish him as one had at least +the effect of determining his Canadian descent. + +Pierre La Marche was a Franco-Canadian of the spread-eagle kind +referred to. Departing widely from the conservative prejudices of his +race, his wandering propensities took him away, at an early age, from +the primitive colonial village in which he first saw the light of day. +He was but fourteen years old when he left his peaceful and thoroughly +whitewashed home on the banks of the St. François, in company with a +knot of Canadian _voyageurs_, whose principles tended towards the Red +River of the North. Leaving this convoy at Fond-du-Lac, he pushed his +way on to the Mississippi, alone and friendless, and, falling in with +a party of trappers at St. Louis, accompanied them when they returned +to the mountain "gulches" in which their business lay. + +After six years of trapper and trader life, but little trace of the +simple young Canadian _habitant_ was left in Pierre La Marche. He +spoke mountain English and French _patois_ with equal fluency. There +was a decision of character about him that commanded the respect of +his comrades. When the other trappers went to St. Louis, they used to +drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring +for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre +was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his +aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or +squandering it upon deteriorating drinks. + +About this time of his life, Pierre began to think that the fact of +his being "only a French Canadian" was likely to be a bar to his +advancement. He despised himself greatly for one thing, indeed,--that +his name was La Marche, and not Walker,--which patronymic he made out +to be the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent for his French one. He +adopted it,--calling himself Peter Walker,--and had an adventure out +of it, to begin with. + +While trading furs at St. Louis, on one occasion, he offered a remnant +of his stock to a dealer with whom he was not acquainted. They had an +argument as to prices. The dealer, a man of hasty temper, asked him +his name. + +"Walker," was the reply. + +When La Marche arose from the distant corner into which he was +projected in company with the bundle of furs levelled at his head, +revenge was his natural sentiment. Drawing his heavy knife from its +sheath, he flung it away: the temptation to use it might have been too +much for him. Small in stature, but remarkable for muscular strength, +and for inventive resource in the "rough-and-tumble" fight, La Marche +clenched with the burly store-keeper, who was getting the worst of it, +when some of his _employés_ interfered. This led to a general +engagement. Several of La Marche's companions now rushed in, and in +five minutes their opponents gave out, succumbent to superior wind and +sinew. + +Next morning, when the trappers took their way out of St. Louis, La +Marche was a leader among them for life. But the reason of the +store-keeper's rage was for many years a mystery to him. He knew not +the enormity of "Walker," as an exponent of disparagement; he simply +thought it a nicer name than La Marche, while it fully embodied the +sentiment of that name. He adopted it, then, as I said before, and +went on towards posterity as Peter Walker. + +I heard many strange anecdotes of Peter Walker at the residence of a +retired _voyageur_, who used to sing him Homerically to his chosen +friends. These _voyageurs_ are professional canoe-men; adventurers +extending, sparsely, from the waters of French Canada to those of +Oregon,--and sometimes back. Honest old Quatreaux! I mentioned his +"residence" just now, and the term is truly grandiloquent in its +application. The residence of old Quatreaux was a log _cabane_, about +twenty feet square. Planks, laid loosely upon the cross-ties of the +rafters, formed the up-stairs of the building: up-ladder would be a +term more in accordance with facts; for it was by an appliance of that +kind that the younger and more active of the sixteen members composing +the old _voyageur's_ family removed themselves from view when they +retired for the night. A partition, extending half-way across the +ground-floor, screened off the state or principal bed from outside +gaze; at least, it was exposed to view only from points rendered +rather inaccessible by tubs, with which these Canadian families are +generally provided to excess. This apartment was strictly assigned to +me, as a visitor; and although I firmly declined the honor,--chiefly +with reference to certain large and very hard fleas I knew of in its +dormitory arrangements,--it was kept religiously vacant, in case my +heart should relent towards it, and the family in general slept +huddled together on the outer floor, without manifest classification: +the two old people; son and wife; daughter and husband; children; the +extraordinary little hunch-backed and one-eyed girl, whom nobody would +marry, but everybody liked; dogs. I used to stretch myself on a +buffalo-robe before the wood-fire, in company with a faithful spaniel, +who was as wakeful on these occasions as if he suspected that the +low-bred curs of the establishment might pick his pockets. + +Quatreaux's _cabane_ was situated on the edge of an extensive tract of +marsh,--lagoon would be a more descriptive word for it, perhaps,--a +splashy, ditch-divided district, extending along the borders of a lake +for miles. Snipe-shooting was my motive there; and dull work it was in +those dark, Novembry, October days, with "the low rain falling" half +the time, and the yellow leaves all the time, and no snipe. But +whether we poled our log canoe up to some stunted old willow-tree that +sat low in the horizontal marsh, and took shelter under it to smoke +our pipes, or whether we mollified the privation of snipe in the +_cabane_ at night with mellow rum and tobacco brought by me, still was +Walker the old _voyageur's_ favorite theme. + +Old Quatreaux spoke English perfectly well, although his conservatism +as a Canadian induced him to prefer his mother tongue as a vehicle for +general conversation. But I remarked that his anecdotes of Walker were +always related in English, and on these occasions, therefore, for my +benefit alone: for but little of the Anglo-Saxon tongue appeared to be +known to, or at least used by, any member of his numerous family. +Indeed, I can recall but two words of that language which I could +positively aver to have heard in colloquial use among them,--_poodare_ +and _schotte_. And why should the old _voyageur_ have thus reserved +his experiences from those who were near and dear to him? Simply +because most of his adventures with Walker were not of the strictly +mild character becoming a family-man. But it was all the same to these +good people; and when I laughed, they all took up the idea and laughed +their best,--the little hunch-backed girl generally going off into a +kind of epilepsy by herself, over in the darkest corner of the room, +among the tubs. + +When divested of the strange Western expletives and imprecations with +which the old man used to spice his reminiscences, some of them are +enough. I remember one, telling how Peter Walker "raised the wind" on +a particular occasion, when he got short of money on his way to some +distant trading-post, in a district strange to him. It is before me, +in short-hand, on the pages of an old, old pocket-book, and I will +tell it with some slight improvements on the narrator's style, such as +suppressing his unnecessary combinations of the curse. + +Mounted on a two-hundred-dollar buffalo-horse, for which he would not +have taken double that amount, Peter Walker found himself, one +afternoon, near the end of a long day's ride. He had but little +baggage with him, that little consisting entirely of a bowie-knife and +holster-pistols,--for the revolver was a scarce piece of furniture +then and there. Of money he was entirely destitute, having expended +his last dollar upon the purchase of his noble steed, and of the +festive suit of clothes with which he calculated upon astonishing +people who resided outside the limits of civilization. The pantaloon +division of that suit was particularly superb, consisting principally +of a stripe by which the outer seam of each leg was made conducive to +harmony of outline. He was about three days' journey from the +trading-post to which he was bound. The country was a frontier one, +sparsely provided with inns. + +The sun was framed in a low notch of the horizon, as he approached a +border-hostelry, on the gable of which "Cat's Bluff Hotel" was painted +in letters quite disproportioned in size to the city of Cat's Bluff, +which consisted of the house in question, neither more nor less. In +that house Peter Walker decided upon sojourning luxuriously for that +night, at least, if he had to draw a check upon his holsters for it. + +Having stabled his horse, then, and seen him supplied with such +provender as the place afforded, he looked about the hotel, which he +found to be an institution of very considerable pretensions. It seemed +to have a good deal of its own way, in fact, being the only house of +entertainment for many miles upon a great south-western thoroughfare, +from which branched off the trail to be taken by him tomorrow,--a +trail which led only to the trading-post or fort already mentioned. + +The deportment of the landlord was gracious, as he went about +whistling "Wait for the wagon," and jingling with gold chains and +heavy jewelry. Still more exhilarating was the prosperous confidence +of the bar-keeper, who took in, while Walker was determining a drink, +not less than a dozen quarter-dollars, from blue-shirted, bearded, +thirsty men with rifles, who came along in a large covered wagon of +western tendency, in which they immediately departed with haste, late +as it was, as if bound to drive into the sun before he went down +behind the far-off edge. Walker used to say, jocularly, that he +supposed this must have been the wagon for which the landlord +whistled, and which came to his call. + +Everything denoted that there was abundance of money in that favored +place. Even small boys who came in and called for cigars and drinks +made a reckless display of coin as they paid for them, and then drove +off in their wagons,--for they all had wagons, and were all intent +upon driving rapidly in then toward the west. + +But, as night fell, travel went down with the declining day; and +Walker felt himself alone in the world,--a man without a dollar. +Nevertheless, he called for good cheer, which was placed before him on +a liberal scale: for landlords thereabouts were accustomed to provide +for appetites acquired on the plains, and their supply was obliged to +be both large and ready for the chance comers who were always dropping +in, and upon whom their custom depended. So he ate and drank; and +having appeased hunger and thirst, he went into the bar, and opened +conversation with the landlord by offering him one of his own cigars, +a bunch of which he got from the bar-keeper, whom he particularly +requested not to forget to include them in his bill, when the time for +his departure brought with it the disagreeable necessity of being +served with that document. + +Western landlords, in general, are not remarkable for the reserve with +which they treat their guests. This particular landlord was less so +than most others. He was especially inquisitive with regard to +Walker's exquisite pantaloons, the like of which had never been seen +in that part of the country before. His happiness was evidently +incomplete in the privation of a similar pair. + +"Them pants all wool, now?" asked he, as he viewed them with various +inclinations of head, like a connoisseur examining a picture. + +"All except the stripes," replied Walker;--"stripes is wool and cotton +mixed; gives 'em a finer grain, you see, and catches the eye." + +The landlord respected Walker at once. Perhaps he might be an Eastern +dry-goods merchant, come along for the purpose of making arrangements +to inundate the border-territory with stuffs for exquisite pantaloons. +He proceeded with his interrogatories. He laid himself out to extract +from Walker all manner of information as to his origin, occupation, +and prospects, which gave the latter an excellent opportunity of +glorifying himself inferentially, while he affected mystery and +reticence with regard to his mission "out West." At last the landlord +set him down for an agent come on to open the sluices for a great tide +of foreign emigration into the territory,--an event to which he +himself had been looking for a long time, and the prospect of which +had guided him to the spot where he had established his hotel, which +he now looked upon as the centre from which a great city was destined +immediately to radiate. And the landlord retired to his bed to +meditate upon immense speculations in town-lots, and, when sleep came +upon him, to dream that he had successfully arranged them through the +medium of an angel with a speaking-trumpet, whose manifest wardrobe +consisted of a pair of fancy pantaloons with stripes on the seams and +side-pockets, exactly like Walker's. + +Walker, too, retired to rest, but not to sleep, for his mind was +occupied in turning over means whereby to obtain some of the real +capital with which people here seemed to be superabundantly provided. +He had speculations to carry out, and money was the indispensable +element. Had he only been able to read the landlord's thoughts, he +might have turned quietly over and slept; for so held was that +person's mind by the idea that his ultimate success was to be achieved +through the medium of his unknown guest, that he would without +hesitation have lent him double the sum necessary for his financial +arrangements. + +There was a disturbance some time about the middle of the night. +People came along in wagons, as usual, waking up the bar-keeper, whose +dreams perpetually ran upon that kind of trouble. Walker, who was wide +awake, gathered from the conversation below that the travellers had +only halted for drinks, and would immediately resume their way +westward with all speed. He arose and looked out at the open window, +which was about fifteen feet from the ground. Something white loomed +up through the darkness: it was the awning of one of the wagons, which +stood just under the window, to the sill of which it reached within a +few feet. Walker, brought up in the rough-and-ready school, had lain +down to rest with his trousers on. A sudden inspiration now seized +him: he slipped them rapidly off, and dropped them silently on to the +roof of the wagon, which soon after moved on with the others, and +disappeared into the night. This done, he opened softly the door of +the room, and, leaving it ajar, returned to bed and slept. + +Morning was well advanced when Walker arose, and began operations by +moving the furniture about in an excited manner, to attract the +attention of those in the bar below, and convey an idea of search. +Presently he went to the door of the room, and, uttering an Indian +howl, by way of securing immediate attendance, cried out,-- + +"Hullo, below! where's my pants?--bar-keeper, fetch along my +pants!--landlord, I don't want to be troublesome, but just take off +them pants, if you happen to have mistook 'em for your own, and oblige +the right owner with a look at 'em, will you?" + +Puzzled at this address, which was couched in much stronger +language--according to old Quatreaux's version of it--than I should +like to commit to paper, the landlord and bar-keeper at once proceeded +to Walker's room, where they found him sitting, expectantly, on the +side of the bed, with his horse-pistols gathered together beside him. +Of course, they denied all knowledge of his pantaloons,--didn't steal +nobody's pants in that house, nor nothin'. + +Walker looked sternly at them, and, playing with one of his pistols, +exclaimed, with the usual redundants,-- + +"You lie!--you've stole my pants between you; you've found out what +they were worth by this time, I guess; but I'll have 'em back, and +that in a hurry, or else my name a'n't Walker,--Peter Walker." + +He added his Christian name, because a reminiscence of the mystery +belonging to his patronymic by itself flashed upon him. + +Now the name of Pete Walker was potent along the frontier, because of +his influence with the wild mountain-men, who did reckless deeds on +his account, unknown to him and otherwise. Another vision than that of +last night overcame the landlord,--a vision of Lynch and ashes. + +"So you're Pete Walker, be you?" asked he, in a tone of mingled +respect and admiration, slightly tremulous with fear. "How do you do, +Mr. Walker?--how do you find yourself this morning, Sir?" + +"I didn't come here to find myself," retorted Walker, fiercely. "I +found my door open, though, when I woke up,--but I couldn't find my +pants. You must get 'em, or pay for 'em, and that right away." + +"Them cusses that passed through here last night!" exclaimed the +landlord. "I guess the pants is gone on the sundown trail, stripes and +all." + +Walker thought it was quite probable that they had; but they were +stolen from that house, and the house must pay for them. + +Lynch and ashes again blazed before the landlord's eyes. + +"How much might the pants be worth, now, at cost price?" asked he. +"All wool, you say, only the stripes; but, as they was nearly all +stripes, you needn't holler much about the wool, I reckon. How much, +now?" + +"Two hundred and ten dollars," replied Walker, with impressive +exactness. + +"Thunder!" exclaimed the landlord. "I thought they might be +fancy-priced, sure-ly, but that's awful!" + +"Ten dollars, cash price, for the pants," proceeded Walker, "and two +hundred for that exact amount in gold stitched up in the waistband of +em." + +"The Devil has got 'em, anyhow!" said the landlord,--"for I saw a +queer critter, in my sleep, flying about with 'em on. Wings looks +kinder awful along o' pants with stripes. There'll be no luck round +till they're paid for, I guess. Couldn't you take my best checkers for +'em, now, with fifty dollars quilted into the waistband,--s-a-ay?" + +"My name's Walker,--Peter Walker," was the reply. + +The landlord was no match for that name, so disagreeably redolent of +Lynch and ashes. Thorough search was made upon the premises, and to +some distance around, in the wild hope that the missing trousers might +have walked off spontaneously, and lain down somewhere to sleep; but, +of course, nothing came of the investigation, although Walker assisted +at it with his usual energy. All compromise was rejected by him, and +it was not yet noon when he rode proudly away from the lone hostelry, +in the landlord's best checkers, for which he kindly allowed him five +dollars, receiving from him the balance, two hundred and five dollars, +in gold. + +I forget now what Walker did with that money, although Quatreaux knew +exactly, and told me all about it. Suffice it to say that he made a +grand _coup_ with it, in the purchase of a mill-privilege, or claim, +or something of the kind. Less than a year after the events narrated, +he again rode up to the lone hostelry, which was not so lonely now, +however; for houses were growing up around it, and it took boarders +and rang a dinner-bell, and maintained a landlady as well as a +landlord, besides. The landlord was astonished when Walker counted out +to him two hundred and five dollars in gold,--surprised when to that +was added a round sum for interest,--ecstatic, on being presented with +a brand-new pair of pantaloons, of the same pattern as the expensive +ones formerly so admired by him. But his features collapsed, and for +some time wore an expression of imbecility, when he learned the +details of the adventure, and found out that "some things"--landlords, +for example--"can be done as well as others." + +It was with little reminiscences like the one just narrated that old +Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate +ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that +our horizon was within paddle's length of us. With that presumptive +_clairvoyance_ which appears to be an essential property of the French +_raconteur_, he did not confine himself to external fact in his +narratives, but always professed to report minutely the thoughts that +flashed through the mind of such and such a person, on the particular +occasion referred to. He was a master of dialects,--Yankee, +Pennsylvanian Dutch, and Irish. + +"Where did you get your English, old man?" I asked him, as we scudded +across the lake in our canoe, with a small sail up, one red October +evening. + +"In Pennsylvania," replied he. "I went there on my own hook, when I +was about twelve year old, and worked in an oil-mill for four year." + +"In an oil-mill? Perhaps that accounts for the glibness with which +language slips off your tongue." + +"'Guess it do," said the old _voyageur_, with ready assent. + +We nearly got foul of a raft coming down the lake, manned with a +rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and +were very drunk and boisterous. + +"Ugly customers to deal with, those _brûlés_," remarked I, when we had +got clear away from them. + +"Some on 'em is," replied the old _voyageur_. "Did you notice the one +with the queer eye,--him in the Scotch cap and _shupac_ moccasons?" + +I _had_ noticed him, and an ill-looking thief he was. One of his eyes, +either from natural deformity or the effect of hostile operation, was +dragged down from its proper parallel, and planted in a remote socket +near the corner of his mouth, whence it glared and winked with +super-natural ferocity. + +"That's Rupe Falardeau," continued my companion. "His father, old +Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi +boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,--only the eye's +lower down still. If that's to go on in the family, I guess there'll +be a Falardeau with his eye in his knee, some time." + +In the deck-fight in which old Rupe got his ugly mark Pete Walker had +a hand; and the part he took in it, as related to me by old Quatreaux, +who was also present, affords a good example of the tact and coolness +which gave him such mastery over the wild spirits among whom he worked +out his destiny. + +Walker was coming down a lumbering-river--I forget the name of it--on +board a small tug-steamboat, in which he had an interest. He had gone +into other speculations beside furs, by this time, and had contracts +in two or three places for supplying remote stations with salt pork, +tea, and other staple provisions of the lumbering-craft. + +Stopping to wood at the mouth of a creek, a gang of raftsmen came on +board,--half-breed Canadians of fierce and demoralized aspect,--men of +great muscular strength, and armed heavily with axes and +butcher-knives. The gang was led by Rupe Falardeau, a dangerous man, +whether drunk or sober, and one whose antecedents were recorded in +blood. These men had been drinking, and were very noisy and intrusive, +and presently a row arose between them and some of the boat-hands. +Fisticuffs and kicks were first exchanged, but without any great loss +of blood. Knives were then drawn and nourished, and matters were +beginning to assume a serious aspect, when Walker made his appearance +forward of the paddle-box, pointing a heavy pistol right at the head +of the ringleader. + +"Rupe!" shouted he, in a voice that attracted immediate attention, +"drop that knife, or else I shoot!" + +The crowd parted for a moment, and Rupe, standing alone near the bows, +wheeled round with a yell, and glared fiercely at the speaker. + +"Drop that knife!" repeated Walker.--"One, two, _three_!--I'll give +you a last chance, and when I say _three_ again, I shoot, by thunder!" + +The last word had not rolled away, when the gleaming knife flashed +from the hand of Rupe, glanced close by Walker's ear, and sped +quivering into the paddle-box, just behind his head. + +"Good for you, Rupe!" exclaimed Walker, lowering his pistol, with a +pleasant smile,--"good for you!--but, _sacré bapteme_! how dead I'd +have shot you, if you hadn't dropped that knife!" + +The forbearance of Walker put an end to the row. Rupe, disarmed at +once by the loss of his knife and the coolness of Walker, was seized +by a couple of the deck-hands, and might have been secured without +injury to his beauty, had not a Mississippi boatman, who owed him an +old grudge, struck him on the face with a heavy iron hook, lacerating +and disfiguring him hideously for life. + +"But why didn't Walker shoot Falardeau, old man?" asked I of the +_voyageur_, wishing to learn something of the etiquette of life and +death among these peculiar people, who appear to be so reckless of the +former and fearless of the latter. + +"Ah!" replied he, "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a +man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known +before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the Ottawa to +the Columbia." + +Some time after this I again fell in with young Rupe, under +circumstances indicating that his life was not considered quite so +valuable as that of the old gentleman from whom he inherited his +frightful aspect. + +In company with a friend, one day, I was beating about for wild-fowl +in a marshy river, down which small rafts or "cribs" of timber were +worked by half-breeds and Canadians. + +About dark we came to a small, flat island in the marsh, where we +found an Iroquois camp, in which we proposed to pass the night, as we +had no camping-equipage in our skiff. The men were absent, hunting, +and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized +squaw, with her two ugly, undersized children. + +We were much fatigued, and agreed to sleep by watches, knowing the +sort of people we had to deal with. It was my watch, when voices were +heard as of men landing and pulling up a canoe or boat. Presently +three men came into the wigwam, railing-men, dressed in gray Canada +homespun and heavy Scotch bonnets. The light of the fire outside +flashed on their faces, as they stooped to enter the elm-bark tent, +and in the foremost I recognized the hideous Rupe Falardeau, Junior. +This man carried in his hand a small tin pail full of whiskey. He was +very drunk and dangerous, and greatly disgusted at the absence of the +Iroquois men, with whom he had evidently laid himself out for a +roaring debauch. + +I woke up my companion, and a judicious display of our +double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They +insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and +horrible stuff it was,--distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with +vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate +on such "fire-water" as that! + +By-and-by they slept,--two of them outside, by the fire,--Falardeau +inside the wigwam, the repose of which was broken by the hollow rattle +of his drunken breath. + +In the dead of the night something clutched me by the arm. It was the +ugly squaw, who forced a greasy butcher-knife into my hand, pointing +towards where the raftsman lay, and whispering to me in +English,--"Stick heem! stick heem!--nobody never know. He kill my +brother long time ago with this old knife. Kill heem! kill heem now!" + +I did not avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me for the +improvement of river society: nay, worse, I connived at the further +career of the redoubtable Rupert Falardeau, Junior; for, on leaving in +the morning, I roused him with repeated kicks, thus saving him for +that time, probably, from the Damoclesian blade of the _vengeresse_. + +_L'été de Saint Martin_!--how blue and yellow it is in the marshes in +those days! It is the name given by the French Canadians to the Indian +Summer,--the Summer of St. Martin, whose anniversary-day falls upon +the eleventh of November; though the brief latter-day tranquillity +called after him arrives, generally, some two or three weeks earlier. +Looking lakeward from the sedgy nook in which we are waiting for the +coming of the wood-ducks, the low line of water, blue and calm, is +broken at intervals by the rise of the distant _masquallongé_, as he +plays for a moment on the surface. But the channels that separate the +flat, alluvial islets are yellow, their sluggish waters being bedded +heavily down with the broad leaves of the wintering basswood-trees, +which, in some places, touch branch-tips across the narrow straits. +The muskrat's hut is thatched with the wet, dead leaves,--no thanks to +_him_; and there is a mat of them before his door,--a heavy, yellow +mat, on which are scattered the azure shells of the fresh-water clams +to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on +them, or are they only the cups and saucers of his vegeto-aquarian +_ménage_? Blue and yellow all,--the sky and the sedge-rows, the calm +lake and the canoe, the plashing basswood-leaves and the oval, azure +shells. + +Also Marance, the _voyageur's_ buxom young daughter, who came with us, +today, commissioned to cull herbs of wondrous properties among the +vine-tangled thickets of the islands. Blue and yellow. Eyes blue as +the azure shells; hair flashing out golden gleams, like that of +Pyrrha, when she braided hers so featly for the coming of some +ambrosial boy. + +"I must marry you, Marance," said I, jocularly, to the damsel, as I +jumped her out of the canoe,--"I shall marry you when we get back." + +It is good to live in a marsh. No fast boarding-house women there, +lurking for the unwary; no breaches of promise; "no nothing" in the +old-man-trap line. Abjure fast boarding-houses, you silly old +bachelors, and go to grass in a marsh! + +Marance laughed merrily, as she tripped away; then, turning, she +said,-- + +"But what if I never get back? I may lose myself in these lonely +places, and never be heard of again." + +"Oh, in that case," replied I, hard driven for a compliment, "in that +case, I must wait until Gilette"--a younger sister--"grows up. She +will be exactly like you: I must only wait for Gilette." + +"You remind me of Pete Walker," said the old man, as we shot away up +the channel, our canoe ripping up the matted surface like the cue of a +novice, when he runs a fatal reef along the sere and yellow cloth of +some billiard-table erewhile in verdure clad. "You are as bad as Pete +Walker, who thought one sister must be as good as another, because +they looked so much alike." + +And then, as we loitered about in the bays, the old man told me the +story of Walker's honeymoon, which was a sad and a short one. This is +the story. + +Near that wild rapid of the Columbia River known as the "Dalles," +there was, years ago, a Jesuit mission, established in a small fort, +built, like that at Nez-Percés, of mud. The labors of the holy men +composing the mission involved no inconsiderable amount of danger, +devoted as they were to the hopeless task of reforming such sinners as +the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Gros-Ventres, the Flat-Heads, the +Assiniboines, the Nez-Percés, and a few other such. + +Some of these missionaries had sojourned for a long time with a branch +of the Blackfoot tribe, among whom they found two young white girls, +remarkable for their exact resemblance to each other, and therefore +supposed to be twins. I say _supposed_, because of their origin there +was no trace. All that was known about them was, that they were the +sole survivors of a train of emigrants, attacked and murdered by the +Nez-Percés, who, actuated by one of those whims characteristic of the +red men, spared the lives of the two children, and adopted them into +the tribe. Subsequently, in a skirmish with the Blackfeet, they fell +into the hands of the latter, among whom they had lived for some time, +when they were ransomed by the missionaries, at the price of certain +trading-privileges negotiated by the latter for the tribe. + +When adopted by the Jesuits, the children had lost all remembrance of +their parentage; nor had they any names except the Indian ones +bestowed upon them by their captors. The good fathers christened them, +however, arranging them alphabetically, by the names of Alixe and +Bloyse, and confiding them to the especial charge of the wife of a +trader connected with the station, who had no family of her own. They +were fair-haired children, probably of German or Norwegian origin, and +had grown up to be robust young women of seventeen, when Walker saw +them for the first time, as he stopped at the Dalles on his way from +Fort Nez-Percés about one hundred and twenty-five miles higher up the +Columbia. + +Walker, whose business detained him for some time at the mission, +decided upon marrying one of the fair-haired sisters,--he did not much +care which, they were so singularly alike. Alixe happened to be the +one, however, to whom he tendered a share in his fortunes, which she +accepted in the random manner of one to whom it was of but little +consequence whether she said "Yes" or "No." Bloyse would have followed +him, and him only, to the end of all; but he never knew it at the +right time, though the women of the fort could have told him. + +It was late one afternoon when he was married to Alixe, in the chapel +of the mission. That was the night of the massacre. Two hours after +the wedding, the Blackfeet, combined with some allied tribe, came down +like wolves upon the fort. There was treachery, somewhere, and they +got in. In the thick of the fight, and when all seemed hopeless, +Walker shot down a tall Indian who was dragging his bride away to +where the horses of the tribe were picketed. In a second he had leaped +upon a horse, and, holding the young girl before him, galloped away in +the direction of a stream running into the Columbia,--a stream of +fierce torrents, navigable only at one place, and that by +flat-bottomed boats or scows, in which passengers warped themselves +across by a grass rope stretched from bank to bank. Once over this +river, he could easily reach a friendly camp, where he and his bride +would have been in safety. + +The moon had risen when he reached the ferry. Turning the horse +adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp +rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his +fainting companion close to him with the other. Suddenly, a sharp +click sounded from the opposite bank: the rope gave way, and Walker +and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat +shooting far away from beneath their feet. It ran a strong current +there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower +down. Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely +against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and +faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of +consciousness. When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his +companion was gone. The current had driven them forcibly against a +rock, throwing her from his grasp. The wild rapid was just below them. +She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore, +where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was +daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened. + +The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an +Indian, in whose brother's removal by hanging he had been +instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the +purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance. + +Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the +mission a heap of ruins,--blackened walls, charred rafters, and +unrecognizable human remains. + +Long afterwards, he learned that his bride was again living among the +Blackfeet;--for it was Bloyse, and not Alixe, with whom he had +galloped away to the fatal ferry, in the confusion of that terrible +night. It was poor Bloyse who went away from his arms down those +crushing rapids. It was Alixe, his bride, who shot back the bolts for +the entrance of the Blackfeet. She was secretly betrothed in the +tribe, and it was her betrothed whom Walker shot down as he was +rushing away in triumph with his supposed _fiancée_ of the pale-faces. +She married another Indian of the tribe, however; for she was a savage +woman at heart, and could live among savages only. + +"Sisters may be as like as two walnuts, to look at," said the old +_voyageur_, when he had finished his narration. "Take any two walnuts +from a heap, at random, though, and, like as not, you'll find one on +'em all heart and the other all hollow." + +"True," replied I; "but these be wild adventures for one whose boyhood +was passed in a peaceful and thoroughly whitewashed home on the banks +of the St. François." + +"'Guess they be," said the old _voyageur_. + + * * * * * + + +THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER AND ITS EDITORS. + +The families of Gales and Seaton are, in their origin, the one Scotch, +the other English. The Seatons are of that historic race, a daughter +of which (the fair and faithful Catherine) is the heroine of one of +Sir Walter Scott's romances. It was to be supposed that they whose +lineage looked to such an instance of devoted personal affection for +the ancient line would not slacken in their loyalty when fresh +calamities fell upon the Stuarts and again upset their throne. +Accordingly, the Seatons appear to have clung to the cause of their +exiled king with fidelity. Henry Seaton seems to have made himself +especially obnoxious to the new monarch, by taking part in those +Jacobite schemes of rebellion which were so long kept on foot by the +lieges and gentlemen of Scotland; so that, when, towards the close of +the seventeenth century, the cause he loved grew desperate, and +Scotland itself anything but safe for a large body of her most gallant +men, he was forced, like all others that scorned to submit, to fly +beyond the seas. Doing so, it was natural that he should choose to +take refuge in a Britain beyond the ocean, where a brotherly welcome +among his kindred awaited the political prescript. It is probable, +however, that a special sympathy towards that region which, by its +former fidelity to the Stuarts, had earned from them the royal +quartering of its arms and the title of "The Ancient Dominion," +directed his final choice. At any rate, it was to Virginia that he +came,--settling there, as a planter, first in the county of +Gloucester, and afterwards in that of King William. From one of his +descendants in a right line sprang (by intermarriage with a lady of +English family, the Winstons) William Winston Seaton, the editor, +whose mother connected him with a second Scotch family, the +Henrys,--the mother of Patrick Henry being a Winston. These last had +come, some three generations before, from the old seat of that family +in its knightly times, Winston Hall, in Yorkshire, and had settled in +the county of Hanover, where good estates gave them rank among the +gentry; while commanding stature, the gift of an equally remarkable +personal beauty, a very winning address, good parts, high character, +and the frequent possession among them of a fine natural eloquence, +gave them as a race an equal influence over the body of the people. In +William (popularly called Langaloo) and his sister Sarah, the mother +of Patrick Henry, these hereditary qualities seem to have been +particularly striking; so that, in their day, it seemed a sort of +received opinion that it was from the maternal side that the great +orator derived his extraordinary powers. + +The Galeses are of much more recent naturalization amongst us,--later +by just about a century than that of the Seatons, but alike in its +causes. For they, too, were driven hither by governmental resentment. +Their founder, (as he may be called,) the elder Joseph Gales, was one +of those rare men who at times spring up from the body of the people, +and by mere unassisted merit, apart from all adventitious advantages, +make their way to a just distinction. Perhaps no better idea of him +can be given than by likening him to one, less happy in his death, +whom Science is now everywhere lamenting,--the late admirable Hugh +Miller. A different career, rather than an inferior character, made +Joseph Gales less conspicuous. He was born in 1761, at Eckington, near +the English town of Sheffield. The condition of his family was above +dependence, but not frugality. + +Be education what else it may, there is one sort which never fails to +work well: namely, that which a strong capacity, when denied the usual +artificial helps, shapes out to its own advantage. Such, with little +and poor assistance, became that of Joseph Gales, obtained +progressively, as best it could be, in the short intervals which the +body can allow to be stolen between labor and necessary rest. + +Now the writer is thoroughly convinced, that, after this boy had +worked hard all the day long, he never would have sat down to study +half the night through, if it had not been a pleasure to him. In +short, no sort of toil went hard with him. For he was a fine, manly +youngster, cheerful and stalwart, one who never slunk from what he had +set about, nor turned his back except upon what was dishonest. He +wrought lightsomely, and even lustily, at his coarser pursuits; for, +in that sturdy household, to work had long been held a duty. + +Thus improving himself, at odd hours, until he was fit for the +vocation of a printer, and looked upon by the village as a genius, our +youth went to Manchester, and applied himself to that art, not only +for itself, but as the surest means of further knowledge. Of course he +became a master in the craft. At length, returning to his own town to +exercise it, he grew, by his industry and good conduct, into a +condition to exercise it on his own account, and set up a +newspaper,--"The Sheffield Register." + +Born of the people, it was natural that Joseph Gales should in his +journal side with the Reformers; and he did so: but with that +unvarying moderation which his good sense and probity of purpose +taught him, and which he ever after through life preserved. He kept +within the right limits of whatever doctrine he embraced, and held a +measure in all his political principles,--knowing that the best, in +common with the worst, tend, by a law of all party, to exaggeration +and extremes. Beyond this temperateness of mind nothing could move +him. Thus guarded, by a rare equity of the understanding, from excess +as to measures, he was equally guarded by a charity and a gentleness +of heart the most exhaustless. In a word, it may safely be said of +him, that, amidst all the heats of faction, he never fell into +violence,--amidst all the asperities of public life, never stooped to +personalities,--and in all that he wrote, left scarcely an unwise and +not a single dishonest sentence behind him. + +Such qualities, though not the most forward to set themselves forth to +the public attention, should surely bring success to an editor. The +well-judging were soon pleased with the plain good sense, the general +intelligence, the modesty, and the invariable rectitude of the young +man. Their suffrage gained, that of the rest began to follow. For, in +truth, there are few things of which the light is less to be hid than +that of a good newspaper. "The Register," by degrees, won a general +esteem, and began to prosper. And as, according to the discovery of +Malthus, Prosperity is fond of pairing, it soon happened that our +printer went to falling in love. Naturally again, being a printer, he, +from a regard for the eternal fitness of things, fell in love with an +authoress. + +This was Miss Winifred Marshall, a young lady of the town of Newark, +who to an agreeable person, good connections, and advantages of +education, joined a literary talent that had already won no little +approval. She wrote verse, and published several novels of the +"Minerva Press" order, (such as "Lady Emma Melcombe and her Family," +"Matilda Berkley," etc.,) of which only the names survive. + +Despite the poetic adage about the course of true love, that of Joseph +Gales ran smooth: Miss Marshall accepted his suit and they were +married. Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together +most happily and long,--she dying, at an advanced age, only two years +before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some +marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with +their daughters,--namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three +sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three +(Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born +in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from +which she was named; and the rest in America. + +To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with +his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his +printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also +flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he +should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an +advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended +youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future +man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his +employment,--at first, merely to keep his accounts,--but, by degrees, +for superior things,--until, progressively, he (the youth) matured +into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his +successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet. + +On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their +rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the +"Intelligencer." [Mr. Gales has since died.] Happy at home, the young +mother could as delightedly look without. The business of her husband +throve apace; nor less the general regard and esteem in which he was +personally held. He grew continually in the confidence and affection +of his fellow-citizens; endearing himself especially, by his sober +counsels and his quiet charities, to all that industrious class who +knew him as one of their own, and could look up without reluctance to +a superiority which was only the unpretending one of goodness and +sense. Over them, without seeking it, he gradually obtained an +extraordinary ascendancy, of which the following is a single instance. +Upon some occasion of wages or want among the working-people of +Sheffield, a great popular commotion had burst out, attended by a huge +mob and riot, which the magistracy strove in vain to appease or quell. +When all else had failed, Mr. Gales bethought him of trying what he +could do. Driven into the thick of the crowd, in an open carriage, he +suddenly appeared amongst the rioters, and, by a few plain words of +remonstrance, convinced them that they could only hurt themselves by +overturning the laws, that they should seek other modes of redress, +and meantime had all better go home. They agreed to do so,--but with +the condition annexed, that they should first see him home. Whereupon, +loosening the horses from the carriage, they drew him, with loud +acclamations, back to his house. + +Such were his prospects and position for some seven years after his +marriage, when, of a sudden, without any fault of his own, he was made +answerable for a fact that rendered it necessary for him to flee +beyond the realm of Great Britain. + +As a friend to Reform, he had, in his journal, at first supported +Pitt's ministry, which had set out on the same principle, but which, +when the revolutionary movement in France threatened to overthrow all +government, abandoned all Reform, as a thing not then safe to set +about. From this change of views Mr. Gales dissented, and still +advocated Reform. So, again, as to the French Revolution, not yet +arrived at the atrocities which it speedily reached,--he saw no need +of making war upon it. In its outset, he had, along with Fox and other +Liberals, applauded it; for it then professed little but what Liberals +wished to see brought about in England. He still thought it good for +France, though not for his own country. Thus, moderate as he was, he +was counted in the Opposition and jealously watched. + +It was in the autumn of 1792, while he was gone upon a journey of +business, that a King's-messenger, bearing a Secretary-of-State's +warrant for the seizure of Mr. Gales's person, presented himself at +his house. For this proceeding against him the following facts had +given occasion. In his office was employed a printer named Richard +Davison,--a very quick, capable, useful man, and therefore much +trusted,--but a little wild, withal, at once with French principles +and religion, with conventicles, and those seditious clubs that were +then secretly organized all over the island. This person corresponded +with a central club in London, and had been rash enough to write them, +just then, an insurrectionary letter, setting forth revolutionary +plans, the numbers, the means they could command, the supplies of +arms, etc., that they were forming. This sage epistle was betrayed +into the hands of the Government. The discreet Dick they might very +well have hanged; but that was not worth while. From his connection +with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover +for a deeper man,--its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, +had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual +fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of +the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to +reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and +he, on learning what awaited him at home, instead of trusting to his +innocence, chose rather to trust the seas; and, making his way to the +coast, took the only good security for his freedom, by putting the +German Ocean between him and pursuit. He sailed for Amsterdam, where +arriving, he thence made his way to Hamburg, at which city he had +decided that his family should join him. To England he could return +only at the cost of a prosecution; and though this would, of +necessity, end in an acquittal, it was almost sure to be preceded by +imprisonment, while, together, they would half-ruin him. It was plain, +then, that he must at once do what he had long intended to do, go to +America. + +Accordingly, he gave directions to his family to come to him, and to +Montgomery that he should dispose of all his effects and settle up all +his affairs. These offices that devoted friend performed most +faithfully; remitting him the proceeds. The newspaper he himself +bought and continued, under the name of the "Sheffield Iris." Still +retaining his affection for the family, he passed into the household +of what was left of them, and supplied to the three sisters of the +elder Joseph Gales the place of a brother, and, wifeless and +childless, lived on to a very advanced age, content with their society +alone. The last of these dames died only a few months ago. + +At Hamburg, whence they were to take ship for the United States, the +family were detained all the winter by the delicate health of Mrs. +Gales. This delay her husband put to profit, by mastering two things +likely to be needful to him,--the German tongue and the art of +short-hand. In the spring, they sailed for Philadelphia. Arrived +there, he sought and at once obtained employment as a printer. It was +soon perceived, not only that he was an admirable workman, but every +way a man of unusual merit, and able to turn his hand to almost +anything. By-and-by, reporters of Congressional debates being few and +very indifferent, his employer, Claypole, said to him,--"You seem able +to do everything that is wanted: pray, could you not do these +Congressional Reports for us better than this drunken Callender, who +gives us so much trouble?" Mr. Gales replied, with his usual modesty, +that he did not know what he could do, but that he would try. + +The next day, he attended the sitting of Congress, and brought away, +in time for the compositors, a faithful transcript of such speeches as +had been made. Appearing in the next morning's paper, it of course +greatly astonished everybody. It seemed a new era in such things. They +had heard of the like in Parliament, but had scarcely credited it. +Claypole himself was the most astonished of all. Seizing a copy, he +ran around the town, showing it to all he met, and still hardly +comprehending the wonder which he himself had instigated. It need +hardly be said that here was something far more profitable for Mr. +Gales than type-setting. + +But to apply this skill, possessed by none else, to the exclusive +advantage of a journal of his own was yet more inviting; and the +opportunity soon offering itself, he became the purchaser of the +"Independent Gazetteer," a paper already established. This he +conducted with success until the year 1799, making both reputation and +many friends. Among the warmest of these were some of the North +Carolina members, and especially that one whose name has ever since +stood as a sort of proverb of honesty, Nathaniel Macon. By the +representations of these friends, he was led to believe that their new +State capital, Raleigh, where there was only a very decrepit specimen +of journalism, would afford him at once a surer competence and a +happier life than Philadelphia. Coming to this conclusion, he disposed +of his newspaper and printing-office, and removed to Raleigh, where he +at once established the "Register." Of his late paper, the +"Gazetteer," we shall soon follow the fortunes to Washington, where it +became the "Intelligencer": meantime, we must finish what is left to +tell of his own. + +At Raleigh he arrived under auspices which gave him not only a +reputation, but friends, to set out with. Both he soon confirmed and +augmented. By the constant merit of his journal, its sober sense, its +moderation, and its integrity, he won and invariably maintained the +confidence of all on that side of politics with which he concurred, +(the old Republican,) and scarcely less conciliated the respect of his +opponents. He quickly obtained, for his skill, and not merely as a +partisan reward, the public printing of his State, and retained it +until, reaching the ordinary limit of human life, he withdrew from the +press. In the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long +served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in +the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and +esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened, +as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for +his character and person; and the good North State honored and +cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In +Raleigh, there was no figure that, as it passed, was greeted so much +by the signs of a peculiar veneration as that great, stalwart one of +his, looking so plain and unaffected, yet with a sort of nobleness in +its very simplicity, a gentleness in its strength, an inborn goodness +and courtesy in all its roughness of frame,--his countenance mild and +calm, yet commanding, thoughtful, yet pleasant and betokening a bosom +that no low thought had ever entered. You had in him, indeed, the +highest image of that stanch old order from which he was sprung, and +might have said, "Here's the soul of a baron in the body of a +peasant." For he really looked, when well examined, like all the +virtues done in roughcast. + +With him the age of necessary and of well-merited repose had now come; +and judging that he could attain it only by quitting that habitual +scene of business where it would still solicit him, he transferred his +newspaper, his printing-office, and the bookstore which he had made +their adjunct in Raleigh, as in Sheffield, to his third son, Weston; +and removed to Washington, in order to pass the close of his days near +two of the dearest of his children,--his son Joseph and his daughter +Mrs. Seaton,--from whom he had been separated the most. + +In renouncing all individual aims, Mr. Gales fell not into a mere life +of meditation, but sought its future pleasures in the adoption of a +scheme of benevolence, to the calm prosecution of which he might +dedicate his declining powers, so long as his advanced age should +permit. A worthy object for such efforts he recognized in the plan of +African colonization, and of its affairs he accepted and almost to his +death sustained the management in chief; achieving not less, by his +admirable judgment, the warm approval and thanks of that wide-spread +association, than, by the most amiable virtues of private life, +winning in Washington, as he had done everywhere else, from all that +approached him, a singular degree of deference and affection. + +But the close of this long career of honor and of usefulness was now +at hand. In 1839, he lost the wife whose tenderness had cheered the +labors and whose gay intelligence had brightened the leisure of his +existence. She had lived the delight of that intimate society to which +she had confined faculties that would have adorned any circle +whatever; and she died lamented in proportion by it, and by the only +others to whom she was much known,--the poor. Her husband survived her +but two years,--expiring at his son's house in Raleigh, where he was +on a visit, in April, 1841, at the age of eighty. He died as calm as a +child, in the placid faith of a true Christian. + +Still telling his story in the order of dates, the writer would now +turn to the younger Joseph Gales. As we have seen, he arrived in this +country when seven years old, and went to Raleigh about six years +afterwards. There he was placed in a school, where he made excellent +progress,--profiting by the recollection of his earlier lessons, +received from that best of all elementary teachers, a mother of +well-cultivated mind. His boyhood, as usual, prefigured the mature +man: it was diligent in study, hilarious at play; his mind bent upon +solid things, not the showy. For all good, just, generous, and kindly +things he had the warmest impulse and the truest perceptions. Quick to +learn and to feel, he was slow only of resentment. Never was man born +with more of those lacteals of the heart which secrete the milk of +human kindness. Of the classic tongues, he can be said to have learnt +only the Latin: the Greek was then little taught in any part of our +country. For the Positive Sciences he had much inclination; since it +is told, among other things, that he constructed instruments for +himself, such as an electrical machine, with the performances of which +he much amazed the people of Raleigh. Meantime he was forming at home, +under the good guidance there, a solid knowledge of all those fine old +authors whose works make the undegenerate literature of our language +and then constituted what they called Polite Letters. With these went +hand in hand, at that time, in the academies of the South, a profane +amusement of the taste. In short, our sinful youth were fond of +stage-plays, and even wickedly enacted them, instead of resorting to +singing-schools. Joseph Gales the younger had his boyish emulation of +Roscius and Garrick, and performed "top parts" in a diversity of those +sad comedies and merry tragedies which boys are apt to make, when they +get into buskins. But it must be said, that, as a theatric star, he +presently waxed dim before a very handsome youth, a little his senior, +who just then had entered his father's office. He was not only a +printer, but had already been twice an editor,--last, in the late +North Carolina capital, Halifax,--previously, in the great town of +Petersburg,--and was bred in what seemed to Raleigh a mighty city, +Richmond; in addition to all which strong points of reputation, he +came of an F.F.V., and had been taught by the celebrated Ogilvie, of +whom more anon. He was familiar with theatres, and had not only seen, +but even criticized the great actors. He outshone his very +brother-in-law and colleague that was to be. For this young gentleman +was William Seaton. + +Meantime, Joseph, too, had learnt the paternal art,--how well will +appear from a single fact. About this time, his father's office was +destroyed by fire, and with it the unfinished printing of the +Legislative Journals and Acts of the year. Time did not allow waiting +for new material from Philadelphia. Just in this strait, he that had +of old been so inauspicious, Dick Davison, came once more into +play,--but, this time, not as a marplot. He, strange to say, was at +hand and helpful. For, after his political exploit, abandoning England +in disgust at the consequences of his Gunpowder Plot, he, too, had not +only come to America, but had chanced to set up his "type-stick" in +the neighboring town of Warrenton, where, having flourished, he was +now the master of a printing-office and the conductor of a newspaper. +Thither, then, young Joseph was despatched, "copy" in hand. +Richard--really a worthy man, after all--gladly atoned for his ancient +hurtfulness, by lending his type and presses; and, falling to work +with great vigor, our young Faust, with his own hands, put into type +and printed off the needful edition of the Laws. + +He had also, by this time, as an important instrument of his intended +profession, attained the art of stenography. When, soon after, he +began to employ it, he rapidly became an excellent reporter; and +eventually, when he had grown thoroughly versed in public affairs, +confessedly the best reporter that we ever had. + +He was now well-prepared to join in the manly strife of business or +politics. His father chose, therefore, at once to commit him to +himself. He judged him mature enough in principles, strong enough in +sense; and feared lest, by being kept too long under guidance and the +easy life of home, he should fall into inertness. He first sent him to +Philadelphia, therefore, to serve as a workman with Birch and Small; +after which, he made for him an engagement on the "National +Intelligencer," as a reporter, and sent him to Washington, in October, +1807. + +To that place, changing its name to the one just mentioned, the +father's former paper, "The Gazetteer," had been transferred by his +old associate, Samuel Harrison Smith. Its first issue there +(tri-weekly) was on the 31st of October, 1800, under the double title +of "The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser." The latter +half of the title seems to have been dropped in 1810, when its present +senior came, for a time, into its sole proprietorship. + +More than twice the age of any other journal now extant there,--for +the "Globe" came some thirty, the "Union" some forty-five years +later,--the "Intelligencer" has long stood, in every worthy sense, the +patriarch of our metropolitan press. It has witnessed the rise and +fall around it of full a hundred competitors,--many of them declared +enemies; not a few, what was more dangerous far, professed friends. +Yet, in the face of all enmity and of such friendship, it has ever +held on its calm way, never deserting the public cause,--as little +extreme in its opposition as in its support of those in power; so that +its foes never forgot it, when they prevailed, but its friends +repeatedly. To estimate the value of its influence, during its long +career, would be impossible,--so much of right has it brought about, +so much of wrong defeated. + +Though it came hither with our Congress, a newspaper had once before +been set up here,--either upon the expectation created by the laying +of certain corner-stones, in 1792, that the Government would fix +itself at this spot, or through an odd local faith in the dreams of +some ancient visionary dwelling hard by, who had, many years before, +foretold this as the destined site of a great imperial city, a second +Rome, and so had bestowed upon Goose Creek the name of Tiber, long +before this was Washington. The founder of this Pre-Adamite journal +was Mr. Benjamin Moore; its name, "The Washington Gazette"; its issue, +semi-weekly; its annual price, four dollars; and the two leading +principles which, in that day of the infancy of political "platforms," +his salutatory announced, were, first, "to obtain a living for +himself," and, secondly, "to amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How +long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again +swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have +been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our +penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point. + +To the "Intelligencer" young Mr. Gales brought such vigor, such +talent, and such skill in every department, that within two years, in +1809, he was admitted by Mr. Smith into partnership; within less than +a year from which date, that gentleman, grown weary of the laborious +life of the press, was content to withdraw and leave him sole +proprietor, editor, and reporter. An enormous worker, however, it +mattered little to him what tasks were to be assumed: he could +multiply himself among them, and suffice for all. + +In thus assuming the undivided charge of the paper, the young editor +thought it becoming to set forth one main principle, that has, beyond +a question, been admirably the guide of his public life: he said to +his readers,--"It is the dearest right, and ought to be cherished as +the proudest prerogative of a freeman, to be guided by the unbiassed +convictions of his own judgment. This right it is my firm purpose to +maintain, and to preserve inviolate the independence of the print now +committed into my hands." Never was pledge more universally made or +more rarely kept than this. + +It was towards the close of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency that Mr. Gales +had entered the office of the "Intelligencer"; and it was during Mr. +Madison's first year that he became joint-editor of that paper. Of +these Administrations it had been the supporter,--only following, in +that regard, the transmitted politics of its original, the +"Gazetteer," derived from the elder Mr. Gales. Bred in these, the son +had learnt them of his sire, just as he had adopted his religion or +his morals. Sprung from one who had been persecuted in England as a +Republican, it was natural that the son should love the faith for +which an honored parent had suffered. + +The high qualities and the strong abilities of the young editor did +not fail to strike the discerning eye of President Madison, who +speedily gave him his affection and confidence. To that Administration +the "Intelligencer" stood in the most intimate and faithful +relations,--sustaining its policy as a necessity, where it might not +have been a choice. During the entire course of the war, the +"Intelligencer" sustained most vigorously all the measures needful for +carrying it on with efficiency; and it did equally good service in +reanimating, whenever it had slackened at any disaster, the drooping +spirit of our people. Nor did its editors, when there were two, stop +at these proofs of sincerity, nor slink, when danger drew near, from +that hazard of their own persons to which they had stirred up the +country. When invasion came, they at once took to arms, as volunteer +common-soldiers, went to meet the enemy, and remained in the field +until he had fallen back to the coast. And during the invasion of +Washington, moreover, their establishment was attacked and partially +destroyed, through an unmanly spirit of revenge on the part of the +British forces. In October, 1812, proposing to himself the change of +his paper into a daily one, as was accordingly brought about on the +first of January ensuing, Mr. Gales invited Mr. Seaton, who had by +this time become his brother-in-law, to come and join him. He did so; +and the early tie of youthful friendship, which had grown between them +at Raleigh, and which the new relation had drawn still closer, +gradually matured into that more than friendship or brotherhood, that +oneness and identity of all purposes, opinions, and interests which +has ever since existed between them, without a moment's interruption, +and has long been, to those who understood it, a rare spectacle of +that concord and affection so seldom witnessed, and could never have +come about except between men of singular virtues. + +The same year that brought Gales and Seaton together as partners in +business witnessed an alliance of a more interesting character; for it +was in 1813 that Mr. Gales married the accomplished daughter of +Theodorick Lee, younger brother of that brilliant soldier of the +Revolution, the "Legionary Harry." + +But, at this natural point, the writer must go back for a while, in +order to bring down the story of William Seaton to where, uniting with +his associate's, the two thus flow on in a single stream. + +He was born January 11th, 1785, on the paternal estate in King William +County, Virginia, one of a family of four sons and three daughters. At +the good old mansion passed his childhood. There, too, according to +what was then the wont in Virginia, he trod the first steps of +learning, under the guidance of a domestic tutor, a decayed gentleman, +old and bedridden; for the only part left him of a genteel inheritance +was the gout. But when it became necessary to send his riper progeny +abroad, for more advanced studies, Mr. Seaton very justly bethought +him of going along with them; and so betook himself, with his whole +family, to Richmond, where he was the possessor of houses enough to +afford him a good habitation and a genteel income. Here, then, along +with his brothers and sisters, William was taught, through an +ascending series of schools, until, at last, he arrived at what was +the wonder of that day,--the academy of Ogilvie, the Scotchman. He, be +it noted, had an earldom, (that of Finlater,) which slept while its +heir was playing pedagogue in America: a strange mixture of the +ancient rhapsodist with the modern strolling actor, of the lord with +him who lives by his wits. Scot as he was, he was better fitted to +teach anything rather than common sense. The writer must not give the +idea, however, that there was in Lord Ogilvie anything but +eccentricity to derogate from the honors of either his lineage or his +learning. A very solid teacher he was not. A great enthusiast by +nature, and a master of the whole art of discoursing finely of even +those things which he knew not well, he dazzled much, pleased greatly, +and obtained a high reputation; so that, if he did not regularly +inform or discipline the minds of his pupils, he probably made them, +to an unusual degree, amends on another side: he infused into them, by +the glitter of his accomplishments, a high admiration for learning and +for letters. Certainly, the number of his scholars that arrived at +distinction was remarkable; and this is, of course, a fact conclusive +of great merit of some sort as a teacher, where, as in his case, the +pupils were not many. Without pausing to mention others of them who +arrived at honor, it may be well enough to refer to Winfield Scott, +William Campbell Preston, B. Watkins Leigh, William S. Archer, and +William C. Rives. + +The writer does not know if it had ever been designed that young +Seaton should proceed from Ogilvie's classes to the more systematic +courses of a college. Possibly not. Even among the wealthy, at that +time, home-education was often employed. The children of both sexes +were committed to the care of private tutors, usually young Scotchmen, +the graduates of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, sent over to the +planter, upon order, along with his yearly supply of goods, by his +merchant abroad. Or else the sons were sent to select private schools, +like that of Ogilvie, set up by men of such abilities and scholarship +as were supposed capable of performing the whole work of institutions. + +At any rate, our youth, without further preparation, at about the age +of eighteen, entered earnestly upon the duties of life. He fell at +once into his vocation,--impelled to it, no doubt, by the ambition for +letters and public affairs which the lessons of Ogilvie usually +produced. Party ran high. Virginia politics, flushed with recent +success, had added to the usual passions of the contest those of +victory. + +Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in +common with nearly all others of a like age and condition. He became, +in short, a politician. Though talent of every other sort abounded, +that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not. Young Seaton was +found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise +it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals. He had already +made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where +he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it +is more than probable that many of his youthful "editorials" were "set +up" by his own hands. Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he +received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper +in Petersburg, "The Republican," the editor and proprietor of which, +Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months. +Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a +still better position,--that of the proprietary editorship of the +"North Carolina Journal," published at Halifax, the former capital of +that State, and the only newspaper there. He accepted the offer, and +became the master of his own independent journal. Of its being so he +proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token. They +were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the +gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism: but he +forthwith changed its politics to Republican. + +There can be no doubt that he who made a change so manly conducted his +paper with spirit. Yet he must have done it also with that wise and +winning moderation and fairness which have since distinguished him and +his associate. William Seaton could never have fallen into anything of +the temper or the taste, the morals or the manners, which are now so +widely the shame of the American press; he could never have written in +the ill spirit of mere party, so as to wound or even offend the good +men of an opposite way of thinking. The inference is a sure one from +his character, and is confirmed by what we know to have happened +during his editorial career among the Federalists of Halifax. Instead +of his paper's losing ground under the circumstances just mentioned, +it really gained so largely and won so much the esteem of both sides, +that, when he desired to dispose of it, in order to seek a higher +theatre, he easily sold the property for double what it had cost him. + +It was now that he made his way to Raleigh, the new State-capital, and +became connected with the "Register." Nor was it long before this +connection was drawn yet closer by his happy marriage with the lady +whose virtues and accomplishments have so long been the modest, yet +shining ornament and charm of his household and of the society of +Washington. After this union, he continued his previous relationship +with the "Register," until, as already mentioned, he came to the +metropolis to join all his fortunes with those of his brother-in-law. +From this point, of course, their stories, like their lives, become +united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no +bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a +consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a +division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn +whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a +settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest +not merely a singular harmony of character, but an admirable +conformity of virtues? + +The history of the "Intelligencer" has, as to all its leading +particulars, been for fifty years spread before thousands of readers, +in its continuous diary. To re-chronicle any part of what is so well +known would be idle in the extreme. Of the editors personally, their +lives, since they became mature and settled, have presented few events +such as are not common to all men,--little of vicissitude, beyond that +of pockets now full and now empty,--nothing but a steady performance +of duty, an exertion, whenever necessary, of high ability, and the +gradual accumulation through these of a deeply felt esteem among all +the best and wisest of the land. Amidst the many popular passions with +which nearly all have, in our country, run wild, they have maintained +a perpetual and sage moderation; amidst incessant variations of +doctrine, they have preserved a memory and a conscience; in the +frequent fluctuations of power, they have steadily checked the +alternate excesses of both parties; and they have never given to +either a factious opposition or a merely partisan support. Of their +journal it may be said, that there has, in all our times, shone no +such continual light on public affairs, there has stood no such sure +defence of whatever was needful to be upheld. Tempering the heats of +both sides,--re-nationalizing all spirit of section,--combating our +propensity to lawlessness at home and aggression abroad,--spreading +constantly on each question of the day a mass of sound +information,--the venerable editors have been, all the while, a power +and a safety in the land, no matter who were the rulers. Neither party +could have spared an opposition so just or a support so well-measured. +Thus it cannot be deemed an American exaggeration to declare the +opinion as to the influence of the "Intelligencer" over our public +counsels, that its value is not easily to be overrated. + +Never, meantime, was authority wielded with less assumption. The +"Intelligencer" could not, of course, help being aware of the weight +which its opinions always carried among the thinking; but it has never +betrayed any consciousness of its influence, unless in a ceaseless +care to deserve respect. Its modesty and candor, its fairness and +courtesy have been invariable; nor less so, its observance of that +decorum and those charities which constitute the very grace of all +public life. + +From the time of their coming together, down to the year 1820, Gales +and Seaton were the exclusive reporters, as well as editors, of their +journal,--one of them devoting himself to the Senate, and the other to +the House of Representatives. Generally speaking, they published only +running reports,--on special occasions, however, giving the speeches +and proceedings entire. In those days they had seats of honor assigned +to them directly by the side of the presiding officers, and over the +snuff-box, in a quiet and familiar manner, the topics of the day were +often discussed. To the privileges they then enjoyed, but more +especially to their sagacity and industry, are we now indebted, as a +country, for their "Register of Debates," which, with the +"Intelligencer," has become a most important part of our national +history. As in their journal nearly all the most eminent of American +statesmen have discussed the affairs of the country, so have they been +the direct means of preserving many of the speeches which are now the +acknowledged ornaments of our political literature. Had it not been +for Mr. Gales, the great intellectual combat between Hayne and +Webster, for example, would have passed into a vague tradition, +perhaps. The original notes of Mr. Webster's speech, now in Mr. +Gales's library, form a volume of several hundred pages, and, having +been corrected and interlined by the statesman's own hand, present a +treasure that might be envied. At the period just alluded to, Mr. +Gales had given up the practice of reporting any speeches, and it was +a mere accident that led him to pay Mr. Webster the compliment in +question. That it was appreciated was proved by many reciprocal acts +of kindness and the long and happy intimacy that existed between the +two gentlemen, ending only with the life of the statesman. It was Mr. +Webster's opinion, that the abilities of Mr. Gales were of the highest +order; and yet the writer has heard of one instance in which even the +editor could not get along without a helping hand. Mr. Gales had for +some days been engaged upon the Grand Jury, and, with his head full of +technicalities, entered upon the duty of preparing a certain +editorial. In doing this, he unconsciously employed a number of legal +phrases; and when about half through, found it necessary to come to a +halt. At this juncture, he dropped a note to Mr. Webster, transmitting +the unfinished article and explaining his difficulty. Mr. Webster took +it in hand, finished it to the satisfaction of Mr. Gales, and it was +published as editorial. + +But the writer is trespassing upon private ground, and it is with +great reluctance that he refrains from recording a long list of +incidents which have come to his knowledge, calculated to illustrate +the manifold virtues of his distinguished friends. That they are +universally respected and beloved by those who know them,--that their +opinions on public matters have been solicited by Secretaries of State +and even by Presidents opposed to them in politics,--that their +journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a +healthy tone in polite literature,--that their home-life has been made +happy by the influences of refinement and taste,--and that they have +given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the +unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all +assertions which none can truthfully deny. If, therefore, to look back +upon a long life not _uselessly spent_ is what will give us peace at +last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could +desire; and their "silver hairs," the most appropriate crown of true +patriotism, + + "Will purchase them a good opinion, + And buy men's voices to commend their deeds." + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + +WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY. + + An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay, + Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death, + With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath, + And languid eyeballs darkening to the day; + A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway + Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath, + The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath, + Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray: + When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown + Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind, + Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone + Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,-- + But pausing soon, behold creation shrined + In a new birth, God's covenant clasping all! + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who +had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such +relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a +real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need +counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was +competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. +That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth +words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which +win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure +was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and +clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must +have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof +or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say quietly to +her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. +These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated +watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in +the heats of summer that they were most common and most strongly +characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, +and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her +sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged +to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All winter long +she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in +her motions; her eye would lose something of its strange lustre; and +the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that her whole expression +and aspect would show the change, and people would say to her, "Why, +Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie +there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, +the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep +would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter +was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or +movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures +that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when +the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were +following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, +(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers +dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal +sounds,--_frsh_,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all +pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to +the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the +life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. +This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most +cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of +The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, +whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given +to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown +more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as +the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament +came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so +superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The +barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous +muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own +pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly +left her arm. Without some necklace she was never seen,--either the +golden cord she wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or +simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a +necklace, and that when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a +fancy of hers,--but many thought there was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there +was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so +far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to +him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing +was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with +others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have +got a foot-hold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession +against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good +listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to +effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling +well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and +the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place of +much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house and +farmlands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her without +questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he +had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system +of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he +had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If +he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly, +in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life +between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl +might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after +he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner, +as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and +agreeable to lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise +children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and +disagreeable, so much the worse for those that made it so. Like many +other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue +were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there +might be contingencies in which the property would be better without +its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the +light of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some +new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With +the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own +interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd +where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young +man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as +probably at the bottom of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let +him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. +What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. +Don't like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about _something_, +anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so often? Not +out of our library, that's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep +into her chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what +mischief she was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a +shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of +moonlight into the shadow of the the trees. She was setting out on one +of her midnight rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks +flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to +invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful +hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber +he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this +season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if he +ventured down-stairs to her apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose +and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust +his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the +stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady +had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the +key with her, no doubt,--unless, indeed, she had got out by the +window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this +window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his +footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own +chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It +was open. He then went to one of his trunks, wich he unlocked, and +began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not +stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various +patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in +certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of +these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and +drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a +noose,--a tough, well-seasoned _lasso_, looking as if it had seen +service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this +and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out +of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's +room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and with a +slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a match, found +a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously about him, as +Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was +a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those +who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could +hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, +which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the +forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a +quick eye and hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of +unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as +Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like +any naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees +does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of +life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we +could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and +General Jackson on horse-back, done by Nature in green leaves, each +with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and +smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and +her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of +animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually reach +the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that +extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, except +the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have a +glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that +one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his +fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if +a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like +branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which +strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the +bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. +With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of +them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in +form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture +might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her +apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not +detain Mr. Richard Venner very long, whatever may have been his +sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A +copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of +_Bernard C. Langdon_ on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table +with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was +empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was +locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen +enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the +school,--this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--_he_ was aspiring to +become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward +his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the _diablo_ had Elsie to do with +hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, +it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the +innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, +some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the +question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, +and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way +of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could +think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the +window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own +chamber and drew in the lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in +love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. +As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was +his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated +themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of +securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must come +into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from +this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her +affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company again, to +propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was +strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to +the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed +to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen +and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or +gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a +strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to +himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the +moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and +sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon +him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she +could exercise a kind of fascination over him,--though there were +times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, +an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still +centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so +curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. +His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her +as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity +with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until +tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature +was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He +was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not +strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his +nephew, represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. +Had Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less +willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had +long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had +in common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious +instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of +life and death, or more than that,--some dark ending, perhaps, which +would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon +the lips of all coming generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of +looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional +in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of +her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, +when others court their female relatives; they know them as good young +or old women enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they +may be,--but never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any +more than of their being struck by lightning. + +But in this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common +family delusion,--reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she +should attract a suitor. Who would _dare_ to marry Elsie? No, let her +have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome +excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into +melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of +superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent +idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from +her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind +and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of +any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to +become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at +that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence +the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union +of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual +attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many +years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most of +all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought whether, in +case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he +might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but it had not +occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son-in-law for +the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticize other people's modes of dealing with +their children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. +They notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood +of this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement +of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the +common observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy +sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; +his grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement +of the eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper +of the other. + +These are things parents can see, and which they must take account of +in education, but which few except parents can be expected to really +understand. Here and there a sagacious person, old, or of middle age, +who has _triangulated_ a race, that is, taken three or more +observations from the several standing-places of three different +generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the +limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a given stock,--errors +excepted always, because children of the same stock are not bred just +alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to +break out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a +small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so +that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of +justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal +oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We +make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes. That +is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the +physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle of +selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The +magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made +up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear +solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated +in the opaque sediment of history---- + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley Venner of weakness +and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of +opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when she +was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they said, +but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If _they_ had had the +charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the upperhand +of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in season! There +are people who think that everything may be done, if the doer, be he +educator or physician, be only called "in season." No doubt,--but _in +season_ would often be a hundred or two years before the child was +born; and people never send so early as that. + +The father of Elsie Venner knew his duties and his difficulties too +well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So +soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life +up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a +stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not +without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for +himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his +position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such a +nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for bearing +his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He could +not talk of them even with those who knew their secret spring. His +minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in the meaner +sort of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for +sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and +Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more +odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could he speak with +the old physician and the old black woman about a sorrow and a terror +which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's +faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and +making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found his +other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and wasted +his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we may say of +most, who infringe the patent of our social order by intruding +themselves into a life already upon half-allowance of the necessary +luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief space was not +only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it +to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of +two souls to each other, string by string, not without little +half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the +other proves to be over-strained or over-lax, but always approaching +nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two +instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this +blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when he found +himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little diamond-eyed +child lying in the old woman's arms, with the coral necklace round her +throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. +There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was +enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this +child's sake, at any rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with what +thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features would look +placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; then all his +tender feelings would rush up into his eyes, and he would put his arms +out to take her from the old woman,--but all at once her eyes would +narrow and she would throw her head back; and a shudder would seize +him as he stooped over his child,--he could not look upon her,--he +could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there would sometimes come +into his soul such frightful suggestions that he would hurry from the +room lest the hinted thought should become a momentary madness and he +should lift his hand against the helpless infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in his +restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in outward +action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the summit of any +of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them recklessly, as having +no particular care for his life. Sometimes he would go into the +accursed district where the venomous reptiles were always to be +dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he could come near +with a kind of blind fury that was strange in a person of his gentle +nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon his +home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and +fissures that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off some +time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs below? He +thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular indifference, +in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such a swift +and thorough solution of this great problem of life he was working out +in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote possibility of such a +catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers beneath The Mountain to +other places of residence; here the danger was most imminent, and yet +he loved to dwell upon the chances of its occurrence. Danger is often +the best _counter-irritant_ in cases of mental suffering; he found a +solace in careless exposure of his life, and learned to endure the +trials of each day better by dwelling in imagination on the +possibility that it might be the last for him and the home that was +his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually +fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from +his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from the +great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for +centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his +time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. Old +Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the red +coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys had +bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father +forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom he had +such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial to him +and often a terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, +and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of +filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never +would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, +punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical +effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of +expression and color that it would have been senseless to attempt to +govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could +be to some extent indirectly influenced,--not otherwise. She called +her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered +everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the +household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons +laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely +talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in +whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely +indifferent, not only with the indifference which all gentlemen feel +to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which +did not wonder or blame. He knew that his position was not simply a +difficult, but an impossible one, and schooled himself to bear his +destiny as well as he might and report himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning +to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual +sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn +to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to +rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and +the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed +himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to +his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always +beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing +agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of +wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, +wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of the night. + +It was understood between Dudley Venner and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection +of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in +the mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied Elsie's case in the +light of all the books he could find which might do anything towards +explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science +for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his +imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it +to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish those two +fancies before alluded to: that the ominous birthmark she had carried +from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that the age of +complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change in her +physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all of us +nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world would he +have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the probability +or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of asking +questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes +we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and +varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised +at the extent of Dudley Venner's information. Doctor Kittredge found +that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological +discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural +chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints +about the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance +with the classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and +calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and +periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the +passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing +to see his neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but on the other +hand not cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost +something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories +had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even +that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an +endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their +acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until +their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than +they were at twenty, Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and +tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he +counted but half his present years. He was now on the verge of that +decade which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in +knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or +the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly +downward. At the entrance of this decade his inward nature was richer +and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could only be +summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies +could only find an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for +his natural affections had been gathering in the course of all these +years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were +softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, +as the wreck left by a mountain-slide is covered over by the gentle +intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the +stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Venner had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if +he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with +which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in +the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a +person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. +But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an +additional motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the +routine of Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Venner did not know just what he wanted at this period of +his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who +thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough,--nigh twenty +year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there wa'n't +anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. +What was the reason he didn't go abaout to taown-meetin's, 'n' +Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school-'xaminations, 'n' +s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and other entertainments where the +still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see +if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?--Fac' was, he was +livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't +he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him +and--let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'-twenty,--no, +six-'n'-twenty,--Born the same year we buried aour little Anny Marí. + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But +"Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not +happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met +her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen +of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a +woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite +so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but +with two or three more joints in her frame and two or three soft +inflections in her voice which for some absurd reason or other drew +him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half his secrets +and looked into her eyes all that, he could not tell, in less time +than it would have taken him to discuss the champion paper of the last +Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." _Heu, quanta minus!_ How much +more was that lost image to him than all it left on earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know that +just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what particular +day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that just about +so much love will be made every year in a given population; but who +will rain his young affections upon the heart of whom is not known +except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And why rain falls as +it does, and why love is made just as it is, are equally puzzling +questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his +daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of +life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he loves: +before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, it has +passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned over +by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by millions of lateral +impulses which bandy it about through the mental spaces as a +reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. +With this altered image of the woman before him his preëxisting ideal +becomes blended. The object of his love is half the offspring of her +legal parents and half of her lover's brain. The difference between +the real and the ideal objects of love must not exceed a fixed +maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them stereoscopically into a +single image, if the divergence passes certain limits. A formidable +analogy, much in the nature of a proof, with very serious +consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do well to +remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous +physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious falls. + +Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a breathing image near enough to +his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was +very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would +steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of +silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public +worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old +griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into +sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such woman as this, if +Heaven should send him such, might call him back to the world of +happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again +be the young lover who walked through the garden-alleys all red with +roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. He could never +forget the bride of his youth, whose image, growing phantom-like with +the lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream while waking and +like a reality in dreams. But if it might be in God's good providence +that this desolate life should come under the influence of human +affections once more, what an ecstasy of renewed existence was in +store for him! His life had not all been buried under that narrow +ridge of turf with the white stone at its head. It seemed so for a +while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be so. His first +passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or stain upon +it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of any word +or look he would have wished to forget. All those little differences, +such as young married people with any individual flavor in their +characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added to +the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some +perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the +whole harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate, had +inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was +clean, and its edge was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in +healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may say, by the wise and +beneficent law of our being. The recollection of a deep and true +affection, is rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow strong +upon than a poison to destroy it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early +bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between +natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary +tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and +fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an +anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the +heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! some +new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his heart; +but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent which rose +with every morning's sun and watched with every evening star,--what +power save alone that of him who comes bearing the inverted torch, and +leaving after him only the ashes printed with his footsteps? + + * * * * * + + +THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER. + +While all of us have been watching, with that admiring sympathy which +never fails to wait on courage and magnanimity, the career of the new +Timoleon in Sicily,--while we have been reckoning, with an interest +scarcely less than in some affair of personal concern, the chances and +changes that bear with furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of +united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which +more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own +form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our +domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we +became a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good +or evil that will follow from the popular decision in November, we +might be tempted to regard the remarkable moderation which has thus +far characterized the Presidential canvass as a guilty indifference to +the duty implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid +unconsciousness of the result which may depend upon its exercise in +this particular election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly +from the general persuasion that the success of the Republican party +was a foregone conclusion. + +In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private +thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a +peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve +us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, +and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For, though +during its term of office the government be practically as independent +of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the +people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. +Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an +argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing +it should be statesmen and thinkers. It is a proverb, that to turn a +radical into a conservative there needs only to put him into office, +because then the license of speculation or sentiment is limited by a +sense of responsibility,--then for the first time he becomes capable +of that comparative view which sees principles and measures, not in +the narrow abstract, but in the full breadth of their relations to +each other and to political consequences. The theory of democracy +presupposes something of these results of official position in the +individual voter, since in exercising his right he becomes for the +moment an integral part of the governing power. + +How very far practice is from any likeness to theory a week's +experience of our politics suffices to convince us. The very +government itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boys' +debating-club, with the disadvantage of being reported. As our +party-creeds are commonly represented less by ideas than by persons, +(who are assumed, without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of +certain ideas,) our politics become personal and narrow to a degree +never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our +Congress debates and our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after +day, not questions of national interest, not what is wise and right, +but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad +whiskey said for him, half a dozen years ago. If that personage, +outraged in all the finer sensibilities of our common nature, by +failing to get the contract for supplying the District Court-House at +Skreemeropolisville City with revolvers, was led to disparage the +union of these States, it is seized on as proof conclusive that the +party to which he belongs are so many Cat_a_lines,--for Congress is +unanimous only in misspelling the name of that oft-invoked +conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms always in advance, +so that we seem never to have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a +prospective one, looking to the chances of reëlection, and mingling in +all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent +for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the White House lures +our public men away from present duties and obligations; and if +matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a Committee of Congress +to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, whenever a President +goes out of office,--with a policeman to watch every member of the +Committee. We are kept normally in that most unprofitable of +predicaments, a state of transition, and politicians measure their +words and deeds by a standard of immediate and temporary +expediency,--an expediency not as concerning the nation, but which, if +more than merely personal, is no wider than the interests of party. + +Is all this a result of the failure of democratic institutions? Rather +of the fact that those institutions have never yet had a fair trial, +and that for the last thirty years an abnormal element has been acting +adversely with continually increasing strength. Whatever be the effect +of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that +its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has +compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their +moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent +ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of +statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for +opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized +world for patriotism. We have been asked to admit, first, that it was +a necessary evil; then that it was a good both to master and slave; +then that it was the corner-stone of free institutions; then that it +was a system divinely instituted under the Old Law and sanctioned +under the New. With a representation, three-fifths of it based on the +assumption that negroes are men, the South turns upon us and insists +on our acknowledging that they are things. After compelling her +Northern allies to pronounce the "free and equal" clause of the +preamble to the Declaration of Independence (because it stood in the +way of enslaving men) a manifest absurdity, she has declared, through +the Supreme Court of the United States, that negroes are not men in +the ordinary meaning of the word. To eat dirt is bad enough, but to +find that we have eaten more than was necessary may chance to give us +an indigestion. The slaveholding interest has gone on step by step, +forcing concession after concession, till it needs but little to +secure it forever in the political supremacy of the country. Yield to +its latest demand,--let it mould the evil destiny of the +Territories,--and the thing is done past recall. The next Presidential +Election is to say _Yes_ or _No_. + +But we should not regard the mere question of political preponderancy +as of vital consequence, did it not involve a continually increasing +moral degradation on the part of the Nonslaveholding States,--for Free +States they could not be called much longer. Sordid and materialistic +views of the true value and objects of society and government are +professed more and more openly by the leaders of popular outcry, if it +cannot be called public opinion. That side of human nature which it +has been the object of all lawgivers and moralists to repress and +subjugate is flattered and caressed; whatever is profitable is right; +and already the slave-trade, as yielding a greater return on the +capital invested than any other traffic, is lauded as the highest +achievement of human reason and justice. Mr. Hammond has proclaimed +the accession of King Cotton, but he seems to have forgotten that +history is not without examples of kings who have lost their crowns +through the folly and false security of their ministers. It is quite +true that there is a large class of reasoners who would weigh all +questions of right and wrong in the balance of trade; but--we cannot +bring ourselves to believe that it is a wise political economy which +makes cotton by unmaking men, or a far-seeing statesmanship which +looks on an immediate money-profit as a safe equivalent for a beggared +public sentiment. We think Mr. Hammond even a little premature in +proclaiming the new Pretender. The election of November may prove a +Culloden. Whatever its result, it is to settle, for many years to +come, the question whether the American idea is to govern this +continent, whether the Occidental or the Oriental theory of society is +to mould our future, whether we are to recede from principles which +eighteen Christian centuries have been slowly establishing at the cost +of so many saintly lives at the stake and so many heroic ones on the +scaffold and the battle-field, in favor of some fancied assimilation +to the household arrangements of Abraham, of which all that can be +said with certainty is that they did not add to his domestic +happiness. + +We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history; for, +although there are four candidates, there are really, as everybody +knows, but two parties, and a single question that divides them. The +supporters of Messrs. Bell and Everett have adopted as their platform +the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws. This may +be very convenient, but it is surely not very explicit. The cardinal +question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn--a +question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the +other--is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the +Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to +that instrument. Indeed, it is quite the fashion. The removers of all +the ancient landmarks of our policy, the violators of thrice-pledged +faith, the planners of new treachery to established compromise, all +take refuge in the Constitution,-- + + "Like thieves that in a hemp-plot lie, + Secure against the hue and cry." + +In the same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in +the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows +the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any +logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the +Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our +statesmen could be "happy with either, were t'other dear charmer +away." Mr. Douglas confides the secret of his passion to the +unloquacious clams of Rhode Island, and the chief complaint made +against Mr. Lincoln by his opponents is that he is _too_ +Constitutional. + +Meanwhile the only point in which voters are interested is,--What do +they mean by the Constitution? Mr. Breckinridge means the superiority +of a certain exceptional species of property over all others, nay, +over man himself. Mr. Douglas, with a different formula for expressing +it, means practically the same thing. Both of them mean that Labor has +no rights which Capital is bound to respect,--that there is no higher +law than human interest and cupidity. Both of them represent not +merely the narrow principles of a section, but the still narrower and +more selfish ones of a caste. Both of them, to be sure, have +convenient phrases to be juggled with before election, and which mean +one thing or another, or neither one thing nor another, as a +particular exigency may seem to require; but since both claim the +regular Democratic nomination, we have little difficulty in divining +what their course would be after the fourth of March, if they should +chance to be elected. We know too well what regular Democracy is, to +like either of the two faces which each shows by turns under the same +hood. Everybody remembers Baron Grimm's story of the Parisian showman, +who in 1789 exhibited the _royal_ Bengal tiger under the new character +of _national_, as more in harmony with the changed order of things. +Could the animal have lived till 1848, he would probably have found +himself offered to the discriminating public as the _democratic_ and +_social_ ornament of the jungle. The Pro-slavery party of this country +seeks the popular favor under even more frequent and incongruous +_aliases_; it is now _national_, now _conservative_, now +_constitutional_; here it represents Squatter-Sovereignty, and there +the power of Congress over the Territories; but, under whatever name, +its nature remains unchanged, and its instincts are none the less +predatory and destructive. Mr. Lincoln's position is set forth with +sufficient precision in the platform adopted by the Chicago +Convention; but what are we to make of Messrs. Bell and Everett? Heirs +of the stock in trade of two defunct parties, the Whig and +Know-Nothing, do they hope to resuscitate them? or are they only like +the inconsolable widows of Père la Chaise, who, with an eye to former +customers, make use of the late Andsoforth's gravestone to advertise +that they still carry on the business at the old stand? Mr. Everett, +in his letter accepting the nomination, gave us only a string of +reasons why he should not have accepted it at all; and Mr. Bell +preserves a silence singularly at variance with his patronymic. The +only public demonstration of principle that we have seen is an +emblematic bell drawn upon a wagon by a single horse, with a man to +lead him, and a boy to make a nuisance of the tinkling symbol as it +moves along. Are all the figures in this melancholy procession equally +emblematic? If so, which of the two candidates is typified in the +unfortunate who leads the horse?--for we believe the only hope of the +party is to get one of them elected by some hocus-pocus in the House +of Representatives. The little boy, we suppose, is intended to +represent the party, which promises to be so conveniently small that +there will be an office for every member of it, if its candidate +should win. Did not the bell convey a plain allusion to the leading +name on the ticket, we should conceive it an excellent type of the +hollowness of those fears for the safety of the Union, in case of Mr. +Lincoln's election, whose changes are so loudly rung,--its noise +having once or twice given rise to false alarms of fire, till people +found out what it really was. Whatever profound moral it be intended +to convey, we find in it a similitude that is not without significance +as regards the professed creed of the party. The industrious youth who +operates upon it has evidently some notion of the measured and regular +motion that befits the tongues of well-disciplined and conservative +bells. He does his best to make theory and practice coincide; but with +every jolt on the road an involuntary variation is produced, and the +sonorous pulsation becomes rapid or slow accordingly. We have observed +that the Constitution was liable to similar derangements, and we very +much doubt whether Mr. Bell himself (since, after all, the +Constitution would practically be nothing else than his interpretation +of it) would keep the same measured tones that are so easy on the +smooth path of candidacy, when it came to conducting the car of State +over some of the rough places in the highway of Manifest Destiny, and +some of those passages in our politics which, after the fashion of new +countries, are rather _corduroy_ in character. + +But, fortunately, we are not left wholly in the dark as to the aims of +the self-styled Constitutional party. One of its most distinguished +members, Governor Hunt of New York, has given us to understand that +its prime object is the defeat at all hazards of the Republican +candidate. To achieve so desirable an end, its leaders are ready to +coalesce, here with the Douglas, and there with the Breckinridge +faction of that very Democratic party of whose violations of the +Constitution, corruption, and dangerous limberness of principle they +have been the lifelong denouncers. In point of fact, then, it is +perfectly plain that we have only two parties in the field: those who +favor the extension of slavery, and those who oppose it,--in other +words, a Destructive and a Conservative party. + +We know very well that the partisans of Mr. Bell, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. +Breckinridge all equally claim the title of conservative: and the fact +is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign +critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to +compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic +propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the +working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are +promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the _rights_ of property, +but by a well-founded jealousy of its usurpations; and it is +Privilege, and not Property, that is perplexed with fear of change. +The conservative effect of ownership operates with as much force on +the man with a hundred dollars in an old stocking as on his neighbor +with a million in the funds. During the Roman Revolution of '48, the +beggars who had funded their gains were among the stanchest +reactionaries, and left Rome with the nobility. No question of the +abstract right of property has ever entered directly into our +politics, or ever will,--the point at issue being, whether a certain +exceptional kind of property, already privileged beyond all others, +shall be entitled to still further privileges at the expense of every +other kind. The extension of slavery over new territory means just +this,--that this one kind of property, not recognized as such by the +Constitution, or it would never have been allowed to enter into the +basis of representation, shall control the foreign and domestic policy +of the Republic. + +A great deal is said, to be sure, about the rights of the South; but +has any such right been infringed? When a man invests money in any +species of property, he assumes the risks to which it is liable. If he +buy a house, it may be burned; if a ship, it may be wrecked; if a +horse or an ox, it may die. Now the disadvantage of the Southern kind +of property is,--how shall we say it so as not to violate our +Constitutional obligations?--that it is exceptional. When it leaves +Virginia, it is a thing; when it arrives in Boston, it becomes a man, +speaks human language, appeals to the justice of the same God whom we +all acknowledge, weeps at the memory of wife and children left +behind,--in short, hath the same organs and dimensions that a +Christian hath, and is not distinguishable from ordinary Christians, +except, perhaps, by a simpler and more earnest faith. There are people +at the North who believe, that, beside _meum_ and _tuum_, there is +also such a thing as _suum_,--who are old-fashioned enough, or weak +enough, to have their feelings touched by these things, to think that +human nature is older and more sacred than any claim of property +whatever, and that it has rights at least as much to be respected as +any hypothetical one of our Southern brethren. This, no doubt, makes +it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human +nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be +counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the +cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these +images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the +incident risks along with the advantages. We should be very sorry to +deem this risk capable of diminution; for we think that the claims of +a common manhood upon us should be at least as strong as those of +Freemasonry, and that those whom the law of man turns away should find +in the larger charity of the law of God and Nature a readier welcome +and surer sanctuary. We shall continue to think the negro a man, and +on Southern evidence, too, as long as he is counted in the population +represented on the floor of Congress,--for three-fifths of perfect +manhood would be a high average even among white men; as long as he is +hanged or worse, as an example and terror to others,--for we do not +punish one animal for the moral improvement of the rest; as long as he +is considered capable of religious instruction,--for we fancy the +gorillas would make short work with a missionary; as long as there are +fears of insurrection,--for we never heard of a combined effort at +revolt in a menagerie. Accordingly, we do not see how the particular +right of whose infringement we hear so much is to be made safer by the +election of Mr. Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or Mr. Douglas,--there being +quite as little chance that any of them would abolish human nature as +that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The same generous instinct +that leads some among us to sympathize with the sorrows of the +bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others to take part +with the rescued man. + +But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our +constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular +divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to +forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and +extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the +traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high +time that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States, +and of the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to +be respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the +safety of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever +there is soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for +making him a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not +to justice, freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting +with the current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully +nursing the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow +worse? + +To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when +it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with +the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured. The +discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what? +The manufacturers of the Free States constitute a more numerous class +than the slaveholders of the South: suppose they should claim an equal +sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of +free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral +enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. +The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the +mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail +roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm +the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when +the encroachments of the Slave-Power and the concessions of the +Trade-Power shall have made it a burden instead of a blessing. The +real avalanche to be dreaded, are we to expect it from the +ever-gathering mass of ignorant brute force, with the irresponsibility +of animals and the passions of men, which is one of the fatal +necessities of slavery, or from the gradually increasing consciousness +of the non-slaveholding population of the Slave States of the true +cause of their material impoverishment and political inferiority? From +one or the other source its ruinous forces will be fed, but in either +event it is not the Union that will be imperilled, but the privileged +Order who on every occasion of a thwarted whim have menaced its +disruption, and who will then find in it their only safety. + +We believe that the "irrepressible conflict"--for we accept Mr. +Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever +meant to give it--is to take place in the South itself; because the +Slave-System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy +which are sure, sooner or later, to work their own retribution. The +inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the +soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to +reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower +level of property, intelligence, and enterprise,--their increase in +numbers adding much to the economical hardship of their position and +nothing to their political weight in the community. There is no +home-encouragement of varied agriculture,--for the wants of a slave +population are few in number and limited in kind; none of inland +trade, for that is developed only by communities where education +induces refinement, where facility of communication stimulates +invention and variety of enterprise, where newspapers make every man's +improvement in tools, machinery, or culture of the soil an incitement +to all, and bring all the thinkers of the world to teach in the cheap +university of the people. We do not, of course, mean to say that +slaveholding states may not and do not produce fine men; but they +fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its attendant +consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing +communities of men, which is the true object of all political +organizations, and which is essential to the prolonged existence of +all those whose life and spirit are derived directly from the people. +Every man who has dispassionately endeavored to enlighten himself in +the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, the course of things in +slaveholding states is substantially what we have described, a +downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and in all those +results of material prosperity which in a free country show themselves +in the general advancement for the good of all and give a real meaning +to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous the wealth centred in +the hands of a few, it has no longer the conservative force or the +beneficent influence which it exerts when equably distributed,--even +loses more of both where a system of absenteeism prevails so largely +as in the South. In such communities the seeds of an "irrepressible +conflict" are purely, if slowly, ripening, and signs are daily +multiplying that the true peril to their social organization is looked +for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in an insurrection of +intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds itself none the +richer for it. To multiply such communities is to multiply weakness. + +The election in November turns on the single and simple question, +Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and +the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against +such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor +of it, is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted +that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess +that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward +since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater +ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to +the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr. +Seward's nomination, for the very reason we have seen assigned for +passing him by,--that he represented the most advanced doctrines of +his party. He, more than any other man, combined in himself the +moralist's oppugnancy to Slavery as a fact, the thinker's resentment +of it as a theory, and the statist's distrust of it as a policy,--thus +summing up the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and +concentrated the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, +he has that best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of +being always able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of +his opinions which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect +of his speeches in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to +their power. Safe from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional +eloquence as if he had been inoculated for it early in his career, he +addresses himself to the reason, and what he says sticks. It was +assumed that his nomination would have embittered the contest and +tainted the Republican creed with radicalism; but we doubt it. We +cannot think that a party gains by not hitting its hardest, or by +sugaring its opinions. Republicanism is not a conspiracy to obtain +office under false pretences. It has a definite aim, an earnest +purpose, and the unflinching tenacity of profound conviction. It was +not called into being by a desire to reform the pecuniary corruptions +of the party now in power. Mr. Bell or Mr. Breckinridge would do that, +for no one doubts their honor or their honesty. It is not unanimous +about the Tariff, about State-Rights, about many other questions of +policy. What unites the Republicans is a common faith in the early +principles and practice of the Republic, a common persuasion that +slavery, as it cannot but be the natural foe of the one, has been the +chief debaser of the other, and a common resolve to resist its +encroachments everywhen and everywhere. They see no reason to fear +that the Constitution, which has shown such pliant tenacity under the +warps and twistings of a forty-years' proslavery pressure, should be +in danger of breaking, if bent backward again gently to its original +rectitude of fibre. "All forms of human government," says Machiavelli, +"have, like men, their natural term, and those only are long-lived +which possess in themselves the power of returning to the principles +on which they were originally founded." It is in a moral aversion to +slavery as a great wrong that the chief strength of the Republican +party lies. They believe as everybody believed sixty years ago; and we +are sorry to see what appears to be an inclination in some quarters to +blink this aspect of the case, lest the party be charged with want of +conservatism, or, what is worse, with abolitionism. It is and will be +charged with all kinds of dreadful things, whatever it does, and it +has nothing to fear from an upright and downright declaration of its +faith. One part of the grateful work it has to do is to deliver us +from the curse of perpetual concession for the sake of a peace that +never comes, and which, if it came, would not be peace, but +submission,--from that torpor and imbecility of faith in God and man +which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. A question +which cuts so deep as the one which now divides the country cannot be +debated, much less settled, without excitement. Such excitement is +healthy, and is a sign that the ill humors of the body politic are +coming to the surface, where they are comparatively harmless. It is +the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have +once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative. The +vital and formative principle, which was active during the process of +crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or governments, +ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the Eternal +Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead formula on +men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been our good +fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has forced us to +reconsider the primal principles of government, which has appealed to +conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories of the +Declaration of Independence to the test of experience in our thought +and life and action, has realized a tradition of the memory into a +conviction of the understanding and the soul. It will not do for the +Republicans to confine themselves to the mere political argument, for +the matter then becomes one of expediency, with two defensible sides +to it; they must go deeper, to the radical question of Right and +Wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What +Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party-platforms,--that those +are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which +compel the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind. + +No man pretends that under the Constitution there is any possibility +of interference with the domestic relations of the individual States; +no party has ever remotely hinted at any such interference; but what +the Republicans affirm is, that in every contingency where the +Constitution can be construed in favor of freedom, it ought to be and +shall be so construed. It is idle to talk of sectionalism, +abolitionism, and hostility to the laws. The principles of liberty and +humanity cannot, by virtue of their very nature, be sectional, any +more than light and heat. Prevention is not abolition, and unjust laws +are the only serious enemies that Law ever had. With history before +us, it is no treason to question the infallibility of a court; for +courts are never wiser or more venerable than the men composing them, +and a decision that reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any +immunity from reversal. Truth is the only unrepealable thing. + +We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to +suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, +Presidents' messages, and Congress, for the last dozen years, lest we +endanger the safety of the Union. The true danger to popular forms of +government begins when public opinion ceases because the people are +incompetent or unwilling to think. In a democracy it is the duty of +every citizen to think; but unless the thinking result in a definite +opinion, and the opinion lead to considerate action, they are nothing. +If the people are assumed to be incapable of forming a judgment for +themselves, the men whose position enables them to guide the public +mind ought certainly to make good their want of intelligence. But on +this great question, the wise solution of which, we are every day +assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no +opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion +prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections +have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which +support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the +election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back +peace to the distracted country. The distracted country will continue +to take care of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question +that needs an answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous +future to the helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or +mar for all coming time? What will save the country from a Senate and +Supreme Court where freedom shall be forever at a disadvantage? + +There is always a fallacy in the argument of the opponents of the +Republican party. They affirm that all the States and all the citizens +of the States ought to have equal rights in the Territories. +Undoubtedly. But the difficulty is that they cannot. The slaveholder +moves into a new Territory with his _institution_, and from that +moment the free white settler is virtually excluded. _His_ +institutions he cannot take with him; they refuse to root themselves +in soil that is cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; +the post-office is Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may +be enough to hang him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free +States are being driven out and murdered for pretended complicity in a +plot the evidence for the existence of which has been obtained by +means without a parallel since the trial of the Salem witches, and the +stories about which are as absurd and contradictory as the confessions +of Goodwife Corey. Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the +experience of Kansas that disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's +panacea of "Squatter Sovereignty." + +The claim of _equal_ rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. +Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every +inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. +For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,--that +their _local law_ be made the law of the land, and coextensive with +the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no +unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; +and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law +makes property," (confounding a law existing anywhere with the law +which is binding everywhere,) can deceive only those who have either +never read the Constitution or are ignorant of the opinions and +intentions of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where +slavery already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery +are well aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by +positive enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of +existence for their institution in the Territories,--a title which +they do not possess, and the possession of which would give them the +oyster and the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for +to protect Southern property in the Territories,--that is, to protect +the inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of +government shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion +of our national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the +Non-Slave-holding States fail to do their duty in the present crisis. + +But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a +little remarkable, that, as the prospect of his success increases, the +menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W.L. Yancey, +to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without +him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But +Governor Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at +Washington,--perhaps because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. +The old Mumbo-Jumbo is occasionally paraded at the North, but, however +many old women may be frightened, the pulse of the stock-market +remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right +of the late Mr. James the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on +the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, +some thinking that it means a Military Despot--though in that case the +force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,--and others the Pony +Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would +have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry of +Disunion has lost its terrors, if it ever had any, at the North. The +South itself seems to have become alarmed at its own scarecrow, and +speakers there are beginning to assure their hearers that the election +of Mr. Lincoln will do them no harm. We entirely agree with them, for +it will save them from themselves. + +To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb +the existing internal policy of the Southern States possible +presupposes a manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could +take place, the country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But +there is no premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we +except Mr. Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset +will hardly turn the continent head over heels. The administration of +Mr. Lincoln will be conservative, because no government is ever +intentionally otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines +the foundation on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is +that influence in the councils of the nation to which they are justly +entitled by their population, wealth, and intelligence. That these +elements of prosperity have increased more rapidly among them than in +communities otherwise organized, with greater advantages of soil, +climate, and mineral productions, is certainly no argument that they +are incapable of the duties of efficient and prudent administration, +however strong a one it may be for their endeavoring to secure for the +Territories the single superiority that has made them what they are. +The object of the Republican party is not the abolition of African +slavery, but the utter extirpation of dogmas which are the logical +sequence of the attempts to establish its righteousness and wisdom, +and which would serve equally well to justify the enslavement of every +white man unable to protect himself. They believe that slavery is a +wrong morally, a mistake politically, and a misfortune practically, +wherever it exists; that it has nullified our influence abroad and +forced us to compromise with our better instincts at home; that it has +perverted our government from its legitimate objects, weakened the +respect for the laws by making them the tools of its purposes, and +sapped the faith of men in any higher political morality than interest +or any better statesmanship than chicane. They mean in every lawful +way to hem it within its present limits. + +We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than +anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved +both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in +public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a +politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in +the eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced +public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close. He +represents a party who know that true policy is gradual in its +advances, that it is conditional and not absolute, that it must deal +with facts and not with sentiments, but who know also that it is wiser +to stamp out evil in the spark than to wait till there is no help but +in fighting fire with fire. They are the only conservative party, +because they are the only one based on an enduring principle, the only +one that is not willing to pawn tomorrow for the means to gamble with +today. They have no hostility to the South, but a determined one to +doctrines of whose ruinous tendency every day more and more convinces +them. + +The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like +those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon +with his glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an +anachronism of summer, the relic of a bygone world where such monsters +swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work +against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, +fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous +devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant +sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no +trace but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed +boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in +the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and +believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually +before it. "All the earth cries out upon Truth, and the heaven +blesseth it; ill works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no +unrighteous thing." + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +_History of Flemish Literature_. By OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, LL. D. 8vo. +London. John Murray. 1860. + +"When I write in Danish," says Oehlenschläger, "I write for only six +hundred persons." And so, in view of this somewhat exaggerated +statement, he himself translated his best works into the more favored +and more widely spread Germanic idiom. It requires a certain amount of +courage in an author to write in his own native tongue only, when he +knows that he thereby limits the number of his readers. We see in our +own days, among the Sclavonic races, men whose writings breathe the +most ardent patriotism, whose labors and researches are all +concentrated within the sphere of their nationality, publishing, not +in their own Polish, Czechish, or Serbian, but in German or French. + +The history of language shows us a two-fold tendency,--one of +divergence from some common stem, followed by one of concentration, of +unity, in the literature. Thus, in France, the _Langue d'Oïl_ +superseded the richer and more melodious Provençal; in Spain the +Castilian predominated; while for several centuries it has been the +steady tendency of the High-German to become the language of letters +and of the upper classes among the various Teutonic races. Since the +Bible-translation of Luther, this central dialect has not only become +the medium in which poet and philosopher, historian and critic address +the nation, but it may be said to have entirely superseded the +Northern and Southern forms. Whatever local or linguistic interest may +be manifested for the works of Groth in the Ditmarsch _Platt-Deutsch_, +or for the sweet Alemannic songs of Hebel, the centralizing tongue is +that in which Schiller and Goethe wrote. + +The allied Danish and Dutch have escaped this ingulfing process. The +former, instead of retreating, seeks in the present to enlarge its +circuit; and great are the complaints in Schleswig-Holstein of the +arbitrary and despotic imposition of Danish on a State of the German +Confederation. The present government of Holland has not remained +inactive. Much has been done to encourage men of letters and +counteract the Gallic influences which prevailed in the early part of +the century. + +But the Flemings speaking nearly the same language as their Protestant +neighbors, where is their literature now? The language itself, in +which are handed down to us some of the masterpieces of the Middle +Ages, as "Reynard the Fox" and "Gudrun," is disregarded, even +discountenanced, by Government. It is with a feeling of sadness that +we read the annals of a literature which met so many obstacles to its +progress. Despised by foreign rulers, thrust back by the Spanish +policy of the Duke of Alva, its authors exiled and seeking refuge in +other lands, its very existence has been a constant battling against +the inroads of more powerful neighbors. + +Surely, "if words be made of breath, and breath of life," there is +nothing a nation can hold more dear than its own tongue. Its laws, its +rulers, may change, its privileges and charters be wrenched from it, +but that remains as an heirloom, the first gift to the child, the last +and dearest treasure of the man. Perhaps nowhere more than in Flanders +do we meet with a systematic oppression of a vernacular idiom. From +the days of the contests with France, through the long Spanish +troubles and dominion, the military occupation of the country by the +troops of Louis XIV., the Austrian rule, the levelling tendency of the +French Revolution, and the present aping of French manners by the +higher powers of the land,--through all this there has been but one +long, continuous struggle, and the ultimate result is now too plain. + +We find the Flemish spoken by nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of +Belgium, divided from the Walloon or _Rouchi-Fran ais_ by a line of +demarcation running from the Meuse through Liege and Waterloo, and +ending in France, between Calais and Dunkirk. It differs in no +material points from the Dutch, being essentially the same, if we +except slight differences in spelling, as _ae_ for _aa_, _ue_ for +_uu_, _y_ for _ij_. Both should bear but one common name, the +Netherlandish. That differences should be sought can be accounted for +only by the petty feeling of jealousy that exists between the +neighboring states, their literary productions varying in grammatical +construction scarcely more than the writings of English and American +authors. + +Mr. Octave Delepierre, who since 1830 has published some ten or twelve +monographs relating to the antiquities and history of Flanders, has +presented the English public during the course of the present year +with a history of Flemish literature. With an evident predilection for +authors south of the Meuse, Mr. Delepierre has nevertheless given us +the first clear and connected account we possess of the history of +letters in the Netherlands. Without careful or minute critical +research, he has shown little that is new, nor has he sought to clear +one point that was obscure. His work is pleasant reading, interspersed +with occasional translations, though scarcely answering the requisites +of literary history in the nineteenth century. Having followed the +older work of Snellaert [_Histoire de la Littérature Flamande_. +Bruxelles. 1654.], in the latter half of the volume, page for page, he +has not even mentioned by name the authors of the last quarter of a +century. + +Let us glance at that portion of literature more particularly +belonging to Flanders and Brabant. + +The first expressions of the Germanic mind, the song of "Hildebrand," +"Gudrun," the "Nibelungen," have been handed down to us in a form +which shows their origin to have been Netherlandish. The first part of +"Gudrun" is evidently so; and we find, as well in many of the older +poems of chivalry, as "Charles and Elegast," "Floris and +Blanchefloer," as in the national epos, intrinsic proofs that the +unknown authors were from the regions of the Lower Rhine. These elder +remnants, however, can scarcely be claimed by any one of the Teutonic +races, as they are the common property of all; for we find the hero +Siegfried in the Scandinavian Saga, as well as in the more southern +tradition. Mr. Delepierre has translated the following song, almost +Homeric in its form, which belongs to this early period, when +Christianity had not obliterated the memories of barbarous days:-- + + "The Lord Halewyn knew a song: all those + who heard it were attracted towards him. + + "It was once heard by the daughter of the + King, who was so beloved by her parents. + + "She stood before her father: 'O father, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her mother: 'O mother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her sister: 'O sister, may + I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, sister, no! They who go to him + never come back again.' + + "She stood before her brother: 'O brother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Little care I where thou goest, provided + thou preservest thine honor and thy crown. + + "She goes up into her chamber; she clothes + herself in her best garments. + + "What does she put on first? A shift finer + than silk. + + "What does she gird round her lovely + waist? Strong bands of gold. + + "What does she put upon her scarlet petticoat? + On every seam a golden button. + + "What does she set on her beautiful fair + hair? A massive golden crown. + + "What does she put upon her kirtle? On + every seam a pearl. + + "She goes into her father's stable, and takes + out his best charger. She mounts him proudly, + and so, laughing and singing, rides through + the forest. When she reaches the middle of + the forest, she meets the Lord Halewyn. + + "'Hail!' said he, approaching her, 'hail, + beautiful virgin, with eyes so black and brilliant!' + + "They proceed together, chatting as they go. + + "They arrive at a field in which stands a + gallows. The bodies of several women hang + from it. + + "The Lord Halewyn says to her: 'As you + are the loveliest of all virgins, say, how will + you die? The time is come.' + + "'It is well: as I may choose, I choose the + sword. + + "'But, first of all, take off your tunic; for + the blood of a virgin gushes out so far, that it + might reach you, and I should be sorry.' + + "But before he had divested himself of his + tunic, his head rolled off and lay at his feet: + his lips still murmured these words: + + "'Go down there into that corn-field, and blow + the horn, so that my friends may hear it.' + + "'Into that corn-field I shall not go, neither + shall I blow the horn. I do not follow the counsel + of a murderer.' + + "'Go, then, down under the gallows, and + gather the balm which you shall find there, + and spread it over my bloody throat.' + + "'Under the gallows I shall not go; on your + bloody throat I shall spread no balm. I do + not follow the counsel of a murderer.' + + "She took up the head by the hair, and + washed it at a clear fountain. + + "She mounted her charger proudly, and, + laughing and singing, she rode through the + forest. + + "When she reached the middle of the forest, + she met the mother of Halewyn. 'Beautiful + virgin, have you not seen my son?' + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is gone + hunting: you will never see him again. + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is dead. I + have his head in my apron, which is red with + his blood.' + + "And when she arrived at her father's gate, + she blew the horn like a man. + + "And when her father saw her, he rejoiced + at her return. + + "He celebrated it by a feast, and the head + of Halewyn was placed on the table." + +Flemish writers claim as entirely their own that epic of the people, +"Reynard the Fox." Their right to it was long contested; nor has +anything been done since the labors of Willems, who, in opposition to +the opinion of William Grimm, settles the authorship of the "Reinaert +de Vos" on Utenhove, a priest of Aerdenburg. It seems natural to +suppose that this most popular of Middle-Age productions should have +originated in the very region which later gave to the world a school +of painting that incarnated on canvas the phases of animal life, +taking its delight and best inspirations in the burlesque side of +human passions. + +In its first period, Flemish literature found some encouragement from +its princes. John I. of Brabant fostered it, and even took, himself, +the title of Flemish Troubadour. Under Guy of Dampierre, who neither +in heart nor mind was sympathetic with the people he ruled, we find +Maerlant, still revered by his country; his name is ever coupled with +the epithet of Father of Flemish Poets. Didactic rather than poetical, +his influence was great in breaking down the barriers which separated +the people from the higher classes, by adapting to their own +home-idiom the best productions of the age. About this period we find +prevalent those Northern singers corresponding to the _Trouvères_, +_Troubadours_, and _Jongleurs_. They are in Flanders the _Spreker_, +_Segger_, and _Vinder_, who, when travelling through the country, took +the name of _Gezel_, received in town or village, court or hamlet, as +the wandering minstrel of the South. The golden age when sovereigns +doffed their royal robes to lay them on the shoulders of some +sweet-singing poet, as the old chronicles tell us, was of short +duration in the North, if ever the _Sproken_ or erotic poems may be +said to have brought their authors into such favor. On the other hand, +we find some of the wanderers arrested for theft and other crimes. + +Little light has been thrown on their first ante-historical attempts. +Until the late labors of German philologers, little had been done to +clear up the confusion resting on this period of literary history. As +yet the field has scarcely been explored beyond the regions not +immediately connected with the literature of Germany. We have long +historical poems of little interest, arranged without +order,--interminable productions of thousands and ten thousands of +lines of uncertain date, didactic and encyclopedia-like, besides +unmistakable remnants of a Netherlandish theatre. + +The battle of Roosebeke, where the second Artevelde and his companions +succumbed to superior numbers, was the last great enterprise of the +Flemings against the French. Half a century earlier, a strong league +had been formed against these powerful neighbors. In the interior, the +country was divided into factions,--the partisans and enemies of +France. Prominent were the _Clauwaerts_ and the _Leliarts_, from the +lion's claw and the _fleur-de-lis_ which they respectively wore on +their badges. The country, which has ever been one of the +battle-fields of Europe, was abandoned to all the horrors of civil +war. The Duke of Brabant was childless. The Count of Flanders gave his +daughter, his only legitimate child, in marriage to the Duke of +Burgundy; and the provinces soon came into the hands of those +ambitious and restless enemies of the Court of France. It may easily +be imagined that these events were not without their influence on a +language deteriorated on the one hand by constant contact with a +Romanic idiom, and in Holland by the transmission of the sovereign +crown to the House of Avesnes. + +The "Chambers of Rhetoric," an institution peculiar to the Low +Countries, reached their highest point of prosperity under the +Burgundian rule. The wandering life of poets and authors had nearly +ceased. The _Gezellen_, settled in towns, and moved by the prevalent +spirit which prompted men of one calling to unite into bodies, +naturally fell into corporations analogous to the Guilds. Without +attaching any very definite or clear idea to the term Rhetoric which +they employed, these associations exerted great influence upon the +whole literature of the Netherlands. Many would date their origin as +far back as the early part of the twelfth century. In Alost, the +Catherinists claimed to have existed as early as 1107, on the mere +strength of their motto, AMOR VINCIT. At any rate, we are left +entirely to conjecture with regard to the first beginnings of these +literary guilds, which seem in many respects an imitation of the +poetical societies of Provence. Every poet of note was a participant +in them. In Flanders there was scarcely a town or village that did not +possess its Chamber. Brabant, Holland, Zealand soon followed in the +movement. One of the principal, the Fountain of Ghent, seems to have +exercised a certain supremacy over the other confraternities of art. + +The proceedings of these companies, protected at first by princes, +were carried on with great magnificence. They were in constant +communication with each other throughout the country. Their _facteurs_ +or poets composed songs and theatrical pieces, which were performed by +the members. They had a long array of officers, with princely names; +and none was complete without a jester. Their larger assemblies were +accompanied with long festivities, the solemn entry into a town or +village being styled _Landjuweel_ (Landjewel). The nobility mingled in +them, incited by the example of Henry IV. of Brabant or +Philippe-le-Bel. The wealth of the Netherlands was displayed on these +solemnities, and the citizens rivalled their monarchs in magnificence. +The burghers of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp shone, on these +occasions, in the gaudy pomp of princely patricians. All were invited +to take part and dispute the prizes awarded by fair hands. + +It can scarcely be expected that these guilds, composed in many cases +of mechanics, should give rise to works of the highest order of merit. +Their dramatic representations were rather gorgeous than tasteful, +their attempts at wit little better than buffoonery, their humor mere +personal vituperation. Yet even in matters of taste they are not much +inferior to the then more pretentious academies of other lands. It was +an age of long religious dramas, of tortured rhymes and impossible +metres, when strange and new versification imported from France found +favor among a people whose silks and linens and rich tapestries were +destined to reach a wider circulation than all the poetical effusions +of their guilds, the "Lily," the "Violet," and the "Jesus with the +Balsam Flower." + +It was Philip the Fair who, wishing to centralize the scattered +efforts of these societies, established at Malines, in 1493, a +sovereign chamber, of which he appointed his chaplain, Pierre Aelters, +_sovereign prince_. With an admixture of religion, in accordance with +the spirit of the Middle Ages, the sacred number was fifteen. There +were fifteen members. Fifteen young girls were to form part of it, in +honor of the fifteen joys of Mary. Fifteen youths were instructed in +the art of rhetoric, and the assemblies were held fifteen times a +year. Charles V. was the last chief of this assembly, which had +previously been removed to Ghent. In 1577 it greeted the arrival of +the Prince of Orange, but this was its last sign of vitality. + +The Chambers of Rhetoric reached their climax in a time of +fermentation. The impatience, the feeling of uneasiness and restraint, +is felt in the drama of these days, which was wholly under the control +of the Chambers. The stage, that "mirror of the times," is often the +first manifestation of the unquiet heaving and subsequent up-bubbling +in the fluid compost of the mass that constitutes a nation. When +freely developed, it is the pulse-beat of the people. And so, +throughout the Netherlands, at the end of the fifteenth century and +the beginning of the sixteenth, we find the allegorical drama giving +way to more definite and direct personations. Those cold +representations of vices and virtues, of vice in its nakedness, such +as to render the reading, when not absolutely tedious, distasteful, to +say the least, to our modern ideas,--all such aimless productions were +giving way to the conscious expression of satire. Diatribes against +prevalent abuses, personal invectives scarcely veiled, were fast +becoming the order of the day. It is no wonder, then, that the guilds, +which had found favor formerly, should gradually be crushed, in +proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among +the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The +_refrain_ was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the +expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic +party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under +Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her +poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, and were +read as masterpieces till the middle of the last century. + +A taste for religious writing prevailed in the Netherlands throughout +the sixteenth century. William van Zuylen van Nyevelt first published +a collection of the Psalms of David. These, in imitation of the French +Calvinists, were sung to the most popular melodies. Zuylen found many +imitators. The Catholic party composed songs in opposition to the +Reformers; and we have psalms and songs by Utenhove, the painters Luc +de Heere and Van Mander, by Van Haecht and Fruytiers. A long list of +obscure names, if we except those of Marnix and Houwaert, is mentioned +as belonging to this period,--their works mostly didactic or +controversial. Houwaert, a Catholic, one of the avowed friends and +partisans of the Prince of Orange, courted the Muses in the hottest +days of civil strife. He published a poem, in sixteen cantos, entitled +"The Gardens of the Virgins," tending to show the dangers to which the +fair sex is exposed, and condemning as unreal all love not centred in +God. With a remarkable fertility of composition he possesses an +uncommon smoothness of versification, combined with a power, so +successful in his age, of illustration from history or romance, from +the sacred writings or the legendary lore of the people. The work was +received in those days of trouble with unbounded enthusiasm. Brabant +was thought to have given birth to a new Homer. His praises resounded +in verse and song, and the young girls of Brussels crowned him with +laurel. + +The government of the Duke of Alva, and the succeeding years of +revolution, were a period of desolation for Flanders. The Guilds of +Rhetoric were dispersed; town after town was depopulated; Ghent, the +loved city of Charles V., lost six thousand families; Leyden, +Amsterdam, Haerlem, Gouda, afforded refuge to the emigrants. The +golden age of literary activity is about to dawn in the Dutch +republic. In the other provinces the national language is more and +more neglected. It gives umbrage to the foreign chiefs who act as +sovereigns. With it they identify all the opposition that has +prevailed against them. Archduke Albert carries his condescension no +farther than to address in High-German such of his subjects as can +speak only Flemish. His Walloons he treats with no more civility, +answering them but in Spanish or Latin. Ymmeloot, lord of Steenbrugge, +a native of Ypres, endeavors in 1614 to stem the current of opposition +and reawaken a love for letters. He suggests many reforms in the +versification, and gives the example. He is followed by many, and +Ypres becomes for a time a centre of versifiers. But the spirit of +originality has flown, and the literature of Holland is enriched with +the name of many a Fleming who preferred exile to the new rule. + +In 1618, the General Synod of Dordrecht decreed that a new translation +of the Bible should be undertaken. Two Flemings, Baudaert and Walaeus, +and two Dutchmen, Bogerman and Hommius, completed it. Like the work of +Luther, this tended in a great measure to fix the language, preventing +the preponderance of one dialect over the other. + +Foreign imitation begins to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq +constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary +quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An +action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest _patois_ of +Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage +the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms. +His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to +represent vice on the stage, as the Romans formerly on certain days +intoxicated their slaves and showed them to their children, in order +that they might at an early age become inspired with a disgust for +debauchery." Yet his comedies enjoyed the highest favor, and have been +pronounced by native critics among the most remarkable and meritorious +productions of the epoch. They are ever distinguished by vivacity, +truth, and fidelity, in depicting the many-sided life of the people. +He seems to have been a literary Ostade or Teniers, with less of +ingenuousness and good-nature in the portraiture. + +In the mean time the French language continues to gain ground every +day. In Brussels, native authors seek in vain to oppose the +encroachments of the "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but, +save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers, +and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations. +Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly +style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious +ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;--the country, +after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of +inaction. + +Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing. Its poets and +historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the +poet of the people. Bruges, in the eighteenth century, produces two +writers of merit,--Smidts and Labare. In French Flanders, De Swaen +adapts from Corneille, and publishes original dramas. Many songs are +composed both in the northern and southern provinces, mostly of a +religious character. Philologers seek to revive the neglected idiom +with little success. But the century is blank of great names. The +Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres, established at Brussels by +Maria Theresa, was composed of members totally unacquainted with the +Flemish. It took no notice of the language beyond publishing a few +prize-memoirs in its annals. The German barons who ruled cared little +for their own tongue: how should they have manifested interest in that +of their Belgian subjects? The subsequent French domination was no +improvement. On the 13th of June, 1803, it was decreed by the +Republic,--"In a year, reckoning from the publication of this present +ordinance, the public acts, in the departments once called Belgium, +... in those on the left bank of the Rhine, ... where the custom of +drawing up acts in the language of those countries may have been +preserved, are henceforth to be written in French." The Bonaparte rule +was not of a nature to restore former privileges. In spite of the +feeble remonstrances that were urged against such arbitrary measures, +an imperial decree of 1812 enjoined that all Flemish papers should +appear with a French translation. + +Under the rule of King William, vigorous measures were employed to +reinstate the native idiom. At first warmly seconded, Government soon +met with an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects. The Dutch +was combated by those connected with education. It was ridiculed by +the Walloon population. Since the independence of Belgium, the +_mouvement flamand_ has been felt more than once by the would-be +French rulers. In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the +members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were +addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little avail. At +present, though the language is nominally on a par with French, it +meets with little encouragement. The philological labors of Willems +entitle him to a place among the greatest of the present century; he +was until his death the leader of the intellectual movement of his +country. + +Of later authors, we may mention the laureate Ledeganck, Henri +Conscience, whose works have now been translated into English, French, +German, Danish, and Swedish, Renier Snieders, Van Duyse, Dantzenberg. +Modern literature seems to have taken a new flight; it is animated by +the purest love of country, by an ardent desire in its authors to +revive the use of their native tongue. The tendency is rather +Germanic. At the Singers' Festival, held in Ghent a short time ago, +the songs sung breathed a spirit of union and love for the sister +languages. As a fair sample, we may quote the following:-- + + "Welaen, Germaen en Belg tezaem ten stryd + Voor vryheid, tael en vaderland! + De vaen van't duïtsch en vlaemsche zangverbond + Prael op't gentsch eeregoud! + Wy willen vry zyn, als de adelaer + Die stout op eigen wieken dryft, + Voor wien er slechts een koestring is, de zon. + Alom waer der Germanen tael + Zich heft en bloeid en't volk, + Daer is ons vaderland!" + + * * * * * + + +_The Glaciers of the Alps_. Being a Narrative of Excursions and +Ascents, an Account of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers, and an +Exposition of the Physical Principles to which they are related. By +JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., etc., etc. With Illustrations. London: John +Murray. 1860. pp. xx., 444. + +Our readers are probably aware that the question of the causes of +glacier formation and motion, cool as the subject may seem in itself, +has demonstrated the existence of a great deal of latent heat among +scientific men. In England, the so-called _viscous_ theory of +Professor J.D. Forbes held for a long while undisputed possession of +the field. According to him, "a glacier is an imperfect fluid, or +viscous body, which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by +the mutual pressure of its parts." With that impartial +superciliousness to all foreign achievement which not seldom +characterizes the British mind, the credit of all the results of +observation and experiment on the glaciers was attributed to Professor +Forbes, who seems to have accepted it with delightful complacency. But +presently doubt, then unbelief, and at last downright opposition began +to show themselves. The leader of the revolt was Professor Tyndall, +whose book is now before us. The controversy has begotten no little +bitterness of feeling; but none is shown in Mr. Tyndall's volume, +which is throughout written in the truest spirit of science,--with the +earnest frankness that becomes a seeker of truth, and the dignity that +befits a lover of it. + +Not content with any theoretic antagonism to the Forbes explanation of +the phenomena, Mr. Tyndall devoted all the leisure of several years to +an examination of them on the spot. At the risk of his life, he +verified the previous observations of others and made new ones +himself. At home, he made experiments upon the nature of ice, +especially upon its capacity for regulation and the effect of pressure +upon it. He satisfied himself that snow may be changed to ice by +pressure, that crumbled ice may in like manner be restored to its +original condition, and that solid ice may be forced to take any form +desired. Under proper conditions, lamination may be produced by the +same means. The result of his investigations is, that the glacier is a +solid body, and that _pressure_ answers all the requirements of the +glacier-problem, and is the only thing that will. + +The book is one of uncommon interest, and discusses many topics beside +the glaciers, though nothing that is not in some way related to them. +Mr. Tyndall does justice to former investigators,--especially to M. +Rendu, who, though imperfectly supplied with demonstrated facts, +theorized the phenomena with the happiest inspiration,--and to +Agassiz, of whose important observations, establishing for the first +time the fact of more rapid motion in the middle of the glacier, +Professor Forbes had appropriated the credit. The style is remarkably +agreeable, in description vivid, and in its scientific parts clear. +Indeed, we do not know whether we have enjoyed the narrative or the +science the most. Professor Tyndall has the uncommon gift of being +able to write science so that the unscientific can understand it, +without descending to the low level of science made easy. The Royal +Institution may well congratulate itself on having in him a man every +way qualified to succeed Faraday, whenever (and may it be long first!) +his chair is vacant. + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +MR. JARVES'S COLLECTION. + +It seems an odd turn in the kaleidoscope of Fortune that associates a +Prime Minister of the Sandwich Islands--where the only pictorial Art +is a kind of illumination laboriously executed by the natives on each +other's skins, thus forming a free peripatetic gallery--with a +collection of pictures by early Italian masters. It is certainly a +striking illustration of American multifariousness. From the dawning +civilization of Hawaii Mr. Jarves withdraws to Italy, where culture +has passed far beyond its noon, and finds himself equally at home in +both. From Italy he has returned to America with by far the most +important contribution to historical Art that has ever reached us. It +is not easy to overestimate its value, whether intrinsically, or as an +aid to intelligent and refining study. We can hardly expect, it is +true, ever to form such collections of Art in this country as would +save our students the necessity of visiting Europe. This, indeed, +would be hardly desirable; since a great deal of the refining and +enlightening influence of foreign travel and observation is not +received directly from the special objects that may have drawn us +abroad, but incidentally and unexpectedly, by being brought into +contact with strange systems of government and new forms of thought. +But what we might have is such a collection as would enable those of +us who cannot travel to enjoy some of the highest aesthetic advantages +of travel, and would send our students to the galleries of the Old +World already in a condition to appreciate and profit by them. Mr. +Jarves's pictures afford the opportunity for an excellent beginning in +such an undertaking. + +Mr. Jarves's object has been to form a gallery that should exhibit the +origin, progress, and culmination of Italian Art from the thirteenth +to the seventeenth century, in such chronological order as should show +the sequence and affiliation of the various schools and the various +motive and inspiration that were operative in them. To quote his own +language, Mr. Jarves began his undertaking with no "expectation of +acquiring masterpieces, or many, if any, of those specimens upon which +the reputation of the great masters is based. These are in the main +either fixtures in their native localities or permanently absorbed +into the great galleries of Europe; and America may scarcely hope ever +to possess such. He did propose, however, to get together a collection +which should _fairly_ represent the varied qualities of the masters +themselves, and the phases of inspiration, religious, aesthetic, or +naturalistic, by which they were actuated. And he claims now to have +succeeded in this to an extent which in the outset he did not dare to +hope, and to have secured for the collection the approving verdict of +European taste and connoisseurship in the recognition of it as a +_valuable historical gallery of original paintings of the epochs and +schools they claim to represent_. + +"In putting forward this claim, he does it in full view of the +character of the criticism and doubts such an assumption naturally +begets. The public are right in doubting; and they should not be +convinced except upon sound evidence. Therefore, while he +unhesitatingly claims for the collection the foregoing character, he +expects and invites from the public the fullest measure of impartial +and intelligent criticism. + +"The object of the collection is a nucleus for an American Gallery, to +be established in the most fitting place and upon a broad basis, +sufficient to gratify and improve every variety of taste and to +advance the aesthetic culture of the people. + +"With this aim, he has declined repeated overtures pecuniarily +advantageous to divert it in whole or part to other purposes; and in +bringing it to America at his own risk and expense, it is solely to +test the disposition of the public to second such a project. If it +meet their approbation, the means best adapted for the purpose are to +be maturely considered; but if otherwise, it is his intention to +return the gallery to Europe. + +"It is a simple question, whether, after having had the opportunity of +becoming acquainted with the collection and his object in making it, +the American public will sustain perfect this humble beginning of a +Public Gallery of Art, or abandon the formation of one to future +chances, when the difficulties will be much greater and the +opportunities for success much fewer. It must be considered, that, at +this moment, while genuine works of Art are growing more and more +difficult to be procured, the rivalry of public and private collectors +is rapidly increasing. It is true that the existing great galleries +come into the market only for pictures specially wanted to fill some +important gap in their series, for which they pay prices that would +startle our public economists. America will have to undergo the +competition, even if she now enters this field, of several important +foreign galleries in the process of formation, among which are those +of Manchester, with a subscribed capital, _as a beginning_, of +£100,000; of the Association of St. Petersburg, for the same purpose, +under the patronage of the Imperial Family; and of one even in +Australia." + +Mr. Jarves's collection is not confined by any means to what may be +called the _curiosities_ of Art. It contains one hundred and +twenty-five pictures; and, rich as it is in works that mark the +successive stages of development in Italian painting, it possesses +also specimens of its later and most perfect productions. Examples of +the pure Byzantine bring us to those of the Greco-Italian school, and +these to the early Italian, represented (in its Umbrian branch) by +Cimabue, by Giotto and his followers, the Gaddi, Cavallini, Giottino, +Orgagna, and others; while of the Sienese we have Duccio, Simone di +Martino, and Lorenzetti, with more of less note. Of the Ascetics we +have, among others, Frà Angelico, Castagno, and Giovanni di Paolo. The +Realists are ushered in by Masolino, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, and go +on in an unbroken series through Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and +Cosimo Roselli, to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Leonardo, Raffaello, and a +design of Michel Angelo, painted by one of his pupils. Nor does the +succession end here; Andrea del Sarto, R. Ghirlandajo, Vasari, +Bronzino, Pontormo, and others, follow. Of the Religionists, there are +Lorenzo di Credi, Frà Bartolommeo, Perugino, and their scholars. The +progress of landscape, history, and anatomical drawing may be traced +in Paolo Uccello, Dello Delli, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, the +Pollajuoli, and Luca Signorelli. Here also is Gentile da Fabriano. +Venice gives us G. Bellini, M. Basaiti, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese. +And of the later Sienese, there are Sodoma, Matteo da Siena, and +Beccafumi. The list includes, also, Domenichino, Sebastian del Piombo, +Guido, Salvator Rosa, Holbein, Rubens, and Lo Spagna. + +The names we have cited will be enough to show those familiar with the +subject the scope of the collection and its value as a consecutive +series, embracing a period which few galleries in any country cover so +completely, since few have been gathered on any historical plan. + +The chief question, of course, is as to the authenticity of the +pictures. This cannot be decided till they are exhibited and Mr. +Jarves's proofs are before the public. It is mainly to be decided on +internal evidence, and it is on such evidence that a great part of the +very early pictures in foreign collections have been labelled with the +names of particular artists. The weight of such evidence is to be +determined by the judgment of experts, and we are informed that Mr. +Jarves has a mass of testimony from those best qualified to decide in +such cases,--among it that of Sir Charles Eastlake, M. Rio, and the +directors of the two great public galleries of Florence. After all, +however, this appears to us a matter of secondary consequence. If the +pictures are genuine productions of the periods they are intended to +illustrate, if they are good specimens of their several schools of +Art, the special names of the artists who may have painted them are a +matter of less concern. The money-value of the collection might be +lessened without affecting its worth in other more considerable +respects, as an illustration of the rise and progress of the most +important school of modern Art. + +Every year it becomes more difficult to obtain pictures of the class +of which Mr. Jarves's collection is mainly composed. The directors of +European galleries have become alive to their value, and are sparing +no effort to fill the _lacuna_ left by the more strictly _virtuoso_ +taste of a former generation. As far as the general public is +concerned, such pictures must, no doubt, create the taste by which +they will be appreciated. The style of the more archaic ones among +them may be easily ridiculed, and the cry of Pre-Raphaelitism may be +turned against them; but we should not forget that these earlier +efforts, however they might fail in grace of treatment and ease of +expression, are sincere and genuine products of their time, and very +different in spirit and character from the productions of the modern +school, which aims to reproduce a phase of Art when the thought and +faith that animated it are gone past recall. + +Mr. Jarves is desirous that the gallery should remain in his native +city of Boston, and to that end is willing to part with it on very +generous terms. We cannot but hope that there will be taste and public +spirit enough to realize his design. By the side of the Museum of +Natural History under the charge of Agassiz, we should like to see one +of Art that would supply another great want in our culture. The Jarves +Collection gives the opportunity for a most successful beginning, and +we trust it will not be allowed to follow the Ninevite Marbles. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Rosa; or the Parisian Girl. From the French of Madame de Pressensé. By +Mrs. J.C. Fletcher. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 371. 60 +cts. + +The Sunny South; or the Southerner at Home. Embracing Five Years' +Experience of a Northern Governess in the Land of the Sugar and the +Cotton. Edited by Professor J.H. Ingraham of Mississippi. +Philadelphia. George G. Evans. 12mo. pp. 526. $1.25. + +A Greek Grammar, for Schools and Colleges. By James Hadley, Professor +in Yale College. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 366. $1.25. + +Life of William T. Porter. By Francis Brinley. New York. D. Appleton & +Co. 12mo. pp. 273. $1.00. + +Virgil's Aeneid; with Explanatory Notes. By Henry S. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.--No. XXXVI. + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 28, 2004 [EBook #10854] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Keith M. Eckrich, and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. VI.--OCTOBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVI. + + * * * * * + + +SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS. + +BY A TOURIST WITHOUT IMAGINATION OR ENTHUSIASM. + +We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour +were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a +flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, +where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after +their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up +to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called +mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at +the station there. + +Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully +hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily +adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring +our way to the residence of Burns. The street leading from the station +is called Shakspeare Street; and at its farther extremity we read +"Burns Street" on a corner house,--the avenue thus designated having +been formerly known as "Mill Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with +small, hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean +houses of white-washed stone, joining one to another along the whole +length of the street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass +between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and +reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed +children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some +women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their +wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a +poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man +of cleanly predilections to spend his days. + +We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street +to a two-story house, built of stone, and white-washed, like its +neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most +of them, though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate +structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was +an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but +indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial +school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who +smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low +and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. + +A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon +appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room, +and that he had written many of his songs here. + +She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bed-chamber over +the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or +windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber +itself was the one where he slept in his latter life-time, and in +which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable +place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more +unsatisfactory than Shakspeare's house, which has a certain homely +picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness +of the abode before us. The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the +contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the +steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the +poet's memory less fragrant. + +As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the +house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, +it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched +outskirt above described. Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries +guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,) +we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the +mausoleum of Burns. + +Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and, +scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was +crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are +peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other +stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling +the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these +sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty +feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed +with names of small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to +ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the +custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner," +"Shoemaker," "Flesher") on his tombstone. As another peculiarity, +wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of their husbands; +thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have +bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave. + +There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently +well-worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed +behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was +privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian +temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty +feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the +Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares +of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the +structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the +interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of +Burns,--the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, +before this monument was built. Stuck against the surrounding wall is +a marble statue of Burns at the plough, with the Genius of Caledonia +summoning the ploughman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very +successful piece of work; for the plough was better sculptured than +the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, was more effective +than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who +knew Burns, certifies, this statue to be very like the original. + +The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their +children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was +intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) +said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of +the burial of the eldest son of Burns. The poet's bones were +disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful +thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for +several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a +new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. We learned that there is +a surviving daughter of Burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of +the two younger sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity +by the eldest son, who appears to have been of disreputable life in +his younger days. He inherited his father's failings, with some faint +shadow, I have also understood, of the great qualities which have made +the world tender of his father's vices and weaknesses. + +We listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it +robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due. +Indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and +effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just +previously. Beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings, +and picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these, +one does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have +failed to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a +disreputable, drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man, +consorting with associates of damaged character, and, as his only +ostensible occupation, gauging the whiskey which he too often tasted. +Siding with Burns, as we needs must, in his plea against the world, +let us try to do the world a little justice too. It is far easier to +know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape in the +spotlessness of marble than when the actual man comes staggering +before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily life. For my +part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while +he was still living. There must have been something very grand in his +immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his +natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon. + +As we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly +four hundred inhabitants of Dumfries were buried during the cholera +year; and also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the +inscriptions on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to +puzzle them out; but, I believe, they mark the resting-places of old +Covenanters, some of whom were killed by Claverhouse and his +fellow-ruffians. + +St. Michael's Church is of red freestone, and was built about a +hundred years ago, on an old Catholic foundation. Our guide admitted +us into it, and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble +figure of a child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from +beneath which appeared its two baby feet. It was truly a sweet little +statue; and the woman told us that it represented a child of the +sculptor, and that the baby (here still in its marble infancy) had +died more than twenty-six years ago. "Many ladies," she said, +"especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." It +was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his +genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the +representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion +of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities. +A gentleman from London had seen the statue, and was so much delighted +with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain +above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. So this was not the +real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold +that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy +to replace it. The first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and +spiritual innocence. The copy, as I have said above, has a drapery +over the lower limbs. But, after all, if we come to the truth of the +matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly reposited in the +drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch. + +We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without +altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly +wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the +side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family-pew, +showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so +situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the +minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers," +said she. This touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself +nodding in sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought +him before us to the life. In the corner seat of the next pew, right +before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on +whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has +immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's +name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing +which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted +that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, +because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient. + +At the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for +the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got +into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile +to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, +one of the veriest country-inns which we have found in Great Britain. +The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any +other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly +white-washed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural +in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could +contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy +generations. The fashion of paving the village-street, and patching +one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all +verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a +more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's +time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about +midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in +its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred +edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most +characteristic productions,--"The Holy Fair." + +Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village-street, stands +Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter +is a two-story, redstone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means +venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned +windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or +eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it +might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole +town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses, +of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general +aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little +dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm +summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most +familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled +uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of +our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the +whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping +their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on +Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the +street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. Except in +some remote little town of Italy, (where, besides, the inhabitants had +the intelligible stimulus of beggary,) I have never been honored with +nearly such an amount of public notice. + +The next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church, +after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and, it being Sacrament +Sunday, and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a +closely filled pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of +four several sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate. +He was somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a +spectacle of Scotch manners identical with that of Burns's "Holy +Fair," on the very spot where the poet located that immortal +description. By way of further conformance to the customs of the +country, we ordered a sheep's head and the broth, and did penance +accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a fly, and set out for +Burns's farm of Moss Giel. + +Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends +over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes +on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to +point out a hawthorn, growing by the way-side, which he said was +Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, although I +have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been +celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately +came to the farm-house of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed +from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably +overshadowed by trees. The house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like +thousands of others in England and Scotland, with a thatched roof, on +which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien +growth. There is a door and one window in front, besides another +little window that peeps out among the thatch. Close by the cottage, +and extending back at right angles from it, so as to inclose the +farm-yard, are two other buildings of the same size, shape, and +general appearance as the house: any one of the three looks just as +fit for a human habitation as the two others, and all three look still +more suitable for donkey-stables and pig-sties. As we drove into the +farm-yard, bounded on three sides by these three hovels, a large dog +began to bark at us; and some women and children made their +appearance, but seemed to demur about admitting us, because the master +and mistress were very religious people, and had not yet come back +from the Sacrament at Mauchline. + +However, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of +Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling +visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we +went into the back-door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. +It showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there +were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years +old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the +people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about +us. Thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage +into the only other apartment below-stairs, a sitting-room, where we +found a young man eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did +not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way +home from church. This room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor +one, and, besides being all that the cottage had to show for a parlor, +it was a sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained +off, on occasion. The young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him +lay) to go upstairs. Up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought +us to the top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the +wretchedest little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof +under the thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. This, most +probably, was Burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of +his mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at +one time or another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight +tread. On the opposite side of the passage was the door of another +attic-chamber, opening which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses +on the floor. + +The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a +dunghill-odor, and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of +such a dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than +it appeared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe +about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics +into this narrowness and filth. Such a habitation is calculated to +make beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism +which I did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that a tiller of broad +fields, like the farmer of Mauchline, should have his abode in a +pig-sty. It is sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any +human being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his +home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, I never in the least +knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's genius, nor his heroic +merit for being no worse man, until I thus learned the squalid +hindrances amid which he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere, +and cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human +virtue. + +The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and +unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it +should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, +enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and +sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high +hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant +aspect enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the +interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall +remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it. + +Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told +us was that in which Burns turned up the mouse's nest. It is the +inclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a +rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was +whitened with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies, +everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was +the field where Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. If so, the +soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he +bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole +handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be +precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's +farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he +turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. + +From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of +which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. We skirted, +too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs +to the Boswell family,--the present possessor being Sir James Boswell, +[Sir James Boswell is now dead.] a grandson of Johnson's friend, and +son of the Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel. Our driver spoke of +Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and +similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that +poor Bozzy's booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his +ancient line. There is no male heir to the estate of Auchinleck. The +portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much +undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over +a large number of acres, is the income very considerable. + +By-and-by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass +of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge +that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from +bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the +young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth +and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest +truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her +womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. + +Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, +through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it +seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no +such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could +desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river +flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, +sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the +foot of high and precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of +Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's +song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people +ever attained it. How slight the tenure seems! A young lady happened +to walk out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a +neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in four or five +warm, rude,--at least, not refined, though rather ambitious,--and +somewhat ploughman-like verses. Burns has written hundreds of better +things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance +into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and all her race are +famous! I should like to know the present head of the family, and +ascertain what value, if any, they put upon the celebrity thus won. + +We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of +Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly +the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing +anything else worth writing about. + +There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the +rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while +frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days +past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a +stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found, +after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by, +and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely +ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through +the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief +business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are +perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell +only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of +village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an +extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the +churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead +people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular +and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless +there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by +her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline. + +Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely +gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to +be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of +Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy +of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old +gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old +family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a +fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed +proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named +Whitefoord. + +Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a +cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a +woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we +see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly +direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to +the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the +town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; +although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking +houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. +The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and +stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows +directly down into the passing tide. + +I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and +recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four +gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the +early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," +whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other +auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream +among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved +like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at +the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the +pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless +I mention, that, during the rain, the women and girls went about the +streets of Ayr barefooted to save their shoes. + +The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined +to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch +breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and +started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at +about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a road-side cottage, on which +was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its +walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and +entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a +neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls +are much over-scribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of +a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the +room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two +tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the +inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of +furniture. I have never (though I do not personally adopt this mode of +illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural +impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of +poets and heroes. + +On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait +of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of +this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute +for the ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one +other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is +the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, +even ruder than those of Shakspeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so +strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of +Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been +opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is +the little original window, of only four small panes, through which +came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side +of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, +which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in +the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest +human life which mankind then had within its circumference. + +These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance +of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; +and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and +sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The +cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and +description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a +splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began +to draw visitors to the way-side ale-house. The old woman of the house +led us through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast +dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splendid as +compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the +cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with +pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and +poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant +with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whiskey is here +quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed to draw so much of +his inspiration from that potent liquor. + +We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the +Monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A +very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and +to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds +within which the former is inclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of +the inclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because +the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to +assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared +anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at +the concluding ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns. + +The inclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an +ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and +shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an +elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, +above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,--a mere dome, +supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The +edifice is beautiful in itself; though I know not what peculiar +appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet. + +The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a +bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so +warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness +cannot be good. In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which +were reposited the two volumes of the little Pocket-Bible that Burns +gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. +It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring +to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of +each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers +is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried +to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly +treasured here. + +There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the +top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam +O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered +through the inclosed garden, and came to a little building in a +corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor +Wat,--ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable +degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the +garden, too, we again beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam +galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in +the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed +all over and around with foliage. + +When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us +that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of +the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out +from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, +which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few +steps ascend from the road-side, through a gate, into the old +graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is +wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, +though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was +there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural +pretension; no New England meeting-house has more simplicity in its +very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so +wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually +exists. By-the-by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of +witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but +the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative +faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of +rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some +priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the +consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus +made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils. + +The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent +a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for +it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each +compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on +one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is +impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, +had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs +to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they +sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from +our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns +bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth +and annexing it to the domain of imagination. And here these wretched +squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of +the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! May their rest be +troubled, till they rise and let us in! + +Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it +fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside +of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more +than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few +windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with +mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the +eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with +devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is +a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he +might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have +looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been +walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the +gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that +I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are +gray and irregular. + +The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a +modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach +the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing +the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new +bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, +and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing +wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a +lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a +kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its +high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green +banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet +and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded +banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at +this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning +some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody. + +It was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of Tam's +adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road, +and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from +that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily as might be to +Ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a +pyramid out of the sea. Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in +sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side. +But a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding +intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost +of one, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. We shall appreciate +him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as +a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary +light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a +personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his +countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had +shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. + + + * * * * * + +PASQUIN AND PASQUINADES. + +At an angle of the palace which Pius VI., (Braschi,) with paternal +liberality, built for the residence of his family, before the French +Revolution put an end to such beneficence, stands the famous statue of +Pasquin, giving its name to the square upon which it looks. It is +little more now than a mere trunk of marble, bearing the marks of +blows and long hard usage. But even in this mutilated condition it +shows traces of excellent workmanship and of pristine beauty. The +connoisseurs in sculpture praise it,[1] and the antiquaries have +embittered their ignorance in regard to it by discussions as to +whether it was a statue of Hercules, of Alexander the Great, or of +Menelaus bearing the body of Patroclus. Disabled and maimed as it is, +it is thus only the more fitting type of the Roman people, of which it +has been so long the acknowledged mouthpiece; and the epigrams and +satires which have made its name famous have gained an additional +point and a sharper sting from the patent resemblance in the condition +of their professed author to that of those for whom he spoke. + +It is said to have been about the beginning of the sixteenth century +that the statue was discovered and dug up near the place where it now +stands, and the earliest account of it seems to be that given by +Castelvetro, in 1553, in his discourse upon a _canzone_ by Annibal +Caro. He says, that Antonio Tibaldeo of Ferrara, a venerable and +lettered man, relates concerning this statue, that there used to be in +Rome a tailor, very skilful in his trade, by the name of Pasquin, who +had a shop which was much frequented by prelates, courtiers, and other +people, so that he employed a great number of workmen, who, like +worthless fellows, spent their time in speaking ill of one person or +another, sparing no one, and finding opportunity for jests in +observing those who came to the shop. This custom became so notorious +that the very persons who were hit by these sharp speeches joined in +the laugh at them, and felt no resentment; so that, if any one wished +to say a hard thing of another, he did it under cover of the person of +Master Pasquin, pretending that he had heard it said at his shop,--at +which pretence every one laughed, and no one bore a grudge. But, +Master Pasquin dying, it happened, that, in improving the street, this +broken statue, which lay half imbedded in the ground, serving as a +stepping-stone for passengers, was taken up and set at the side of the +shop. Making use of this good chance, satirical people began to say +that Master Pasquin had come back. The custom soon arose of attaching +to the statue bits of writing; and as it had been allowed to the +tailor to say everything, so by means of the statue any one might +publish what he would not have ventured to speak.[2] + +Thus did Hercules or Alexander change his name for that of Pasquin, +and soon became almost as well known throughout Europe under his new +designation as under his old. If the statue were not dug up, as is +said, until the sixteenth century, its fame spread rapidly; for, +before Luther had made himself feared at Rome, Pasquin was already +well known as the satirist of the vices of Pope and Cardinals, and as +a bold enemy of the abuses of the Church. + +But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is +its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected +series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the +popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording +indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and +of the regard in which they held their rulers. The free speech, which +was prohibited and dangerous to the living subjects of the temporal +power of the Popes, was a privilege which, in spite of prohibition, +Pasquin insisted upon exercising. Whatever precautions might be taken, +whatever penalties imposed, means were always found, when occasion +arose, to affix to the battered marble papers bearing stinging +epigrams or satirical verses, which, once read, fastened themselves in +the memory, and spread quickly by repetition. He could not be +silenced. "Great sums," said he one day, in an epigram addressed to +Paul III., who was Pope from 1534 to 1549, "great sums were formerly +given to poets for singing: how much will you give me, O Paul, to be +silent?" + + "Ut canerent data multa olim sunt vatibus aera: + Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis?" + +In his life of Adrian VI., the successor of Leo X., Paulus Jovius, not +indeed the most trustworthy of authorities, tells a story which, if +not true, might well be so. He says, that the Pope, being vexed at the +free speech of Pasquin, proposed to have him thrown into the Tiber, +thinking thus to stop his tongue; but the Spanish legate dissuaded +him, by suggesting, with grave Spanish wisdom, that all the frogs of +the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of +speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the +assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the +fatal secret about King Midas? + +Pasquin was by no means the only figure in Rome who gave expression to +thoughts and feelings which it would have been dangerous to the living +subjects of the ecclesiastical rule to utter aloud. His most +distinguished companion was Marforio, a colossal statue of an ocean or +river god, which was discovered in the sixteenth century near the +forum of Mars, from which he derived his name. Toward the end of the +same century, he was placed in the lower court of the Palazzo de' +Conservatori, on the Capitol, and here he has since remained. +Dialogues were often carried on between him and his friend Pasquin, +and a share in their conversation was sometimes taken by the Facchino, +or so called Porter of the Palazzo Piombino. In his "Roma Nova," +published in 1660, Sprenger says that Pasquin was assigned to the +nobles, Marforio to the citizens, and the Facchino to the common +people. But besides these there were the Abate Luigi of the Palazzo +Valle,--Madama Lucrezia, who still sits behind the Venetian palace +near the Church of St. Mark,--the Baboon, from which the Via Babbuino +takes its name,--and the marble portrait of Scanderbeg, the great +enemy of the Turks, on the _facade_ of the house which he at one time +occupied in Rome. Each of these personages now and then issued an +epigram or took part in the satirical talk of his companions. Such a +number of cold and secure censors is not surprising in a city like +Rome, where the checks upon open speech are so many, and where priests +and spies exercise so close a scrutiny over the thoughts and words of +men. Oppression begets hypocrisy, and a tyrant adds to the faults of +his subjects the vices of cowardice and secrecy. Caustic Forsyth, +speaking of the Romans, begins with the bitter remark, that "the +national character is the most ruined thing at Rome"; and in the same +section he adds, "Their humor is naturally caustic; but they lampoon, +as they stab, only in the dark. The danger attending open attacks +forces them to confine their satire within epigram; and thus +pasquinade is but the offspring of hypocrisy, the only resource of +wits who are obliged to be grave on so many absurdities in religion, +and respectful to so many upstarts in purple." Thus if the Romans +lampoon only in the dark, the fault is to be charged against their +rulers rather than themselves. The talent for sarcastic epigram is +hereditary with the people. The pointed style of Martial was handed +down through successive generations. The epigram in his hands was no +longer a mere inscription, an idyl, or an elegy; it had lost its +ancient grace, but it took on a new energy, and it set the model, +which the later Romans knew well how to copy, of satire condensed into +wit, in lines each of whose words had a sting. + +The first true Pasquinades--that is, the first of the epigrams which +were affixed to Pasquin, and hence derived their name--are perhaps +those which belong to the reign of Leo X. We at least have found no +earlier ones of undoubted genuineness; but satires similar to those of +Pasquin, and possibly originating with him, as they now go under the +general name of Pasquinades, were published against the Popes who +preceded Leo. The infamous Alexander VI., the Pope who has made his +name synonymous with the worst infamies that disgrace mankind, was not +spared the attacks of the subjects whom he and his children, not +unworthy of such a father, degraded and abused. Two lines could say +much:-- + + "Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit." + +"Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, this also a Sextus" (Alexander +Sextus, that is, Alexander the Sixth): "always under the Sextuses has +Rome been ruined." And as if this were not enough, another distich +struck with more directness at the vices of the Pope:-- + + "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum: + Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest." + +"Alexander sells the keys, the altars, Christ. He bought them first, +and has good right to sell."[3] + +Alexander had gained his election by bribes which he did not pay, and +promises which he did not keep; and Guicciardini tells in a few words +what use he made of his holy office, declaring, that, "with his +immoderate ambition and poisoned infidelity, together with all the +horrible examples of cruelty, luxury and monstrous covetousness, +selling without distinction both holy things and profane things, he +infected the whole world."[4] + +In 1503, after a pontificate of eleven years, Alexander died. Rome +rejoiced. Peace, which for a long time had been banished from her +borders, returned, and she enjoyed for a few days unwonted freedom +from alarm and trouble. Her happiness found expression in verse:-- + + "Dic unde, Alecto, pax haec effulsit, et unde + Tam subito reticent proelia? Sextus obit." + + "Say whence, Alecto, has this peace + shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has + the noise of battle ceased? Alexander + is dead." + +The rule of Borgia's successor, Pius III., lasting only twenty-seven +days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but +the nine years' reign of Julius II., which followed, was a period +whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and +satires to which it gave birth. The impulsive and passionate vigor of +the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises, +the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the +Papal city, are all more or less minutely told. The Pope began his +reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather +sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of +which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the +Papal state. It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he +threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of +Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that +henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul. The story was too good +to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the +one preserved by Bayle is the best:-- + + "Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves, + Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit." + + "Since the keys of Peter profit not for + battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul, + the sword will answer."[5] + +Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard +to grow, and Raphael's noble portrait of him shows what dignity it +gave to his strongly marked face. The beard was also regarded +traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul. "For me," the Pope was +represented as saying, "for me the beard of Paul, the sword of Paul, +all things of Paul: that key-bearer, Peter, is no way to my liking." + + "Huc barbam Pauli, gladium Pauli, omnia Pauli: + Claviger ille nihil ad mea vota Petrus." + +But the most savage epigram against Julius was one that recalled the +name of the great Roman, which the Pope was supposed to have adopted +in emulation of that of Alexander, borne by his predecessor:-- + + "Julius est Romae. Quid abest? Date, numina, Brutum. + Nam quoties Romae est Julius, illa perit." + + "Julius is at Rome. What is wanting? + Ye gods, give us a Brutus! For + when Julius is at Rome, the city is lost." + +Pasquin became a recognized institution, as we have said, under Leo +X., and was taken under the protection of the Roman people.[6] His +popularity was such as to lead to consequences of which he himself +complained. He was made the vehicle of the effusions of worthless +versifiers, and he was forced to cry out, "Woe is me! even the copyist +fixes his verses upon me, and every one bestows on me his silly +trifles." + +The application of these verses was alike appropriate to the life of +the Pope, or to the reigns of Alexander VI., Julius II., and the one +just beginning. + + "Me miserum! Copista etiam mihi carmina figit; + Et tribuit nugas jam mihi quisque suas." + +He seems to have been successful in putting a stop to this injurious +treatment; for not long after he declared, with a sarcasm directed +against the prominent qualities of his fellow-citizens, "There is no +better man at Rome than I. I seek nothing from any one. I am not +wordy. I sit here and am silent." + + "Non homo me melior Rome est. Ego nil peto ab ullo. + Non sum verbosus. Hic sedeo et taceo." + +It had become the custom, upon occasions of public festivity, to adorn +Pasquin with suits of garments, and with paint, forcing him to assume +from time to time different characters according to the fancy of his +protectors. Sometimes he appeared as Neptune, sometimes as Chance or +Fate, as Apollo or Bacchus. Thus, in the year 1515, he became Orpheus, +and, while adorned with the _plectrum_ and the lyre of the poet, +Marforio addressed a distich to him in his new character, which hints +at the popular appreciation of the Pope. The year 1515 was that of the +descent of Francis I, into Italy, and of the bloody battle of +Marignano. "In the midst of war and slaughter and the sound of +trumpets," said Marforio, "you sing and strike your lyre: this is to +understand the temper of your Lord." + + "Inter bella, tubas, caedes, canis ipse, lyramque + Percutis. Hoc sapere est ingenium Domini."[7] + +But the character of most of those pasquinades which belong to the +pontificate of Leo is so coarse as to render them unfit for +reproduction. A general licentiousness pervaded Rome, and the vices of +the Pope and the higher clergy, veiled, but not hidden, under the +displays of sensual magnificence and the pretended refinements of +degraded art, were readily imitated by a people taught to follow and +obey the teachings of their ecclesiastical rulers. Corruption of every +sort was common. Virtue and vice, profane and sacred things, were +alike for sale. The Pope made money by the sale of cardinalates and +traffic in indulgences. "Give me gifts, ye spectators," begged +Pasquin; "bring me not verses: divine Money alone rules the ethereal +gods." + + "Dona date, astantes; versus ne reddite: sola + Imperat aethereis alma Moneta deis." + +Leo's fondness for buffoons, with whom he mercilessly amused himself +by tormenting them and exciting them to make themselves ridiculous, is +recorded in a question put to Pasquin on one of his changes of figure. +"Why have you not asked, O Pasquil, to be made a buffoon? for at Rome +everything is now permitted to the buffoons." + + "Cur non te fingi scurram, Pasquille, rogasti? + Cum Romae scurris omnia jam liceant." + +Leo died in 1521. His death was sudden, and not without suspicion of +poison. It was said that the last offices of the Church were not +performed for the dying man, and an epigram sharply embodied the +report. "Do you ask why at his last hour Leo could not take the sacred +things? He had sold them." + + "Sacra sub extrema, si forte requiritis, hora + Cur Leo non potuit sumere: Vendiderat." + +The spirit of Luther had penetrated through the walls of Rome; and +though all tongues but those of statues might be silenced, eyes were +not blinded, nor could ears be made deaf. Nowhere was the need of +reform so felt as at Rome, but nowhere was there so little hope for +it; for the people stood in equal need of it with the Church, whose +ministers had corrupted them, and whose rulers tyrannized over them. +"Farewell, Rome!" said Pasquin. + + "Roma, vale! Satis est vidisse. Revertar + Quum leno, meretrix, scurra, cinaedus ero." + +When Leo's short-lived successor, the gloomy Fleming, Adrian VI., who +was the author of the proposal to destroy Pasquin, despatched his +nuncio to the diet of Nuremberg to oppose the progress of Luther, he +told him in his instructions to "avow frankly that God has permitted +this schism and this persecution on account of the sins of men, and, +above all, of those of the priests and the prelates of the Church." +Pasquin could not have improved on these words. And when, twenty +months after his elevation to the papacy, this hard old man died, the +inscription--which he ordered to be put upon his tomb was in words fit +to disarm the satirist:--"Here lies Adrian VI., who esteemed nothing +in his life more unhappy than that he had been called to rule": +"_Adrianus VI. hic situs est, qui nil sibi infelicius in vita quam +quod imperaret duxit." + +During the pontificate of Clement VII., Rome suffered under calamities +too terrible and too depressing to admit of the frequent display of +the humor or the satire of Pasquin. The siege and sack of the city by +the army of the Constable de Bourbon wrought too much misery to be set +in verse or to be sharpened in epigram. One shrewd jest of this time +has, indeed, been preserved. Clement was for months a prisoner in the +Castle of Sant' Angelo, unable to stir abroad. "_Papa non potest +errare_" said Pasquin, or one of his friends, with a play on the +double meaning of the last word, and a scoff at Papal pretension: "The +Pope cannot err": he is too well guarded to stray. But when the Pope +died in 1534, Pasquin did not spare his memory. He had lately changed +his physician, and taken one named Matteo Curzio or Curtius; and when +his death took place, not without suspicion of malpractice, the +satisfaction of the people was expressed by the appearance of a +portrait of this new doctor, with the inscription, in words borrowed +from the Vulgate, "_Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi!_" +"Curtius has killed Clement," said Pasquin. "Curtius, who has secured +the public health, should be rewarded." + + "Curtis occidit Clementem. Curtius auro + Donandus, per quem publica parta salus." + +Nor was this all. Pasquin declared, that, on occasion of Clement's +death, a bitter strife arose between Pluto and Saint Peter as to which +should receive the Pope:-- + + "Noluit hunc coelum, noluit hunc barathrum." + +The Saint has no place for him, and the ruler of the lower regions +fears the disturbance that he will make in hell. The quarrel is cut +short by the arrival of Clement himself upon the spot, who, finding no +entrance into heaven, declares that he will force himself into hell:-- + + "Tartara tentemus, facilis descensus Averni." + +The fifteen years of the pontificate of Clement's successor, Paul +III.,--years, for the most part, of quiet and prosperity at +Rome,--afforded ample opportunities for the display of Pasquin's +spirit. The personal character of the Pope, the exactions which he +laid upon the Romans for the profit of his favorites and his family, +and his unblushing nepotism were the subjects of frequent satire. The +Farnese palace, built in great part with stone taken from the +Colosseum, is a standing monument of the justice of Pasquin's rebukes, +the sharpness of which is concentrated in a single telling epigram. +"Let us pray for Pope Paul," said Pasquin, "for zeal for his house is +consuming him":-- + + "Oremus pro Papa Paulo, quia zelus + Domus suae comedit illum." + +At another time Marforio addressed a letter to Pasquin, in which he +tells him of the Pope's reply to an angel who had been sent to him +with the message, "Feed my sheep" "Charity begins at home," had been +the answer of the Pope. And when the Roman people had prayed Paul to +have pity on his people, Paul had replied, "It is not right to take +the children's bread and give it to dogs." + +But Pasquin was now to be brought into greater notoriety than ever. In +spite of the efforts of the successors of Adrian, the Reformation had +rapidly advanced, and the Reformers, scorning no weapons that might +serve their cause, determined to turn the wit of Pasquin to their +account. In the year 1544, a little, but thick, volume appeared, with +the title, "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." It bore no name of editor or +printer, and professed to be published at Eleutheropolis, the City of +Freedom, or, as it might be rendered in a free translation, the City +of _Luther_. Its 637 pages were filled with satire; it was not merely +a collection of Pasquin's sayings, but it contained epigrams and +dialogues derived from other sources as well. The book was of a kind +to be popular, as well as to excite the bitterest aversion of the +adherents of the Roman Church. It long since became a volume of +excessive rarity, most of the copies having been destroyed by zealous +Romanists. The famous scholar, Daniel Heinsius, within a century after +its publication, believed that a copy which he purchased, at a cost of +a hundred ducats, was the only one remaining in the world, and he +inscribed the following lines upon one of its blank pages:-- + + "Roma meos fratres igni dedit. Unica Phoenix + Vivo, aureis venio centum Heinsio." + + "Rome gave my brothers to the fire. + A solitary Phoenix, I survive, and at cost + of a hundred gold pieces I come to Heinsius." + +But Heinslus was mistaken in supposing his copy to be unique; and +bibliographers of later date, while marking the rarity of the book, +have recorded its existence in various libraries. At this moment two +copies are lying before us, probably the only copies in America.[8] + +The editor of this publication was the Piedmontese scholar and +Reformer, Coelius Secundus Curio. His early life had been eventful, +and he had experienced the tender mercies of the Roman Church. He had +been persecuted, his property had been seized, he himself compelled to +fly, on account of his liberal views. He had been in the prisons of +the Inquisition, from which he had escaped only by a successful and +ingenious stratagem. At length, wearied with contention, he took up +his abode in Protestant Switzerland, where he passed in quiet the +latter years of his useful and honored life.[9] It was while here that +he compiled this book, and sent it as a missile into the camp of his +opponents, the enemies of freedom of thought and of the right of +private judgment. From this time Pasquin's fame became universal. The +words _pasquil_ or _pasquinade_ were adopted info almost every +European tongue, and soon embraced in their widening signification all +sorts of satiric epigrams. A great part of the volume published by +Curio is made up, indeed, of attacks on the Roman Church which have no +connection with Pasquin as their author. The style and the subject of +many of them betray a German origin; and some of the longer pieces so +closely resemble, in point, in humor, and in expression, the +celebrated "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," that there can be little +doubt that Ulrich von Hutten, or some one of his coadjutors in that +clever satire on the monks and clergy, had a hand in their +composition.[10] + +But, leaving the pasquinades of other people, let us come back to the +sayings of Pasquin himself. No one has surpassed him in his own way, +and his store of epigrams, illustrating life and manners at Rome, is +abundant. The pontificate of Sixtus V., from 1585 to 1590, was full of +material for his wit. The only man in Rome who did not tremble under +the rod with which this hard old monk ruled his people and the Church +was the free-spoken marble jester. The very morning after the election +of Sixtus, Pasquin appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the +question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am +taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three +cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new +Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his +adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been +deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick their teeth at +leisure. + +Leti, in his entertaining and gossipping life of this most merciless +of Popes, tells a story of another pasquinade, which exhibits the +temper of Sixtus. One morning Pasquin appeared clothed in a very dirty +shirt, and, upon being asked by Marforio, why he wore such foul linen, +replied, he could get no other, for the Pope had made his washerwoman +a princess,--meaning thereby the Pope's sister, Donna Camilla, who had +formerly been a laundress, but was now established with a fortune and +a palace. "This stinging piece of raillery was carried directly to his +Holiness, who ordered a strict search to be made for the author, but +to no purpose. Upon which he stuck up printed papers in all the public +places of the city, promising, upon the word of a Pope, to give the +author of the pasquinade a thousand pistoles and his life, provided he +would discover himself, but threatened to hang him, if he was found +out by any one else, and offered the thousand pistoles to the +informer." Upon this the author was simple enough to make confession +and to demand the money. Sixtus paid him the sum, and then, saying +that he had indeed promised him his life, but not freedom from +punishment, ordered his hands to be cut off, and his tongue to be +bored, "to prevent him from being so witty for the future." This act, +says Leti, "filled every one with terror and amazement." And well +might such a piece of Oriental barbarity excite the horror of the +Romans.[11] Pasquin, however, was not alarmed, and a few days +afterward he appeared holding a wet shirt to dry in the sun. It was a +Sunday morning, and Marforio, naturally surprised at such a violation +of the day, asked him why he could not wait till Monday before drying +it Pasquin answered, that there was no time to lose; for, if he waited +till to-morrow to dry his shirt, he might have to pay for the +sunshine;--hinting at the heavy taxes which Sixtus had laid upon the +necessaries of life, and from which the sunshine itself might not long +be exempt. + +It was near about this time that a caricature was circulated in Rome, +representing Sixtus as King Stork and the Romans as frogs vainly +attempting to escape from his devouring beak. _Merito haec patimur_, +"We suffer deservedly," was the legend of the picture, and the moral +it conveyed was a true one. Rome was in such a state as to require the +harshest applications, and the despotic severity of Sixtus did much to +restore decency and security to life. He left the Romans in a far +better condition than he found them; and it would have been well for +Rome, if among his successors there had been more to follow his +example in repressing vice and violence,--in a word, had there been +more King Storks and fewer King Logs. + +The most poetic of pasquinades, and one in which wit rises into +imagination, belongs to the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1623-1644.) +This Pope issued a bull excommunicating all persons who took snuff in +the churches of Seville; whereupon Pasquin quoted the following verse +from Job (xiii. 25):--"_Contra folium_ _quod vento rapitur ostendis +potentiam tuam? et stipulam siccam persequeris?_" + +This is a very model of satire in its kind, and of a higher kind than +the pasquil, which Coleridge quotes as an example of wit, upon the +Pope who had employed a committee to rip up the errors of his +predecessors. + +"Some one placed a pair of spurs on the statue of St. Peter, and a +label from the opposite statue of St. Paul. + +"_St. Paul_. Whither, then, are you bound? + +"_St. Peter_. I apprehend danger here;--they'll soon call me in +question for denying my Master. + +"_St. Paul_. Nay, then, I had better be off, too; for they'll question +me for having persecuted the Christians before my conversion."[12] + +In his distinction between the wit of thoughts, of words, and of +images, Coleridge asserts that the first belongs eminently to the +Italians. Such broad assertions are always open to exceptions, and +Pasquin shows that the Romans at least are not less clever in the wit +of words than in that of thoughts. Take, for example, the jest on +Innocent X. which Howel reports in one of his entertaining letters. +This Pope, who, says the candid historian, Mosheim, "to a profound +ignorance of all those things which it was necessary for a Christian +bishop to know, joined the most shameless indolence and the most +notorious profligacy," abandoned his person, his dignity, and his +government to the disposal of Donna Olympia Maldachini, the widow of +his brother. The portrait of the Pope may be seen in the Doria Gallery +at Rome; for it is still esteemed an honor by the noble family to +which the gallery belongs to be able to trace a relationship to a +Pope, even though so vile a one as Innocent "_Magis amat papa Olympiam +quam Olympum_" said Pasquin; and the pun still clings to the memory of +him whom his authorized biographer calls "_religiosissimo nelle cose +divine e prudentissimo nelle umane."_ But superlatives often have a +value in inverse ratio to their intention. There is a curious story +told by the Catholic historian, Novaes, that, after the death of +Innocent, which took place in 1655, no one could be found willing to +assume the charge of burying him. Word was sent to Donna Olympia that +she should provide a coffin for the corpse; but she replied that she +was only a poor widow. Of the cardinals he had made, of the relations +he had enriched, none was to be found who had charity enough to treat +his remains with decency. His body was taken to a room where some +masons were at work, and one of them out of compassion put a tallow +candle at its head, while another, fearing lest the mice, of which +there were many in the apartment, might disturb the corpse, secured a +person to watch it through the night. At length one of the officers of +the court procured a cheap coffin, and one of the canons of Saint +Peter's gave five crowns to pay the expenses of the burial.[13] A +moralist might comment on this story, and might compare it with +another which is told in a life of Innocent, written during the reign +of his successor, and published with approval at Rome. In this we are +told that at the time of his death a marvellous prodigy was observed; +for that, when his corpse was borne on a bier from Monte Cavallo to +the Vatican, at the moment of a violent storm of wind and rain, not a +drop of water fell upon it, but the bier remained perfectly dry, and +the torches with which it was accompanied were none of them +extinguished. What wonder, that, after this, it is added, "that his +memory is venerated in many places at Rome"?[14] Of all the +troublesome race of panegyrists, the Roman variety is the most +ingenious and the least to be trusted. + +When Bishop Burnet was travelling in Italy, in the year 1686, the +doctrines of the Spanish priest Molinos, the founder of the famous +sect of Quietists, had lately become the object of attack of the +Jesuits and of suspicion at the Papal Court. His system of mystical +divinity is still of interest from its connection with the lives of +Fenelon and Madame Guyon, if not from its intrinsic character. Like +most other mystical doctrines, his teachings seem to have been open to +the charge, that, while professedly based on the highest spirituality, +they had a direct tendency to encourage sensuality in its most +dangerous form. Molinos was at first much favored at Rome and by the +Pope himself; but at the time of Burnet's journey he was in the +custody of the Holy Office, while his books were undergoing the +examination which finally led to the formal condemnation of +sixty-eight propositions contained in them, to the renunciation of +these propositions by their author, and to his being sentenced to +perpetual imprisonment Burnet relates that it happened "in one week +that one man had been condemned to the galleys for somewhat he had +said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos +was clapt in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in this, that +men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness. The +Pasquinade upon all this was, "_Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo, +impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all' Sant Uffizio. Eh! che bisogna +fare?_" "If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we +stay quiet, the Inquisition. Eh! what must we do, then?" + +With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material +was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar +talent. Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for +rebuke. Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained. "Do you +wonder," said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his +changes of character, "do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a +new figure? It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the +falling back of men. He who would be pious must depart from Rome." + + "Praeteriens, forsan miraris, turba, quotannis + Cur me Roma novam mutet in effigiem. + Hoc urbis mores varios, hominumque recessus + Indicat: ergo abeat qui cupit esse pius." + +During the eighteenth century Italy did not abound in poets or wits, +and Master Pasquin seems to have shared in the dulness of the times. +Toward its end, however, when Pius VI. was building the palace under +the corner of which the statue was to find shelter, the marble +representative of the tailor watched his proceedings with sharp +observation. Long ago he had rebuked the nepotism of the Popes, but +Pius had forgotten his epigrams. "Cerberus," he had said, "had three +mouths with which he barked; but you have three, or even four, which +bark not, but devour." + + "Tres habuit fauces, et terno Cerberus ore + Latratus intra Tartara nigra dabat. + Et tibi plena fame tria sunt vel quatuor ora + Quae nulli latrant, quemque sed illa vorant." + +Every one who has been in Rome remembers how often, on the repairs of +ancient monuments, and on the pedestals of statues or busts, are to be +seen the words, "_Munificentia Pii Sexti_" thrusting themselves into +notice, and occupying the place which should be filled with some +nobler inscription. The bad taste and impertinence of this epigraph +are often enhanced by the slightness of the work or the gift which it +commemorates. During a season of dearth at Rome, in the time of Pius, +when the bakers had reduced the size of their loaves, Pasquin took the +opportunity to satirize the selfishness and vanity of the Pope, by +exhibiting one of these diminished loaves bearing the familiar words, +"_Munificentia Pii VI._" + +The French Revolution, the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, the +brilliant essays of liberalism of Pius IX., the Republic, the siege of +Rome, the reactionary government of late years, have alike supplied +matter for Master Pasquin, which he has shaped according to the +fashion of the times. He still pursues his ancient avocation. _Res acu +tetigit._ But the point of the needle is not the means by which the +rents in the garment of Rome are to be mended,--much less by which her +wounds are to be cauterized and healed. The sharp satiric tongue may +prick her moral sense into restlessness, but the Roman spirit is not +thus to be roused to action. Still Pasquin deserves credit for his +efforts; and while other liberty is denied, the Romans may be glad +that there is a single voice that cannot be silenced, and a single +censor who is not to be corrupted. + +[Footnote 1: Bernini, being asked what was the most beautiful statue +in Rome, replied, "That of Pasquin." This reply the sensible Milizia +taxes with affectation,--saying, that, although an artist may discover +in the work some marks of good design, it is now too maimed to pass +for a beautiful statue. Possibly Bernini was thinking of his own works +in comparison with it.] + +[Footnote 2: Andreas Schott,--who published an Itinerary of Italy +about the beginning of the seventeenth century, copies this account, +and adds,--"At present this custom is prohibited under the heaviest +penalties."] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Piozzi, in her amusing _Journey through Italy_, ii. +113, quotes these verses and gives a translation of them which shows +that she quite mistook their point. In spite of her quoting Latin, +Greek, and even on occasion Hebrew, her scholarship was not very +accurate or deep.] + +[Footnote 4: The Historie of Guicciardin, reduced into English by +Geffray Fenton. 1579. p. 308. Another epigram of barbarous bitterness +against Alexander refers, if we understand it aright, to one of the +gloomiest events of his pontificate, the murder of his son Giovanni, +Duca di Gandia, by his other son, Caesar Borgia. Giovanni was killed +at night, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, from which it was +recovered the next morning. + + Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sexte, putemus, + Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum." + + "Lest we should not fancy you, O Sextus, + a fisher of men, you fish for your own son + with nets."] + +[Footnote 5: Vasari relates, that Michel Angelo, when he was making +the bronze statue of Julius, at Bologna, having asked the Pope if he +should put a book in his left hand,--"No," replied the fiery old man, +"put a sword in it, for I know not letters": "_Mettivi una spada, che +io non so lettere._"] + +[Footnote 6: At the beginning of his pontificate, upon occasion of +Leo's taking possession of the Lateran with a solemn procession, an +arch of triumph was erected at the bridge of Sant' Angelo, which bore +an inscription worthy of the tailor's successor:-- + + "Olim habuit Cypria sua tempera, tempora Mavors + Olim habuit, sua nunc tempora Pallas habet." + + "Venus once had her time, Mars also has + had his, but now Minerva rules."] + +[Footnote 7: In Murray's _Handbook for Rome_, a book for the most part +of great accuracy, there is a curious blunder in the account of +Pasquin. It is said, that, "on the election of Pope Leo X., in 1440, +the following satirical acrostic appeared, to mark the date +MCCCCXL:--'_Multi caeci cardinales creaverunt caecum decimum (X) +Leonem:_ 'Many blind cardinals have created a tenth blind Lion.'" Now +in 1440 Leo was not born, and no Pope was chosen in that year. Leo was +not made Pope till 1513, and the acrostic has apparently nothing to do +with the date of his accession to the pontificate.] + +[Footnote 8: One of those copies was formerly in the Royal Library at +Munich, and sold as a duplicate. The other has the bookplate of the +Baron de Warenghien. Colonel Stanley's copy sold for L11 lls. The book +was printed at Basle, by Jean Oporin. See Clement, _Bibl. Cur. Hist, +et Crit._, vii. 371. See also, for an account of it, Salleugre, _M.m. +de Litt._, ii. 6, 203; and Schelhorn, _Amoen. Lit._, iii. 151.] + +[Footnote 9: An entertaining and curious account of Curio and his +family is to be found in a commemorative oration delivered in 1570 +before the Academy of Basle by Stupanus, and printed by Schelhorn in +_Amoen. Lit._, Tom. xiv.] + +[Footnote 10: In two or three of the dialogues Hutten is introduced as +one of the speakers; and several of the poetic epigrams are ascribed +to him by name.] + +[Footnote 11: In Luther's _Table-Talk_, he says, "Whoso in Rome is +heard to speak one word against the Pope received either a +Strappecordo or is punished with death, for his name is _Noli me +tangere._" Pasquin himself has hardly said a shrewder saying than +this. _Noli me tangere_ is the name under which Pius IX. pleads +against the diminution of his temporal power, while he threatens his +opponents with the Strappecorde.] + +[Footnote 12: _Lectures upon Shakespeare and other Dramatists_, ii. +90.] + +[Footnote 13: Novaes, x. 56. Artaud de Montor, _Hist. des Pont. Rom._, +v. 523.] + +[Footnote 14: _Vita d' Innocenzio X._, dal Cav. Ant. Bagatta.] + + * * * * * + + +THE SUMMONS. + + My ear is full of summer sounds, + With summer sights my languid eye; + Beyond the dusty village bounds + I loiter in my daily rounds, + And in the noon-time shadows lie. + + The wild bee winds his drowsy horn, + The bird swings on the ripened wheat, + The long, green lances of the corn + Are tilting in the winds of morn, + The locust shrills his song of heat. + + Another sound my spirit hears, + A deeper sound that drowns them all,-- + A voice of pleading choked with tears, + The call of human hopes and fears, + The Macedonian cry to Paul! + + The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; + I know the word and countersign; + Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, + Where stand or fall her friends or foes, + I know the place that should be mine. + + Shamed be the hands that idly fold, + And lips that woo the reed's accord, + When laggard Time the hour has tolled + For true with false and new with old + To fight the battles of the Lord! + + O brothers! blest by partial Fate + With power to match the will and deed, + To him your summons comes too late, + Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, + And has no answer but God-speed! + + * * * * * + + +DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. + +The origin of species, like all origination, like the institution of +any other natural state or order, is beyond our immediate ken. We see +or may learn how things go on; we can only frame hypotheses as to how +they began. + +Two hypotheses divide the scientific world, very unequally, upon the +origin of the existing diversity of the plants and animals which +surround us. One assumes that the actual kinds are primordial; the +other, that they are derivative. One, that all kinds originated +supernaturally and directly as such, and have continued unchanged in +the order of Nature; the other, that the present kinds appeared in +some sort of genealogical connection with other and earlier kinds, +that they became what they now are in the course of time and in the +order of Nature. + +Or, bringing in the word _species_, which is well defined as "the +perennial succession of individuals," commonly of very like +individuals,--as a close corporation of individuals perpetuated by +generation, instead of election,--and reducing the question to +mathematical simplicity of statement: species are lines of individuals +coming down from the past and running on to the future,--lines +receding, therefore, from our view in either direction. Within our +limited view they appear to be parallel lines, as a general thing +neither approaching to nor diverging from each other. The first +hypothesis assumes that they were parallel from the unknown beginning +and will be to the unknown end. The second hypothesis assumes that the +apparent parallelism is not real and complete, at least aboriginally, +but approximate or temporary; that we should find the lines convergent +in the past, if we could trace them far enough; that some of them, if +produced back, would fall into certain fragments of lines, which have +left traces in the past, lying not exactly in the same direction, and +these farther back into others to which they are equally unparallel. +It will also claim that the present lines, whether on the whole really +or only approximately parallel, sometimes fork or send off branches on +one side or the other, producing new lines, (varieties,) which run for +a while, and for aught we know indefinitely, when not interfered with, +near and approximately parallel to the parent line. This claim it can +establish; and it may also show that these close subsidiary lines may +branch or vary again, and that those branches or varieties which are +best adapted to the existing conditions may be continued, while others +stop or die out. And so we may have the basis of a real _theory_ of +the _diversification_ of species; and here, indeed, there is a real, +though a narrow, established ground to build upon. But, as systems of +organic Nature, both are equally _hypotheses_, are suppositions of +what there is no proof of from experience, assumed in order to account +for the observed phenomena, and supported by such indirect evidence as +can be had. Even when the upholders of the former and more popular +system mix up revelation with scientific discussion,--which we decline +to do,--they by no means thereby render their view other than +hypothetical. Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by +Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we +call secondary causes. The record of the fiat--"Let the earth bring +forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "and it was so"; "let the +earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and +creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was +so"--seems even to imply them. Agreeing that they were formed of "the +dust of the ground" and of thin air only leads to the conclusion that +the pristine individuals were corporeally constituted like existing +individuals, produced through natural agencies. To agree that they +were created "after their kinds" determines nothing as to what were +the original kinds, nor in what mode, during what time, and in what +connections it pleased the Almighty to introduce the first individuals +of each sort upon the earth. Scientifically considered, the two +opposing doctrines are equally hypothetical. + +The two views very unequally divide the scientific world; so that +believers in "the divine right of majorities" need not hesitate which +side to take, at least for the present. Up to a time within the memory +of a generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the nature of +light very unequally divided the scientific world. But the small +minority has already prevailed: the emission theory has gone out; the +undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation, has reached high +tide, and is now the pervading, the fully established system. There +was an intervening time during which most physicists held their +opinions in suspense. + +The adoption of the undulatory theory of light called for the +extension of the same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and +this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material +connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute +suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not +already established as a system, it promises soon to become so. At +least, it is generally received as a tenable and probably true +hypothesis. + +Parallel to this, however less cogent the reasons, Darwin and others, +having shown it likely that some varieties of plants or animals have +diverged in time into cognate species, or into forms as different as +species, are led to infer that all species of a genus may have thus +diverged from a common stock, and thence to suppose a higher community +of origin in ages still farther back, and so on. Following the safe +example of the physicists, and acknowledging the fact of the +diversification of a once homogeneous species into varieties, we may +receive the theory of the evolution of these into species, even while +for the present we hold the hypothesis of a further evolution in cool +suspense or in grave suspicion. In respect to very many questions a +wise man's mind rests long in a state neither of belief nor of +unbelief. But your intellectually short-sighted people are apt to be +preternaturally clear-sighted, and to find their way very plain to +positive conclusions upon one side or the other of every mooted +question. + +In fact, most people, and some philosophers, refuse to hold questions +in abeyance, however incompetent they may be to decide them. And, +curiously enough, the more difficult, recondite, and perplexing the +questions or hypotheses are, such, for instance, as those about +organic Nature, the more impatient they are of suspense. Sometimes, +and evidently in the present case, this impatience grows out of a fear +that a new hypothesis may endanger cherished and most important +beliefs. Impatience under such circumstances is not unnatural, though +perhaps needless, and, if so, unwise. + +To us the present revival of the derivative hypothesis, in a more +winning shape than it ever before had, was not unexpected. We wonder +that any thoughtful observer of the course of investigation and of +speculation in science should not have foreseen it, and have learned +at length to take its inevitable coming patiently; the more so as in +Darwin's treatise it comes in a purely scientific form, addressed only +to scientific men. The notoriety and wide popular perusal of this +treatise appear to have astonished the author even more than the book +itself has astonished the reading world. Coming, as the new +presentation does, from a naturalist of acknowledged character and +ability, and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not +always been reciprocated, we have thought it simply right to set forth +the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could. There are plenty +to decry it, and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack. For the +arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse +publications which Darwin's volume has already called out, and +especially to those reviews which propose directly to refute it. +Taking various lines and reflecting very diverse modes of thought, +these hostile critics may be expected to concentrate and enforce the +principal objections which can be brought to bear against the +derivative hypothesis in general, and Darwin's new exposition of it in +particular. + +Upon the opposing side of the question we have read with attention, 1. +an article in the "North American Review" for April last; 2. one in +the "Christian Examiner," Boston, for May; 3. M. Pictet's article in +the "Bibliotheque Universelle," which we have already made +considerable use of, which seems throughout most able and correct, and +which in tone and fairness is admirably in contrast with, 4. the +article in the "Edinburgh Review" for May, attributed--although +against a large amount of internal presumptive evidence--to the most +distinguished British comparative anatomist; 5. an article in the +"North British Review" for May; 6. finally, Professor Agassiz has +afforded an early opportunity to peruse the criticisms he makes in the +forthcoming third volume of his great work by a publication of them in +advance in the "American Journal of Science" for July. + +In our survey of the lively discussion which has been raised, it +matters little how our own particular opinions may incline. But we may +confess to an impression, thus far, that the doctrine of the permanent +and complete immutability of species has not been established, and may +fairly be doubted. We believe that species vary, and that "Natural +Selection" works; but we suspect that its operation, like every +analogous natural operation, may be limited by something else. Just as +every species by its natural rate of reproduction would soon fill any +country it could live in, but does not, being checked by some other +species or some other condition,--so it may be surmised that Variation +and Natural Selection have their Struggle and consequent Check, or are +limited by something inherent in the constitution of organic beings. +We are disposed to rank the derivative hypothesis in its fulness with +the nebular hypothesis, and to regard both as allowable, as not +unlikely to prove tenable in spite of some strong objections, but as +not therefore demonstrably true. Those, if any there be, who regard +the derivative hypothesis as satisfactorily proved must have loose +notions as to what proof is. Those who imagine it can be easily +refuted and cast aside must, we think, have imperfect or very +prejudiced conceptions of the facts concerned and of the questions at +issue. + +We are not disposed nor prepared to take sides for or against the new +hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to +watch the discussion, and criticize those objections which are +seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who +have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed +with a sense of their great inequality. Some strike us as excellent +and perhaps unanswerable; some, as incongruous with other views of the +same writers; others, when carried out, as incompatible with general +experience or general beliefs, and therefore as proving too much; +still others, as proving nothing at all: so that, on the whole, the +effect is rather confusing and disappointing. We certainly expected a +stronger adverse case than any which the thorough-going opposers of +Darwin appear to have made out. Wherefore, if it be found that the new +hypothesis has grown upon our favor as we proceeded, this must be +attributed not so much to the force of the arguments of the book +itself as to the want of force of several of those by which it has +been assailed. Darwin's arguments we might resist or adjourn; but some +of the refutations of it give us more concern than the book itself +did. + +These remarks apply mainly to the philosophical and theological +objections which have been elaborately urged, almost exclusively by +the American reviewers. The "North British" reviewer, indeed, roundly +denounces the book as atheistical, but evidently deems the case too +clear for argument. The Edinburgh reviewer, on the contrary, scouts +all such objections,--as well he may, since he records his belief in +"a continuous creative operation," "a constantly operating secondary +creational law," through which species are successively produced; and +he emits faint, but not indistinct, glimmerings of a transmutation +theory of his own;[1] so that he is equally exposed to all the +philosophical objections advanced by Agassiz, and to most of those +urged by the other American critics, against Darwin himself. + +Proposing now to criticize the critics, so far as to see what their +most general and comprehensive objections amount to, we must needs +begin with the American reviewers, and with their arguments adduced to +prove that a derivative hypothesis _ought not to be true_, or is not +possible, philosophical, or theistic. + +It must not be forgotten that on former occasions very confident +judgments have been pronounced by very competent persons, which have +not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth +century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as +philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other +objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. +The nebular hypothesis--a natural consequence of the theory of +gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and +astronomical discovery--has been denounced as atheistical even down to +our own day. But it is now largely adopted by the most theistical +natural philosophers as a tenable and perhaps sufficient hypothesis, +and where not accepted is no longer objected to, so far as we know, on +philosophical or religious grounds. + +The gist of the philosophical objections urged by the two Boston +reviewers against an hypothesis of the derivation of species--or at +least against Darwin's particular hypothesis--is, that it is +incompatible with the idea of any manifestation of design in the +universe, that it denies final causes. A serious objection this, and +one that demands very serious attention. + +The proposition, that things and events in Nature were not designed to +be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism. +Yet most people believe that some were designed and others were not, +although they fall into a hopeless maze whenever they undertake to +define their position. So we should not like to stigmatize as +atheistically disposed a person who regards certain things and events +as being what they are through designed laws, (whatever that +expression means,) but as not themselves specially ordained, or who, +in another connection, believes in general, but not in particular +Providence. We could sadly puzzle him with questions; but in return he +might equally puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially +designed to be what it is is one proposition; while to deny that the +Designer supernaturally or immediately made it so is another: though +the reviewers appear not to recognize the distinction. + +Also, "scornfully to repudiate" or to "sneer at the idea of any +manifestation of design in the material universe"[2] is one thing; +while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which +attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to +certain instances is quite another thing: yet the Boston reviewers, we +regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference. +Whatever be thought of Darwin's doctrine, we are surprised that he +should be charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of others, +upon such a subject. Perhaps Darwin's view is incompatible with final +causes;--we will consider that question presently;--but as to the +"Examiner's" charge, that he "sneers at the idea of any manifestation +of design in the material universe," though we are confident that no +misrepresentation was intended, we are equally confident that it is +not at all warranted by the two passages cited in support of it. Here +are the passages:-- + +"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not know that there +were many black and pied kinds, I dare say that we should have thought +that the green color was a beautiful adaptation to hide this +tree-frequenting bird from its enemies." + +"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of +inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though +we may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less +perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as +perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be +withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes +the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?" + +If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the detached extracts, +(one of them wanting the end of the sentence,) it is, if possible, +more imperceptible when read with the context. Moreover, this perusal +inclines us to think that the "Examiner" has misapprehended the +particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, of the author in +these passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against +the inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration +of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty +assumption is apt to involve,--considerations probably analogous to +those which induced Lord Bacon rather disrespectfully to style final +causes "sterile virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that +"sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section +from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary +question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, but, we +suppose, wholly unconscious of denying "any manifestation of design in +the material universe." He concludes the first sentence:-- + + ----"and consequently that it was a character of importance, and + might have been acquired through natural selection; as it is, I + have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct cause, + probably to sexual selection." + +After an illustration from the vegetable creation, Darwin adds:-- + + "The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked at as a + _direct_ adaptation for wallowing in putridity; _and so it may be_, + or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid matter; but + we should be very cautious in drawing any such inference, when we + see that the skin on the head of the clean-feeding male turkey is + likewise naked. The sutures in the skulls of young mammals have been + advanced as a beautiful adaptation for aiding parturition, and no + doubt they facilitate or may be indispensable for this act; but as + sutures occur in the skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have + only to escape from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure + has arisen from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage + of in the parturition of the higher animals." + +All this, simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain +scientifically how any designed result is accomplished savors of +impropriety. + +In the other place, Darwin is contemplating the patent fact, that +"perfection here below" is relative, not absolute,--and illustrating +this by the circumstance, that European animals, and especially +plants, are now proving to be better adapted for New Zealand than many +of the indigenous ones,--that "the correction for the aberration of +light is said, on high authority, not to be quite perfect even in that +most perfect organ, the eye." And then follows the second extract of +the reviewer. But what is the position of the reviewer upon his own +interpretation of these passages? If he insists that green woodpeckers +were specifically created so in order that they might be less liable +to capture, must he not equally hold that the black and pied ones were +specifically made of these colors in order that they might be more +liable to be caught? And would an explanation of the mode in which +those woodpeckers came to be green, however complete, convince him +that the color was undesigned? + +As to the other illustration, is the reviewer so complete an optimist +as to insist that the arrangement and the weapon are wholly perfect +(_quoad_ the insect) the normal use of which often causes the animal +fatally to injure or to disembowel itself? Either way it seems to us +that the argument here, as well as the insect, performs _hari-kari_. + +The "Examiner" adds:--"We should in like manner object to the word +_favorable_, as implying that some species are placed by the Creator +under _unfavorable_ circumstances, at least under such as might be +advantageously modified." But are not many individuals and some races +of men placed by the Creator "under unfavorable circumstances, at +least under such as might be advantageously modified"? Surely these +reviewers must be living in an ideal world, surrounded by "the +faultless monsters which _our_ world ne'er saw," in some elysium where +imperfection and distress were never heard of! Such arguments resemble +some which we often hear against the Bible, holding that book +responsible as if it originated certain facts on the shady side of +human nature or the apparently darker lines of Providential dealing, +though the facts are facts of common observation and have to be +confronted upon any theory. + +The "North American" reviewer also has a world of his own,--just such +a one as an idealizing philosopher would be apt to devise,--that is, +full of sharp and absolute distinctions: such, for instance, as the +"absolute invariableness of instinct"; an absolute want of +intelligence in any brute animal; and a complete monopoly of instinct +by the brute animals, so that this "instinct is a great matter" for +them only, since it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion +of organic Nature from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from +man on the other: most convenient views for argumentative purposes, +but we suppose not borne out in fact. + +In their scientific objections the two reviewers take somewhat +different lines; but their philosophical and theological arguments +strikingly coincide. They agree in emphatically asserting that +Darwin's hypothesis of the origination of species through variation +and natural selection "repudiates the whole doctrine of final causes," +and "all indication of design or purpose in the organic world,"--"is +neither more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that +of a blind chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or +instincts of created beings." "It is in vain that the apologists of +this hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode +and time to the Divine agency,--that all the qualities subsequently +appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, and remained +latent in the original pair." Such a view, the Examiner declares, "is +nowhere stated in this book, and would be, we are sure, disclaimed by +the author." We should like to be informed of the grounds of this +sureness. The marked rejection of spontaneous generation,--the +statement of a belief that all animals have descended from four or +five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number, or, +perhaps, if constrained to it by analogy, "from some one primordial +form into which life was first breathed."--coupled with the +expression, "To my mind it accords better with what we know of the +laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and +extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should +have been due to secondary causes," than "that each species has been +independently created,"--those and similar expressions lead us to +suppose that the author probably does accept the kind of view which +the "Examiner" is sure he would disclaim. At least, we see nothing in +his scientific theory to hinder his adoption of Lord Bacon's +Confession of Faith in this regard,--"that, notwithstanding God hath +rested and ceased from creating, [in the sense of supernatural +origination,] yet, nevertheless, He doth accomplish and fulfil His +divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as +fully and exactly by providence as He could by miracle and new +creation, though His working be not immediate and direct, but by +compass; not violating Nature, which is His own law upon the +creature." + +However that may be, it is undeniable that Mr. Darwin has purposely +been silent upon the philosophical and theological applications of his +theory. This reticence, under the circumstances, argues design, and +raises inquiry as to the final cause or reason why. Here, as in higher +instances, confident as we are that there is a final cause, we must +not be overconfident that we can infer the particular or true one. +Perhaps the author is more familiar with natural-historical than with +philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided which particular +theory about efficient cause is best founded, he meanwhile argues the +scientific questions concerned--all that relates to secondary +causes--upon purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case. +Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will finally be +adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction in hearing it denounced +as sheer atheism by the inconsiderate, and afterwards, when it takes +its place with the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment +reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event. + +Whatever Mr. Darwin's philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a +matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important +questions, whether a theory to account for the origination and +diversification of animal and vegetable forms through the operation of +secondary causes does or does not exclude design; and whether the +establishment by adequate evidence of Darwin's particular theory of +diversification through variation and natural selection would +essentially alter the present scientific and philosophical grounds for +theistic views of Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment +rendered by the two Boston reviewers--evidently able and practised +reasoners--"must give us pause." We hesitate to advance our +conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious +consideration, we are constrained to say, that, in our opinion, the +adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwin's particular +hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final +causes, utility, and special design just where they were before. We do +not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every +view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it +removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we +cannot perceive that Darwin's theory brings in any new kind of +scientific difficulty, that is, any with which philosophical +naturalists were not already familiar. + +Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the +scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species--no less than of +a theory of dynamics--must needs be the same to the theist as to the +atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to +the question of primary cause--a question which belongs to philosophy. +Wherefore, Darwin's reticence about efficient cause does not disturb +us. He considers only the scientific questions. As already stated, we +think that a theistic view of Nature is implied in his book, and we +must charitably refrain from suggesting the contrary until the +contrary is logically deduced from his positions. If, however, he +anywhere maintains that the natural causes through which species are +diversified operate without an ordaining and directing intelligence, +and that the orderly arrangements and admirable adaptations we see all +around us are fortuitous or blind, undesigned results,--that the eye, +though it came to see, was not designed for seeing, nor the hand for +handling,--then, we suppose, he is justly chargeable with denying, and +very needlessly denying, all design in organic Nature; otherwise we +suppose not. Why, if Darwin's well-known passage about the +eye[3]--equivocal or unfortunate though some of the language be--does +not imply ordaining and directing intelligence, then he refutes his +own theory as effectually as any of his opponents are likely to do. He +asks,-- + + "May we not believe that"--under variation proceeding long enough, + generation multiplying the better variations times enough, and + natural selection securing the improvements--"a living optical + instrument might be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the + works of the Creator are to those of man?" + +This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument +was made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an +intelligent First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is +asserted; and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why +must we believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a +living instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be +originated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the +fitting way? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that +by the Creator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or +necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it. +For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptations of +means to specific ends,--which is absurd enough,--but better adjusted +and more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, +human intellect) can contrive and human skill execute,--which no sane +person will believe. + +On the other hand, if Darwin even admits--we will not say adopts--the +theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the +endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate +form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be +derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite +number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and +purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born +only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his +theory,--rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,--the theistic +view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do +not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor +produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason +for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, +failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur; +but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as +upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even +over-strictly insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws, +namely, that successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at +all, from their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and +impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe that the species were +designed, and that natural propagation was designed, how can we say +that the actual varieties of the species were not equally designed? +Have we not similar grounds for inferring design in the supposed +varieties of a species, that we have in the case of the supposed +species of a genus? When a naturalist comes to regard as three +closely-related species what he before took to be so many varieties of +one species, how has he thereby strengthened our conviction that the +three forms were designed to have the differences which they actually +exhibit? Wherefore, so long as gradated, orderly, and adapted forms in +Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of +variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. +Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation +has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a +sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural +selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet +their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them +forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner +unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should +believe that the distribution was designed. + +To insist, therefore, that the new hypothesis of the derivative origin +of the actual species is incompatible with final causes and design is +to take a position which we must consider philosophically untenable. +We must also regard it as unwise or dangerous, in the present state +and present prospects of physical and physiological science. We should +expect the philosophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground; also, +until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical believer; but +we should think that the thoughtful theistic philosopher would take +the other side. Not to do so seems to concede that only supernatural +events can be shown to be designed, which no theist can admit,--seems +also to misconceive the scope and meaning of all ordinary arguments +for design in Nature. This misconception is shared both by the +reviewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses expressions +which seem to imply that the natural forms which surround us, because +they have a history or natural sequence, could have been only +generally, but not particularly designed,--a view at once superficial +and contradictory; whereas his true line should be, that his +hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the _how_ and not the +_why_ of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just +where it was before. + +To illustrate this first from the theist's point of view. Transfer the +question for a moment from the origination of species to the +origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. +Because natural, that is, "stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the +less designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our +maker,--not merely the originator of the race, but _our_ maker as +individuals,--and none the less so because it pleased Him to make us +in the way of ordinary generation. If any of us were born unlike our +parents and grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, +would the case be altered in this regard? The whole argument in +natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a +final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the +veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural +generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, +supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the +supposition of the descent of men from Chimpanzees and Gorillas, since +those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more +supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is +convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland +dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from +similar parents, would it be at all weakened, if, in tracing his +genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the +mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came +(as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for +design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the +supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary +wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is +from some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this +post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf? +And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our +present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single +organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous +natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a +cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any +dogs? Again, suppose we have two well-known and very decidedly +different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their +structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as +valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever +presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B +and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is +the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted +to, at all weakened by the discovered intermediate forms? Rather does +not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that +all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of +intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations +to be closer yet, as close as those between the various sorts of dogs, +or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as +shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any +weaker than it was in the case of A and D? Whoever contends that it +would be should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals +by generation is incompatible with design, and so take a consistent +atheistical view of Nature. Perhaps we might all have confidently +thought so, antecedently to experience of the fact of reproduction. +Let our experience teach us wisdom. + +These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from +structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual +animal or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the +history of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and +takes nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and +results; and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, +unless infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. +Testimony is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to +purpose is. Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but +may leave us in doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are +notable examples, compel belief with a force not appreciably short of +demonstration. Clearly to settle that these must have been designed +goes far towards proving that other organs and other seemingly less +explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and +clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is +a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange +contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of +certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift deposits, prove +design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to +use in animals and vegetables do not _a fortiori_ argue design. + +We could not affirm that the arguments for design in Nature are +conclusive to all minds. But we may insist, upon grounds already +intimated, that whatever they were good for before Darwin's book +appeared, they are good for now. To our minds the argument from design +always appeared conclusive of the being and continued operation of an +intelligent First Cause, the Ordainer of Nature; and we do not see +that the grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted by the +adoption of Darwin's hypothesis. We are not blind to the philosophical +difficulties which the thorough-going implication of design in Nature +has to encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them. It suffices +us to know that they are not new nor peculiar difficulties,--that, as +Darwin's theory and our reasonings upon it did not raise these +perturbing spirits, they are not bound to lay them. Meanwhile, that +the doctrine of design encounters the very same difficulties in the +material that it does in the moral world is just what ought to be +expected. + +So the issue between the skeptic and the theist is only the old one, +long ago argued out,--namely, whether organic Nature is a result of +design or of chance. Variation and natural selection open no third +alternative; they concern only the question, How the results, whether +fortuitous or designed, may have been brought about. Organic Nature +abounds with unmistakable and irresistible indications of design, and, +being a connected and consistent system, this evidence carried the +implication of design throughout the whole. On the other hand, chance +carries no probabilities with it, can never be developed into a +consistent system; but, when applied to the explanation of orderly or +beneficial results, heaps up improbabilities at every step beyond all +computation. To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The +alternative is a designed Cosmos. + +It is very easy to assume, that, because events in Nature are in one +sense accidental, and the operative forces which bring them to pass +are themselves blind and unintelligent, (all forces are,) therefore +they are undirected, or that he who describes these events as the +results of such forces thereby assumes that they are undirected. This +is the assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agassiz, who +insists that the only alternative to the doctrine, that all organized +beings were supernaturally created as they are, is, that they have +arisen _spontaneously_ through the _omnipotence of matter_.[4] + +As to all this, nothing is easier than to bring out in the conclusion +what you introduce in the premises. If you import atheism into your +conception of variation and natural selection, you can readily exhibit +it in the result. If you do not put it in, perhaps there need be none +to come out. While the mechanician is considering a steamboat or +locomotive engine as a material organism, and contemplating the fuel, +water, and steam, the source of the mechanical forces and how they +operate, he may not have occasion to mention the engineer. But, the +orderly and special results accomplished, the _why_ the movement is in +this or that particular direction, etc., are inexplicable without him. +If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have +occurred and the results we behold were undirected and undesigned, or +if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers +phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show +that such belief is atheism. But the admission of the phenomena and of +these natural processes and forces does not necessitate any such +belief, nor even render it one whit less improbable than before. + +Surely, too, the accidental element may play its part in Nature +without negativing design in the theist's view. He believes that the +earth's surface has been very gradually prepared for man and the +existing animal races, that vegetable matter has through a long series +of generations imparted fertility to the soil in order that it may +support its present occupants, that even beds of coal have been stored +up for man's benefit. Yet what is more accidental, and more simply the +consequence of physical agencies, than the accumulation of vegetable +matter in a peat-bog, and its transformation into coal? No scientific +person at this day doubts that our solar system is a progressive +development, whether in his conception he begins with molten masses, +or aeriform or nebulous masses, or with a fluid revolving mass of vast +extent, from which the specific existing worlds have been developed +one by one. What theist doubts that the actual results of the +development in the inorganic worlds are not merely compatible with +design, but are in the truest sense designed results? Not Mr. Agassiz, +certainly, who adopts a remarkable illustration of design directly +founded on the nebular hypothesis, drawing from the position and times +of revolution of the worlds so originated "direct evidence that the +physical world has been ordained in conformity with laws which obtain +also among living beings." But the reader of the interesting +exposition [5] will notice that the designed result has been brought +to pass through what, speaking after the manner of men, might be +called a chapter of accidents. A natural corollary of this +demonstration would seem to be, that a material connection between a +series of created things--such as the development of one of them from +another, or of all from a common stock--is highly compatible with +their intellectual connection, namely, with their being designed and +directed by one mind. Yet, upon some ground, which is not explained, +and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the +contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists, that, because the +members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot +be the result of a material differentiation of the objects +themselves,"[6] that is, they cannot have had a genealogical +connection. But is there not as much intellectual connection between +successive generations of any species as there is between the several +species of a genus or the several genera of an order? As the +intellectual connection here is realized through the material +connection, why may it not be so in the case of species and genera? On +all sides, therefore, the implication seems to be quite the other way. + +Returning to the accidental element, it is evident that the strongest +point against the compatibility of Darwin's hypothesis with design in +Nature is made when natural selection is referred to as picking out +those variations which are improvements from a vast number which are +not improvements, but perhaps the contrary, and therefore useless or +purposeless, and born to perish. But even here the difficulty is not +peculiar; for Nature abounds with analogous instances. Some of our +race are useless, or worse, as regards the improvement of mankind; yet +the race may be designed to improve, and may be actually improving. +The whole animate life of a country depends absolutely upon the +vegetation; the vegetation upon the rain. The moisture is furnished by +the ocean, is raised by the sun's heat from the ocean's surface, and +is wafted inland by the winds. But what multitudes of rain-drops fall +back into the ocean, are as much without a final cause as the +incipient varieties which come to nothing! Does it, therefore, follow +that the rains which are bestowed upon the soil with such rule and +average regularity were not designed to support vegetable and animal +life? Consider, likewise, the vast proportion of seeds and pollen, of +ova and young,--a thousand or more to one,--which come to nothing, and +are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and only in the same +sense, as are Darwin's unimproved and unused slight variations. The +world is full of such cases; and these must answer the argument,--for +we cannot, except by thus showing that it proves too much. + +Finally, it is worth noticing, that, though natural selection is +scientifically explicable, variation is not. Thus far the cause of +variation, or the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike the +parents, is just as mysterious as the reason why it is generally like +the parents. It is now as inexplicable as any other origination; and +if ever explained, the explanation will only carry up the sequence of +secondary causes one step farther, and bring us in face of a somewhat +different problem, which will have the same element of mystery that +the problem of variation has now. Circumstances may preserve or may +destroy the variations; man may use or direct them; but selection, +whether artificial or natural, no more originates them than man +originates the power which turns a wheel, when he dams a stream and +lets the water fall upon it. The origination of this power is a +question about efficient cause. The tendency of science in respect to +this obviously is not towards the omnipotence of matter, as some +suppose, but towards the omnipotence of spirit. + +So the real question we come to is as to the way in which we are to +conceive intelligent and efficient cause to be exerted, and upon what +exerted. Are we bound to suppose efficient cause in all cases exerted +upon nothing to evoke something into existence,--and this thousands of +times repeated, when a slight change in the details would make all the +difference between successive species? Why may not the new species, or +some of them, be designed diversifications of the old? + +There are, perhaps, only three views of efficient cause which may +claim to be both philosophical and theistic. + +1. The view of its exertion at the beginning of time, endowing matter +and created things with forces which do the work and produce the +phenomena. + +2. This same view, with the theory of insulated interpositions, or +occasional direct action, engrafted upon it,--the view that events and +operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at +the first, but that now and then, and only now and then, the Deity +puts his hand directly to the work. + +3. The theory of the immediate, orderly, and constant, however +infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause. + +It must be allowed, that, while the third is preeminently the +Christian view, all three are philosophically compatible with design +in Nature. The second is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most +thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view towards the first or +the third,--adopting the first on some occasions, the third on others. +Those philosophers who like and expect to settle all mooted questions +will take one or the other extreme. The "Examiner" inclines towards, +the "North American" reviewer fully adopts, the third view, to the +logical extent of maintaining that "_the origin of an individual_, as +well as the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained only by +the _direct_ action of an intelligent creative cause." This is the +line for Mr. Darwin to take; for it at once and completely relieves +his scientific theory from every theological objection which his +reviewers have urged against it. + +At present we suspect that our author prefers the first conception, +though he might contend that his hypothesis is compatible with either +of the three. That it is also compatible with an atheistic or +pantheistic conception of the universe is an objection which, being +shared by all physical science, and some ethical or moral, cannot +specially be urged against Darwin's system. As he rejects spontaneous +generation, and admits of intervention at the beginning of organic +life, and probably in more than one instance, he is not wholly +excluded from adopting the middle view, although the interventions he +would allow are few and far back. Yet one interposition admits the +principle as well as more. Interposition presupposes particular +necessity or reason for it, and raises the question, When and how +often it may have been necessary. It would be the natural supposition, +if we had only one set of species to account for, or if the successive +inhabitants of the earth had no other connections or resemblances than +those which adaptation to similar conditions might explain. But if +this explanation of organic Nature requires one to "believe, that, at +innumerable periods in the earth's history, certain elemental atoms +have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues," and when +the results are seen to be all orderly, according to a few types, we +cannot wonder that such interventions should at length be considered, +not as interpositions or interferences, but rather as "exertions so +frequent and beneficent that we come to regard them as the ordinary +action of Him who laid the foundations of the earth, and without whom +not a sparrow falleth to the ground."[7] + +What does the difference between Mr. Darwin and his reviewer now +amount to? If we say that according to one view the origination of +species is _natural_, according to the other _miraculous_, Mr. Darwin +agrees that "what is natural as much requires and presupposes an +intelligent mind to render it so,--that is, to effect it continually +or at stated times,--as what is supernatural does to effect it for +once."[8] He merely inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind +us that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation of matter) +were transformations or actions in and upon natural things, and will +ask how many times and how frequently may the origination of +successive species be repeated before the supernatural merges in the +natural. + +In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of a species, no less +than that of an individual, is natural. The reviewer, that the natural +origination of an individual, no less than the origination of a +species, requires and presupposes Divine power. _A fortiori_, then, +the origination of a variety requires and presupposes Divine power. +And so between the scientific hypothesis of the one and the +philosophical conception of the other no contrariety remains. "A +proper view of the nature of causation.... places the vital doctrine +of the being and the providence of a God on ground that can never be +shaken."[9] A true and worthy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to +the denunciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far as +philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If a writer must needs +use his own favorite dogma as a weapon with which to give _coup de +grace_ to a pernicious theory, he should be careful to seize it by the +handle, and not by the blade. + +We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical objection of the +"North American" reviewer, which the "Examiner" also raises, though +less explicitly. Like all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time in +the most unlimited manner. He is not peculiar in this regard. Mr. +Agassiz tells us that the conviction is "now universal among +well-informed naturalists, that this globe has been in existence for +innumerable ages, and that the length of time elapsed since it first +became inhabited cannot be counted in years." Pictet, that the +imagination refuses to calculate the immense number of years and of +ages during which the faunas of thirty or more epochs have succeeded +one another, and developed their long succession of generations. Now +the reviewer declares that such indefinite succession of ages is +"virtually infinite," "lacks no characteristic of eternity except its +name,"--at least, that "the difference between such a conception and +that of the strictly infinite, if any, is not appreciable." But +infinity belongs to metaphysics. Therefore, he concludes, Darwin +supports his theory, not by scientific, but by metaphysical evidence; +his theory is "essentially and completely metaphysical in character, +resting altogether upon that idea of 'the infinite' which the human +mind can neither put aside nor comprehend."[10] And so a theory which +will be generally objected to as much too physical is transposed by a +single syllogism to metaphysics. + +Well, physical geology must go with it: for, even on the soberest +view, it demands an indefinitely long time antecedent to the +introduction of organic life upon our earth. _A fortiori_ is physical +astronomy a branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still larger +"instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls them, both as to time +and number. Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now +relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural +philosopher informs us, "we have to regard as the results of an +infinite number of infinitely small material particles, acting on each +other at infinitely small distances,"--a triad of infinites,--and so +_physics_ becomes the most _metaphysical_ of sciences. + +Verily, on this view, + + "Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, + And nought is everything, and everything is + nought." + +The leading objection of Mr. Agassiz is likewise of a philosophical +character. It is, that species exist only "as categories of +thought,"--that, having no material existence, they can have had no +material variation, and no material community of origin. Here the +predication is of species in the subjective sense, while the inference +is applied to them in the objective sense. Reduced to plain terms, the +argument seems to be: Species are ideas; therefore the objects from +which the idea is derived cannot vary or blend, cannot have had a +genealogical connection. + +The common view of species is, that, although they are +generalizations, yet they have a direct objective ground in Nature, +which genera, orders, etc., have not. According to the succinct +definition of Jussieu,--and that of Linnaeus is identical in +meaning,--a species is the perennial succession of similar individuals +in continued generations. The species is the chain of which the +individuals are the links. The sum of the genealogically connected +similar individuals constitutes the species, which thus has an +actuality and ground of distinction not shared by genera and other +groups which were not supposed to be genealogically connected. How a +derivative hypothesis would modify this view, in assigning to species +only a temporary fixity, is obvious. Yet, if naturalists adopt this +hypothesis, they will still retain Jussieu's definition, which leaves +untouched the question as to how and when the "perennial successions" +were established. The practical question will only be, How much +difference between two sets of individuals entitles them to rank under +distinct species; and that is the practical question now, on whatever +theory. The theoretical question is--as stated at the beginning of +this long article--whether these specific lines were always as +distinct as now. + +Mr. Agassiz has "lost no opportunity of urging the idea, that, while +species have no material existence, they yet exist as categories of +thought in the same way [and only in the same way] as genera, +families, orders, classes," etc. He "has taken the ground, that all +the natural divisions in the animal kingdom are primarily distinct, +founded upon different categories of characters, and that all exist in +the same way, that is, as categories of thought, embodied in +individual living forms. I have attempted to show that branches in the +animal kingdom are founded upon different plans of structure, and for +that very reason have embraced from the beginning representatives +between which there could be no community of origin; that classes are +founded upon different modes of execution of these plans, and +therefore they also embrace representatives which could have no +community of origin; that orders represent the different degrees of +complication in the mode of execution of each class, and therefore +embrace representatives which could not have a community of origin any +more than the members of different classes or branches; that families +are founded upon different patterns of form, and embrace +representatives equally independent in their origin; that genera are +founded upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, embracing +representatives which, from the very nature of their peculiarities, +could have no community of origin; and that, finally, species are +based upon relations and proportions that exclude, as much as all the +preceding distinctions, the idea of a common descent. + +"As the community of characters among the beings belonging to these +different categories arises from the intellectual connection which +shows them to be categories of thought, they cannot be the result of a +gradual material differentiation of the objects themselves. The +argument on which these views are founded may be summed up in the +following few words: Species, genera, families, etc., exist as +thoughts, individuals as facts."[11] + +An ingenious dilemma caps the argument:-- + +"It seems to me that there is much confusion of ideas in the general +statement of the variability of species so often repeated lately. If +species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation +theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, +how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the +variability of species?" + +Now we imagine that Mr. Darwin need not be dangerously gored by either +horn of this curious dilemma. Although we ourselves cherish +old-fashioned prejudices in favor of the probable permanence, and +therefore of a more stable objective ground of species, yet we +agree--and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with Mr. Agassiz--that species, +and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, +as cognizable distinctions,--which is all that we can make of the +phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. +Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts +or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material +things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify +the present almost innumerable categories of thought, or embodiments +of Divine thoughts in material forms, or--viewed on the human side--in +forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and +differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, +orders, etc., and to our reason the inference of a Divine original? We +have no clear idea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in +saying that branches are founded upon different plans of structure, +classes upon different modes of execution of these plans, orders on +different degrees of complication in the mode of execution, families +upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities of +structure, and species upon relations and proportions. That is, we do +not perceive how these several "categories of thought" exclude the +possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or +suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of origin. Moreover, +Mr. Darwin would insinuate that the particular philosophy of +classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely +hypothetical and as little accepted as his own doctrine. If both are +pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the +one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, +there is no use in making the attempt. + +As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it upon that category of +thought which we call _chair_. This is a genus, comprising the common +chair, (_Sella vulgaris_,) the arm or easy chair, (_S. cathedra_,) the +rocking chair, (_S. oscillans_,) widely distributed in the United +States, and some others,--each of which has _sported_, as the +gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the +_species_ have no material existence, how can they vary? If +individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed +among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by +asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or +the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that +our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest +manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are +manifested in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can +we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what has no material +existence can have had no material connection and no material +variation, we should yet infer that what had intellectual existence +and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the +individuals which represent the species, we do not see how all this +shows that they may not vary. Observation shows us that they do. +Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do vary, we +safely infer that the idea or intention must have varied, and that +this variation of the individual representatives proves the +variability of the species, whether subjectively or objectively +regarded. + +Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and +one species shades off by gradations into another. And--note it +well--these numerous and successively slight variations and +gradations, far from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to +their forms, are very proofs of design. + +Again, _edifice_ is a generic category of thought. Egyptian, Grecian, +Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are well-marked species, of which each +individual building of the sort is a material embodiment. Now the +question is, whether these categories of thought may not have been +evolved, one from another, in succession, or from some primal, less +specialized, edificial category. What better evidence for such +hypothesis could we have than the variations and grades which connect +one of these species with another? We might extend the parallel, and +get some good illustrations of natural selection from the history of +architecture, the probable origin of the different styles, and their +adaptation to different climates and conditions. Two qualifying +considerations are noticeable. One, that houses do not propagate, so +as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is +of small moment on Agassiz's view, he holding that genealogical +connection is not of the essence of species at all. The other, that +the formation and development of the ideas upon which human works +proceed is gradual; or, as the same great naturalist well states it, +"while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." +But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action. + +We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general +scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, +after all, we are not so anxious just now to know whether the new +theory is well founded on facts as whether it would be harmless, if it +were. Besides, we feel quite unable to answer some of these +objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he +can. + +Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is +that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the +intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. Here all +that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of +the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, +withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his +opponents urge it,--so much so, indeed, that two of his English +critics turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with +actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar +difficulties,--as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not +in spite of them;--a handsome return for his candor! + +As to this imperfection of the geological record, perhaps we should +get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the +existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and +products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and +that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by +the New Zealand fleet on its way to explore the ruins of London, +undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a +catalogue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close of +the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a +surface exploration, what a beggarly account it must be! How many of +the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts +official reports would it be likely to contain? + +Another unanswerable question asked by the Boston reviewers is, Why, +when structure and instinct or habit vary,--as they must have varied, +on Darwin's hypothesis,--they vary together and harmoniously, instead +of vaguely. We cannot tell, because we cannot tell why either should +vary at all. Yet, as they both do vary in successive generations,--as +is seen under domestication,--and are correlated, we can only adduce +the fact. Darwin may be precluded from this answer, but we may say +that they vary together because designed to do so. A reviewer says +that the chance of their varying together is inconceivably small; yet, +if they do not, the variant individuals must perish. Then it is well +that it is not left to chance. As to the fact: before we were born, +nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took place in a certain +way. But the moment we were ushered into this breathing world, our +actions promptly conformed, both as to respiration and nourishment, to +the before unused structure and to the new surroundings. + +"Now," says the "Examiner," "suppose, for instance, the gills of an +aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a +continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?" No doubt. +But--simply contemplating the facts, instead of theorizing--we notice +that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to +be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without +supernatural interposition,--just as Darwin would have it, if the +development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as +natural as a metamorphosis. + +"Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly +inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a +cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the +animal would be no better supported than the objection. Darwin makes +very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even +poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an +elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a +squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; but might +not the length of the leap be increased by practice? + +The "North American" reviewer's position, that the higher brute +animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a +heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and +monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as +they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of +knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to +contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that +instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the +scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate +proportions,[12] we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an +animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes +himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his partner's +eggs,--which he tends and regulates the heat of about as carefully and +skilfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobion.[13] As to the +real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a +far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we +yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of +dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable portion of poor +humanity," nor indulge the hope, or, indeed, the desire, of a renewed +acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.[14] + +The assertion, that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired +structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can +refute. + +That "the human mind has become what it is out of a developed +instinct"[15] is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we +presume, would not accept. As to his having us believe that individual +animals acquire their instincts gradually,[16] this statement must +have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of +instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book. + +It has been attempted to destroy the very foundation of Darwin's +hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, +for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to +prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary +to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot +be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not +essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, we could +show, if our space permitted. + +As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as +absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and +varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. +That it subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so +designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this +sterility proves nothing against the derivative origin of the actual +species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those +forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence as those which +were always thus distinct. + +The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity +with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals, preserved in +Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St. +Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a +gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against +Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the +perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent +breed. For Darwin clearly maintains--what the facts warrant--that the +mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it +may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede +the parent form, but it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the +least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, +unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be +expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long +as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to +occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the +fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their +tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the +permanence of the common sort of fowl. + +As to the objection, that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's +theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, replaced by +higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave +below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization +is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the +contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given +space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the +conditions, seems to be aimed at, and this is effected by +diversification. + +Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative +theory, as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never +will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in +a blind faith that species--that the manifold sorts and forms of +existing animals and vegetables--"have no secondary cause." The +contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become +more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative +hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic +ground. + +Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial,--an +hypothesis thus far not untenable,--a trial just now very useful to +science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious +assailants temporarily make it so. + +One good effect is already manifest: its enabling the advocates of the +hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double +insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be +of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be +expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must +admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent +varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian +hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize a +diversity of human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such +species were primordial and supernatural in the common sense of the +word. + +The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of +materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to +be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, +but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a +line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into +the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The +wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis +leaves the argument for design, and therefore for a Designer, as valid +as it ever was;--that to do any work by an instrument must require, +and therefore presuppose, the exertion rather of more than of less +power than to do it directly;--that whoever would be a consistent +theist should believe that Design in the natural world is coextensive +with Providence, and hold fully to the one as he does to the other, in +spite of the wholly similar and apparently insuperable difficulties +which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to develop the idea +into a complete system, either in the material and organic, or in the +moral world. It is enough, in the way of obviating objections, to show +that the philosophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only +the same, as of the other. + +[Footnote 1: Whatever it may be, it is not "the homoeopathic form of +the transmutative hypothesis," as Darwin's is said to be, (p. 252, +Amer. reprint,) so happily that the prescription is repeated in the +second (p. 259) and third (p. 271) dilutions, no doubt, on Hahnemann's +famous principle, with an increase of potency at each dilution. +Probably the supposed transmutation is _per saltus_. "Homoeopathic +doses of transmutation," indeed! Well, if we really must swallow +transmutation in some form or other, as this reviewer intimates, we +might prefer the mild homoeopathic doses of Darwin's formula to the +allopathic bolus which the Edinburgh general practitioner appears to +be compounding.] + +[Footnote 2: Vide _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 475, +and _Christian Examiner_, for May, p. 457.] + +[Footnote 3: Page 188, English ed.] + +[Footnote 4: In _American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, pp. 148, +149.] + +[Footnote 5: In _Contributions to the Nat. Hist. of U. S._, Vol. i. +pp. 128, 129.] + +[Footnote 6: _Contr. Nat. Hist. U.S._, Vol. i. p. 130; and _Amer. +Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + + +[Footnote 7: _North American Review_, for April, 1860, p. 506.] + +[Footnote 8: _Vide_ mottoes to the second edition of Darwin's work.] + +[Footnote 9: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 504.] + +[Footnote 10: _North American Review_, l.c. p. 487, _et passim._] + +[Footnote 11: _In American Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 143.] + +[Footnote 12: _Vide_ article by Mr. C. Wright, in the _Mathematical +Monthly_ for May last.] + +[Footnote 13: Vide _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1860, article on +"Acclimatization," etc.] + +[Footnote 14: _Contributions; Essay on Classification_, etc., Vol. i. +pp. 60-66.] + +[Footnote 15: _North Amer. Review_, April, 1860, p. 475.] + +[Footnote 16: _Amer. Journal of Science_, July, 1860, p. 146.] + + * * * * * + + +A MODERN CINDERELLA: + +OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE. + +HOW IT WAS LOST. + +Among green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, +mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the +eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it +about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the +slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had +stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and +found them young. + +One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers +in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the +hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain +humble history began. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Di." + +And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the +open door in answer to the call. + +"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,'--there's a dear. +It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm +once fairly laid." + +As she spoke, Di pushed up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the +couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page +of her book. + +"Nan!" + +"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for +the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon +the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a +certain plain sinner. + +"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's +the only thing fit for me this hot weather." + +And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more +gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she +was drawing. + +"Little daughter!" + +"Yes, father." + +"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at +three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I +shall be in the lower garden." + +The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that +domestic purgatory on a summer day,--the kitchen. There were vines +about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it +was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied +incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which +such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the +priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories +of wasted temper, time, and toil. + +Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,--hurried, having many +cares those happy little housewives never know,--and disappointed in a +hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to +make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too +patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too +light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe +holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly +of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service +of less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward +enough. + +To and fro she went, silent and diligent, giving the grace of +willingness to every humble or distasteful task the day had brought +her; but some malignant sprite seemed to have taken possession of her +kingdom, for rebellion broke out everywhere. The kettles would boil +over most obstreperously,--the mutton refused to cook with the meek +alacrity to be expected from the nature of a sheep,--the stove, with +unnecessary warmth of temper, would glow like a fiery furnace,--the +irons would scorch,--the linens would dry,--and spirits would fail, +though patience never. + +Nan tugged on, growing hotter and wearier, more hurried and more +hopeless, till at last the crisis came; for in one fell moment she +tore her gown, burnt her hand, and smutched the collar she was +preparing to finish in the most unexceptionable style. Then, if she +had been a nervous woman, she would have scolded; being a gentle girl, +she only "lifted up her voice and wept." + +"Behold, she watereth her linen with salt tears, and bewaileth herself +because of much tribulation. But, lo! help cometh from afar: a strong +man bringeth lettuce wherewith to stay her, plucketh berries to +comfort her withal, and clasheth cymbals that she may dance for joy." + +The voice came from the porch, and, with her hope fulfilled, Nan +looked up to greet John Lord, the house-friend, who stood there with a +basket on his arm; and as she saw his honest eyes, kind lips, and +helpful hands, the girl thought this plain young man the comeliest, +most welcome sight she had beheld that day. + +"How good of you, to come through all this heat, and not to laugh at +my despair!" she said, looking up like a grateful child, as she led +him in. + +"I only obeyed orders, Nan; for a certain dear old lady had a motherly +presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me +as a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and +came to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment in the tent of +friendship." + +As he spoke, John gave his own gift in his mother's name, and bestowed +himself in the wide window-seat, where morning-glories nodded at him, +and the old butternut sent pleasant shadows dancing to and fro. + +His advent, like that of Orpheus in Hades, seemed to soothe all +unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The fire began to slacken, +the kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to +cool, the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the +collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the +change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take +compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to +lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul. He +took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish +from the closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries' +blood. + +"Oh, John, you needn't do that; I shall have time when I've turned the +meat, made the pudding, and done these things. See, I'm getting on +finely now;--you're a judge of such matters; isn't that nice?" + +As she spoke, Nan offered the polished absurdity for inspection with +innocent pride. + +"Oh that I were a collar, to sit upon that hand!" sighed +John,--adding, argumentatively, "As to the berry question, I might +answer it with a gem from Dr. Watts, relative to 'Satan' and 'idle +hands,' but will merely say, that, as a matter of public safety, you'd +better leave me alone; for such is the destructiveness of my nature, +that I shall certainly eat something hurtful, break something +valuable, or sit upon something crushable, unless you let me +concentrate my energies by knocking off these young fellows' hats, and +preparing them for their doom." + +Looking at the matter in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went +cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought +ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the blessings of her +lot. + +"Where's Sally?" asked John, looking vainly for the energetic +functionary who usually pervaded that region like a domestic +police-woman, a terror to cats, dogs, and men. + +"She has gone to her cousin's funeral, and won't be back till Monday. +There seems to be a great fatality among her relations; for one dies, +or comes to grief in some way, about once a month. But I don't blame +poor Sally for wanting to get away from this place now and then. I +think I could find it in my heart to murder an imaginary friend or +two, if I had to stay here long." + +And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her. + +"Where's Di?" asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all +at once. + +"She is in Germany with 'Wilhelm Meister'; but, though 'lost to sight, +to memory dear'; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how +clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don't understand at +all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight. Yes, +she's a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a +crowbar, and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when +the 'divine afflatus' descends upon her, I'm afraid." + +And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di's forlorn hose and inky +pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"Where is Laura?" proceeded the inquisitor. + +"Well, I might say that _she_ was in Italy; for she is copying some +fine thing of Raphael's, or Michel Angelo's, or some great creature's +or other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting +before her easel, that it's really a sight to behold, and I've peeped +two or three times to see how she gets on." + +And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish wherewith her +picturesque sister desired to prolong her artistic existence. + +"Where is your father?" John asked again, checking off each answer +with a nod and a little frown. + +"He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the +beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition +in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the +middle of each. Why, bless the dear man! I forgot it was time for the +cider. Wouldn't you like to take it to him, John? He'd love to consult +you; and the lane is so cool, it does one's heart good to look at it." + +John glanced from the steamy kitchen to the shadowy path, and answered +with a sudden assumption of immense industry,-- + +"I couldn't possibly go, Nan,--I've so much on my hands. You'll have +to do it yourself. 'Mr. Robert of Lincoln' has something for your +private ear; and the lane is so cool, it will do one's heart good to +see you in it. Give my regards to your father, and, in the words of +'Little Mabel's' mother, with slight variations,-- + + 'Tell the dear old body + This day I cannot run, + For the pots are boiling over + And the mutton isn't done.'" + +"I will; but please, John, go in to the girls and be comfortable; for +I don't like to leave you here," said Nan. + +"You insinuate that I should pick at the pudding or invade the cream, +do you? Ungrateful girl, leave me!" And, with melodramatic sternness, +John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass +like a poisoned goblet. + +Nan took it, and went smiling away. But the lane might have been the +Desert of Sahara, for all she knew of it; and she would have passed +her father as unconcernedly as if he had been an apple-tree, had he +not called out,-- + +"Stand and deliver, little woman!" + +She obeyed the venerable highway-man, and followed him to and fro, +listening to his plans and directions with a mute attention that quite +won his heart. + +"That hop-pole is really an ornament now, Nan; this sage-bed needs +weeding,--that's good work for you girls; and, now I think of it, +you'd better water the lettuce in the cool of the evening, after I'm +gone." + +To all of which remarks Nan gave her assent; though the hop-pole took +the likeness of a tall figure she had seen in the porch, the sage-bed, +curiously enough, suggested a strawberry ditto, the lettuce vividly +reminded her of certain vegetable productions a basket had brought, +and the bob-o-link only sung in his cheeriest voice, "Go home, go +home! he is there!" + +She found John--he having made a freemason of himself, by assuming her +little apron--meditating over the partially spread table, lost in +amaze at its desolate appearance; one half its proper paraphernalia +having been forgotten, and the other half put on awry. Nan laughed +till the tears ran over her cheeks, and John was gratified at the +efficacy of his treatment; for her face had brought a whole harvest of +sunshine from the garden, and all her cares seemed to have been lost +in the windings of the lane. + +"Nan, are you in hysterics?" cried Di, appearing, book in hand. "John, +you absurd man, what are you doing?" + +"I'm helpin' the maid of all work, please marm." And John dropped a +curtsy with his limited apron. + +Di looked ruffled, for the merry words were a covert reproach; and +with her usual energy of manner and freedom of speech she tossed +"Wilhelm" out of the window, exclaiming, irefully,-- + +"That's always the way; I'm never where I ought to be, and never think +of anything till it's too late; but it's all Goethe's fault. What does +he write books full of smart 'Phillinas' and interesting 'Meisters' +for? How can I be expected to remember that Sally's away, and people +must eat, when I'm hearing the 'Harper' and little 'Mignon'? John, how +dare you come here and do my work, instead of shaking me and telling +me to do it myself? Take that toasted child away, and fan her like a +Chinese mandarin, while I dish up this dreadful dinner." + +John and Nan fled like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of +remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the +potatoes' jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair. +Laura had a vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost +among the lights and shadows of Minerva's helmet, forgot to appear +till dinner had been evoked from chaos and peace was restored. + +At three o'clock, Di performed the coronation-ceremony with her +father's best hat; Laura re-tied his old-fashioned neck-cloth, and +arranged his white locks with an eye to saintly effect; Nan appeared +with a beautifully written sermon, and suspicious ink-stains on the +fingers that slipped it into his pocket; John attached himself to the +bag; and the patriarch was escorted to the door of his tent with the +triumphal procession which usually attended his out-goings and +in-comings. Having kissed the female portion of his tribe, he ascended +the venerable chariot, which received him with audible lamentation, as +its rheumatic joints swayed to and fro. + +"Good-bye, my dears! I shall be back early on Monday morning; so take +care of yourselves, and be sure you all go and hear Mr. Emerboy preach +to-morrow. My regards to your mother, John. Come, Solon!" + +But Solon merely cocked one ear, and remained a fixed fact; for long +experience had induced the philosophic beast to take for his motto the +Yankee maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" He knew things +were not right; therefore he did not go ahead. + +"Oh, by-the-way, girls, don't forget to pay Tommy Mullein for bringing +up the cow: he expects it to-night. And, Di, don't sit up till +daylight, nor let Laura stay out in the dew. Now, I believe, I'm off. +Come, Solon!" + +But Solon only cocked the other ear, gently agitated his mortified +tail, as premonitory symptoms of departure, and never stirred a hoof, +being well aware that it always took three "comes" to make a "go." + +"Bless me! I've forgotten my spectacles. They are probably shut up in +that volume of Herbert on my table. Very awkward to find myself +without them ten miles away. Thank you, John. Don't neglect to water +the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little 'Martha.' +Come"---- + +At this juncture, Solon suddenly went off, like "Mrs. Gamp," in a sort +of walking swoon, apparently deaf and blind to all mundane matters, +except the refreshments awaiting him ten miles away; and the benign +old pastor disappeared, humming "Hebron" to the creaking accompaniment +of the bulgy chaise. + +Laura retired to take her _siesta_; Nan made a small _carbonaro_ of +herself by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of +penance for past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in +which she soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping +every third stitch, and seaming _ad libitum_. If John had been a +gentlemanly creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his +feet and made a nuisance of himself by indulging in a "weed"; but +being only an uncultivated youth, with a rustic regard for pure air +and womankind in general, he kept his head uppermost, and talked like +a man, instead of smoking like a chimney. + +"It will probably be six months before I sit here again, tangling your +threads and maltreating your needles, Nan. How glad you must feel to +hear it!" he said, looking up from a thoughtful examination of the +hard-working little citizens of the Industrial Community settled in +Nan's work-basket. + +"No, I'm very sorry; for I like to see you coming and going as you +used to, years ago, and I miss you very much when you are gone, John," +answered truthful Nan, whittling away in a sadly wasteful manner, as +her thoughts flew back to the happy times when a little lad rode a +little lass in the big wheelbarrow, and never spilt his load,--when +two brown heads bobbed daily side by side to school, and the favorite +play was "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to +cover the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. +Nan sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the +battered thimble on his fingertip with increased benignity of aspect +as he heard the sound. + +"When are you going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that +disagreeable hardware concern?" demanded Di, pausing after an exciting +"round," and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a +veritable pugilistic encounter. + +"I intend to make it by plunging still deeper into 'that disagreeable +hardware concern'; for, next year, if the world keeps rolling, and +John Lord is alive, he will become a partner, and then--and then"---- + +The color sprang up into the young man's cheek, his eyes looked out +with a sudden shine, and his hand seemed involuntarily to close, as if +he saw and seized some invisible delight. + +"What will happen then, John?" asked Nan, with a wondering glance. + +"I'll tell you in a year, Nan,--wait till then." And John's strong +hand unclosed, as if the desired good were not to be his yet. + +Di looked at him, with a knitting-needle stuck into her hair, saying, +like a sarcastic unicorn,-- + +"I really thought you had a soul above pots and kettles, but I see you +haven't; and I beg your pardon for the injustice I have done you." + +Not a whit disturbed, John smiled, as if at some mighty pleasant fancy +of his own, as he replied,-- + +"Thank you, Di; and as a further proof of the utter depravity of my +nature, let me tell you that I have the greatest possible respect for +those articles of ironmongery. Some of the happiest hours of my life +have been spent in their society; some of my pleasantest associations +are connected with them; some of my best lessons have come to me from +among them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to show my gratitude +by taking three flat-irons rampant for my coat of arms." + +Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns on her hand; but Di +elevated the most prominent feature of her brown countenance, and +sighed despondingly,-- + +"Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this is! I no sooner build a +nice castle in Spain, and settle a smart young knight therein, than +down it comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth, who might fight +dragons, if he chose, insists on quenching his energies in a saucepan, +and making a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life on a series +of gridirons. Ah, if _I_ were only a man, I would do something better +than that, and prove that heroes are not all dead yet. But, instead of +that, I'm only a woman, and must sit rasping my temper with +absurdities like this." And Di wrestled with her knitting as if it +were Fate, and she were paying off the grudge she owed it. + +John leaned toward her, saying, with a look that made his plain face +handsome,-- + +"Di, my father began the world as I begin it, and left it the richer +for the useful years he spent here,--as I hope I may leave it some +half-century hence. His memory makes that dingy shop a pleasant place +to me; for there he made an honest name, led an honest life, and +bequeathed to me his reverence for honest work. That is a sort of +hardware, Di, that no rust can corrupt, and which will always prove a +better fortune than any your knights can achieve with sword and +shield. I think I am not quite a clod, or quite without some +aspirations above money-getting; for I sincerely desire that courage +which makes daily life heroic by self-denial and cheerfulness of +heart; I am eager to conquer my own rebellious nature, and earn the +confidence of innocent and upright souls; I have a great ambition to +become as good a man and leave as green a memory behind me as old John +Lord." + +Di winked violently, and seamed five times in perfect silence; but +quiet Nan had the gift of knowing when to speak, and by a timely word +saved her sister from a thunder-shower and her stocking from +destruction. + +"John, have you seen Philip since you wrote about your last meeting +with him?" + +The question was for John, but the soothing tone was for Di, who +gratefully accepted it, and perked up again--with speed. + +"Yes; and I meant to have told you about it," answered John, plunging +into the subject at once. "I saw him a few days before I came home, +and found him more disconsolate than ever,--'just ready to go to the +Devil,' as he forcibly expressed himself. I consoled the poor lad as +well as I could, telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposed +expedition, and go on as steadily as he had begun,--thereby proving +the injustice of your father's prediction concerning his want of +perseverance, and the sincerity of his affection. I told him the +change in Laura's health and spirits was silently working in his +favor, and that a few more months of persistent endeavor would conquer +your father's prejudice against him, and make him a stronger man for +the trial and the pain. I read him bits about Laura from your own and +Di's letters, and he went away at last as patient as Jacob, ready to +serve another 'seven years' for his beloved Rachel." + +"God bless you for it, John!" cried a fervent voice; and, looking up, +they saw the cold, listless Laura transformed into a tender girl, all +aglow with love and longing, as she dropped her mask, and showed a +living countenance eloquent with the first passion and softened by the +first grief of her life. + +John rose involuntarily in the presence of an innocent nature whose +sorrow needed no interpreter to him. The girl read sympathy in his +brotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendly voice that asked, +half playfully, half seriously,-- + +"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, even for an Apollo? that +Laura the artist has not conquered Laura the woman? and predict that +the good daughter will yet prove the happy wife?" + +With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to +bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with +hope deferred. + +"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things, and that I never can +forget." + +Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving the prints of two loving, +but grimy hands upon her shoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, +though rather stony-hearted regarding the cause, she fully appreciated +the effect; and John, turning to the window, received the +commendations of a robin swaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on its +ruddy breast. + +The clock struck five, and John declared that he must go; for, being +an old-fashioned soul, he fancied that his mother had a better right +to his last hour than any younger woman in the land,--always +remembering that "she was a widow, and he her only son." + +Nan ran away to wash her hands, and came back with the appearance of +one who had washed her face also: and so she had; but there was a +difference in the water. + +"Play I'm your father, girls, and remember it will be six months +before 'that John' will trouble you again." + +With which preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as +heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished +him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate. But +times were changed now; for Di grew alarmingly rigid during the +ceremony; Laura received the salute like a grateful queen; and Nan +returned it with heart and eyes and tender lips, making such an +improvement on the childish fashion of the thing, that John was moved +to support his paternal character by softly echoing her father's +words,--"Take care of yourself, my little 'Martha.'" + +Then they all streamed after him along the garden-path, with the +endless messages and warnings girls are so prone to give; and the +young man, with a great softness at his heart, went away, as many +another John has gone, feeling better for the companionship of +innocent maidenhood, and stronger to wrestle with temptation, to wait +and hope and work. + +"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dear old 'Mrs. Gummage' did +after 'David' and the 'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always have +old shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'" cried Di, with one of +her eccentric inspirations. + +Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along the dusty road, with a +sudden longing to become that auspicious article of apparel, that the +omen might not fail. + +Looking backward from the hill-top, John answered the meek shout +cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the +shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over +the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her +brown hair with gold. He waved his hat and turned away; but the music +seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer +landscape his eye saw nothing but the little figure at the gate. + +"Bless and save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a +toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines +will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm. + +Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of +mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating +themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the +squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," +and, being used to ground-and-lofty tumbling, didn't mind it. + +When the pedestrians passed, the door was decorously closed, and no +one visible but a young man, who snatched something out of the road, +and marched away again, whistling with more vigor of tone than +accuracy of tune, "Only that, and nothing more." + + * * * * * + +HOW IT WAS FOUND. + +Summer ripened into autumn, and something fairer than + + "Sweet-peas and mignonette + In Annie's garden grew." + +Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-side grove, where as a +child she had read her fairy tales, and now as a woman turned the +first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the +many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the +little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and +full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and +there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped +their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the +moss that kissed the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full +of vernal odors for the grateful sense, silvery birches shimmered like +spirits of the wood, larches gave their green tassels to the wind, and +pines made airy music sweet and solemn, as they stood looking +heavenward through veils of summer sunshine or shrouds of wintry snow. +Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood; for when she came into +its precincts, once so full of solitude, all things seemed to wear one +shape, familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in the grass, +familiar words sounded in the whisper of the leaves, and she grew +conscious that an unseen influence filled the air with new delights, +and touched earth and sky with a beauty never seen before. Slowly +these May-flowers budded in her maiden heart, rosily they bloomed, and +silently they waited till some lover of such lowly herbs should catch +their fresh aroma, should brush away the fallen leaves, and lift them +to the sun. + +Though the eldest of the three, she had long been overtopped by the +more aspiring maids. But though she meekly yielded the reins of +government, whenever they chose to drive, they were soon restored to +her again; for Di fell into literature, and Laura into love. Thus +engrossed, these two forgot many duties which even blue-stockings and +_innamoratas_ are expected to perform, and slowly all the homely +humdrum cares that housewives know became Nan's daily life, and she +accepted it without a thought of discontent. Noiseless and cheerful as +the sunshine, she went to and fro, doing the tasks that mothers do, +but without a mother's sweet reward, holding fast the numberless +slight threads that bind a household tenderly together, and making +each day a beautiful success. + +Di, being tired of running, riding, climbing, and boating, decided at +last to let her body rest and put her equally active mind through what +classical collegians term "a course of sprouts." Having undertaken to +read and know _everything_, she devoted herself to the task with great +energy, going from Sue to Swedenborg with perfect impartiality, and +having different authors as children have sundry distempers, being +fractious while they lasted, but all the better for them when once +over. Carlyle appeared like scarlet-fever, and raged violently for a +time; for, being anything but a "passive bucket," Di became prophetic +with Mahomet, belligerent with Cromwell, and made the French +Revolution a veritable Reign of Terror to her family. Goethe and +Schiller alternated like fever and ague; Mephistopheles became her +hero, Joan of Arc her model, and she turned her black eyes red over +Egmont and Wallenstein. A mild attack of Emerson followed, during +which she was lost in a fog, and her sisters rejoiced inwardly when +she emerged informing them that + + "The Sphinx was drowsy, + Her wings were furled." + +Poor Di was floundering slowly to her proper place; but she splashed +up a good deal of foam by getting out of her depth, and rather +exhausted herself by trying to drink the ocean dry. + +Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream" that often comes to girls +of seventeen, woke up to find that youth and love were no match for +age and common sense. Philip had been flying about the world like a +thistle-down for five-and-twenty years, generous-hearted, frank, and +kind, but with never an idea of the serious side of life in his +handsome head. Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismay of the +enamored thistle-down, when the father of his love mildly objected to +seeing her begin the world in a balloon with a very tender but very +inexperienced aeronaut for a guide. + +"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, and you are too unstable to +assume the part of lord and master, Philip. Go and prove that you have +prudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and I will give you my +girl,--but not before. I must seem cruel, that I may be truly kind; +believe this, and let a little pain lead you to great happiness, or +show you where you would have made a bitter blunder." + +The lovers listened, owned the truth of the old man's words, bewailed +their fate, and--yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for +love of her. He went away to build a firm foundation for his castle in +the air, and Laura retired into an invisible convent, where she cast +off the world, and regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate +of superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she +worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers. +She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly +fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane +matter, but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons, +bread-crusts, and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her +one pleasure was to sit pale and still before her easel, day after +day, filling her portfolios with the faces he had once admired. Her +sisters observed that every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or Dying Gladiator +bore some likeness to a comely countenance that heathen god or hero +never owned; and seeing this, they privately rejoiced that she had +found such solace for her grief. + +Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newly written page in her +son's heart,--his first chapter of that romance, begun in Paradise, +whose interest never flags, whose beauty never fades, whose end can +never come till Love lies dead. With womanly skill she divined the +secret, with motherly discretion she counselled patience, and her son +accepted her advice, feeling, that, like many a healthful herb, its +worth lay in its bitterness. + +"Love like a man, John, not like a boy, and learn to know yourself +before you take a woman's happiness into your keeping. You and Nan +have known each other all your lives; yet, till this last visit, you +never thought you loved her more than any other childish friend. It is +too soon to say the words so often spoken hastily,--so hard to be +recalled. Go back to your work, dear, for another year; think of Nan +in the light of this new hope; compare her with comelier, gayer girls; +and by absence prove the truth of your belief. Then, if distance only +makes her dearer, if time only strengthens your affection, and no +doubt of your own worthiness disturbs you, come back and offer her +what any woman should be glad to take,--my boy's true heart." + +John smiled at the motherly pride of her words, but answered with a +wistful look. + +"It seems very long to wait, mother. If I could just ask her for a +word of hope, I could be very patient then." + +"Ah, my dear, better bear one year of impatience now than a lifetime +of regret hereafter. Nan is happy; why disturb her by a word which +will bring the tender cares and troubles that come soon enough to such +conscientious creatures as herself? If she loves you, time will prove +it; therefore let the new affection spring and ripen as your early +friendship has done, and it will be all the stronger for a summer's +growth. Philip was rash, and has to bear his trial now, and Laura +shares it with him. Be more generous, John; make _your_ trial, bear +_your_ doubts alone, and give Nan the happiness without the pain. +Promise me this, dear,--promise me to hope and wait." + +The young man's eye kindled, and in his heart there rose a better +chivalry, a truer valor, than any Di's knights had ever known. + +"I'll try, mother," was all he said; but she was satisfied, for John +seldom tried in vain. + +"Oh, girls, how splendid you are! It does my heart good to see my +handsome sisters in their best array," cried Nan, one mild October +night, as she put the last touches to certain airy raiment fashioned +by her own skilful hands, and then fell back to survey the grand +effect. + +Di and Laura were preparing to assist at an "event of the season," and +Nan, with her own locks fallen on her shoulders, for want of sundry +combs promoted to her sisters' heads, and her dress in unwonted +disorder, for lack of the many pins extracted in exciting crises of +the toilet, hovered like an affectionate bee about two very full-blown +flowers. + +"Laura looks like a cool Undine, with the ivy-wreaths in her shining +hair; and Di has illuminated herself to such an extent with those +scarlet leaves, that I don't know what great creature she resembles +most," said Nan, beaming with sisterly admiration. + +"Like Juno, Zenobia, and Cleopatra simmered into one, with a touch of +Xantippe by way of spice. But, to my eye, the finest woman of the +three is the dishevelled young person embracing the bed-post; for she +stays at home herself, and gives her time and taste to making homely +people fine,--which is a waste of good material, and an imposition on +the public." + +As Di spoke, both the fashion-plates looked affectionately at the +gray-gowned figure; but, being works of art, they were obliged to nip +their feelings in the bud, and reserve their caresses till they +returned to common life. + +"Put on your bonnet, and we'll leave you at Mrs. Lord's on our way. It +will do you good, Nan; and perhaps there may be news from John," added +Di, as she bore down upon the door like a man-of-war under full sail. + +"Or from Philip," sighed Laura, with a wistful look. + +Whereupon Nan persuaded herself that her strong inclination to sit +down was owing to want of exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a +freak of imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffled plumage, she +ran down to tell her father of the new arrangement. + +"Go, my dear, by all means. I shall be writing; and you will be +lonely, if you stay. But I must see my girls; for I caught glimpses of +certain surprising phantoms flitting by the door." + +Nan led the way, and the two pyramids revolved before him with the +rigidity of lay-figures, much to the good man's edification; for with +his fatherly pleasure there was mingled much mild wonderment at the +amplitude of array. + +"Yes, I see my geese are really swans, though there is such a cloud +between us that I feel a long way off, and hardly know them. But this +little daughter is always available, always my 'cricket on the +hearth.'" + +As he spoke, her father drew Nan closer, kissed her tranquil face, and +smiled content. + +"Well, if ever I see picters, I see 'em now, and I declare to goodness +it's as interestin' as play-actin', every bit. Miss Di, with all them +boughs in her head, looks like the Queen of Sheby, when she went +a-visitin' What's-his-name; and if Miss Laura a'n't as sweet as a +lally-barster figger, I should like to know what is." + +In her enthusiasm, Sally gambolled about the girls, flourishing her +milk-pan like a modern Miriam about to sound her timbrel for excess of +joy. + +Laughing merrily, the two Mont Blancs bestowed themselves in the +family ark, Nan hopped up beside Patrick, and Solon, roused from his +lawful slumbers, morosely trundled them away. But, looking backward +with a last "Good night!" Nan saw her father still standing at the +door with smiling countenance, and the moonlight falling like a +benediction on his silver hair. + +"Betsey shall go up the hill with you, my dear, and here's a basket of +eggs for your father. Give him my love, and be sure you let me know +the next time he is poorly," Mrs. Lord said, when her guest rose to +depart, after an hour of pleasant chat. + +But Nan never got the gift; for, to her great dismay, her hostess +dropped the basket with a crash, and flew across the room to meet a +tall shape pausing in the shadow of the door. There was no need to ask +who the new-comer was; for, even in his mother's arms, John looked +over her shoulder with an eager nod to Nan, who stood among the ruins +with never a sign of weariness in her face, nor the memory of a care +at her heart,--for they all went out when John came in. + +"Now tell us how and why and when you came. Take off your coat, my +dear! And here are the old slippers. Why didn't you let us know you +were coming so soon? How have you been? and what makes you so late +to-night? Betsey, you needn't put on your bonnet. And--oh, my dear +boy, _have_ you been to supper yet?" + +Mrs. Lord was a quiet soul, and her flood of questions was purred +softly in her son's ear; for, being a woman, she _must_ talk, and, +being a mother, _must_ pet the one delight of her life, and make a +little festival when the lord of the manor came home. A whole drove of +fatted calves were metaphorically killed, and a banquet appeared with +speed. + +John was not one of those romantic heroes who can go through three +volumes of hairbreadth escapes without the faintest hint of that +blessed institution, dinner; therefore, like "Lady Leatherbridge," he +"partook copiously of everything," while the two women beamed over +each mouthful with an interest that enhanced its flavor, and urged +upon him cold meat and cheese, pickles and pie, as if dyspepsia and +nightmare were among the lost arts. + +Then he opened his budget of news and fed _them_. + +"I was coming next month, according to custom; but Philip fell upon +and so tempted me, that I was driven to sacrifice myself to the cause +of friendship, and up we came to-night. He would not let me come here +till we had seen your father, Nan; for the poor lad was pining for +Laura, and hoped his good behavior for the past year would satisfy his +judge and secure his recall. We had a fine talk with your father; and, +upon my life, Phil seemed to have received the gift of tongues, for he +made a most eloquent plea, which I've stored away for future use, I +assure you. The dear old gentleman was very kind, told Phil he was +satisfied with the success of his probation, that he should see Laura +when he liked, and, if all went well, should receive his reward in the +spring. It must be a delightful sensation to know you have made a +fellow-creature as happy as those words made Phil to-night." + +John paused, and looked musingly at the matronly tea-pot, as if he saw +a wondrous future in its shine. + +Nan twinkled off the drops that rose at the thought of Laura's joy, +and said, with grateful warmth,-- + +"You say nothing of your own share in the making of that happiness, +John; but we know it, for Philip has told Laura in his letters all +that you have been to him, and I am sure there was other eloquence +beside his own before father granted all you say he has. Oh, John, I +thank you very much for this!" + +Mrs. Lord beamed a whole midsummer of delight upon her son, as she saw +the pleasure these words gave him, though he answered simply,-- + +"I only tried to be a brother to him, Nan; for he has been most kind +to me. Yes, I said my little say to-night, and gave my testimony in +behalf of the prisoner at the bar, a most merciful judge pronounced +his sentence, and he rushed straight to Mrs. Leigh's to tell Laura the +blissful news. Just imagine the scene when he appears, and how Di will +open her wicked eyes and enjoy the spectacle of the dishevelled lover, +the bride-elect's tears, the stir, and the romance of the thing. +She'll cry over it to-night, and caricature it to-morrow." + +And John led the laugh at the picture he had conjured up, to turn the +thoughts of Di's dangerous sister from himself. + +At ten Nan retired into the depths of her old bonnet with a far +different face from the one she brought out of it, and John, resuming +his hat, mounted guard. + +"Don't stay late, remember, John!" And in Mrs. Lord's voice there was +a warning tone that her son interpreted aright. + +"I'll not forget, mother." + +And he kept his word; for though Philip's happiness floated temptingly +before him, and the little figure at his side had never seemed so +dear, he ignored the bland winds, the tender night, and set a seal +upon his lips, thinking manfully within himself, "I see many signs of +promise in her happy face; but I will wait and hope a little longer +for her sake." + +"Where is father, Sally?" asked Nan, as that functionary appeared, +blinking owlishly, but utterly repudiating the idea of sleep. + +"He went down the garding, miss, when the gentlemen cleared, bein' a +little flustered by the goin's on. Shall I fetch him in?" asked Sally, +as irreverently as if her master were a bag of meal. + +"No, we will go ourselves." And slowly the two paced down the +leaf-strewn walk. + +Fields of yellow grain were waving on the hill-side, and sere +corn-blades rustled in the wind, from the orchard came the scent of +ripening fruit, and all the garden-plots lay ready to yield up their +humble offerings to their master's hand. But in the silence of the +night a greater Reaper had passed by, gathering in the harvest of a +righteous life, and leaving only tender memories for the gleaners who +had come so late. + +The old man sat in the shadow of the tree his own hands planted; its +fruitful boughs shone ruddily, and its leaves still whispered the low +lullaby that hushed him to his rest. + +"How fast he sleeps! Poor father! I should have come before and made +it pleasant for him." + +As she spoke, Nan lifted up the head bent down upon his breast, and +kissed his pallid cheek. + +"Oh, John, this is not sleep!" + +"Yes, dear, the happiest he will ever know." + +For a moment the shadows flickered over three white faces and the +silence deepened solemnly. Then John reverently bore the pale shape +in, and Nan dropped down beside it, saying, with a rain of grateful +tears,-- + +"He kissed me when I went, and said a last 'good night!'" + +For an hour steps went to and fro about her, many voices whispered +near her, and skilful hands touched the beloved clay she held so fast; +but one by one the busy feet passed out, one by one the voices died +away, and human skill proved vain. Then Mrs. Lord drew the orphan to +the shelter of her arms, soothing her with the mute solace of that +motherly embrace. + + * * * * * + +"Nan, Nan! here's Philip! come and see!" + +The happy call reechoed through the house, and Nan sprang up as if her +time for grief were past. + +"I must tell them. Oh, my poor girls, how will they bear it?--they +have known so little sorrow!" + +But there was no need for her to speak; other lips had spared her the +hard task. For, as she stirred to meet them, a sharp cry rent the air, +steps rang upon the stairs, and two wild-eyed creatures came into the +hush of that familiar room, for the first time meeting with no welcome +from their father's voice. + +With one impulse, Di and Laura fled to Nan, and the sisters clung +together in a silent embrace, far more eloquent than words. John took +his mother by the hand, and led her from the room, closing the door +upon the sacredness of grief. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, we are poorer than we thought; but when everything is settled, +we shall get on very well. We can let a part of this great house, and +live quietly together until spring; then Laura will be married, and Di +can go on their travels with them, as Philip wishes her to do. We +shall be cared for; so never fear for us, John." + +Nan said this, as her friend parted from her a week later, after the +saddest holiday he had ever known. + +"And what becomes of you, Nan?" he asked, watching the patient eyes +that smiled when others would have wept. + +"I shall stay in the dear old house; for no other place would seem +like home to me. I shall find some little child to love and care for, +and be quite happy till the girls come back and want me." + +John nodded wisely, as he listened, and went away prophesying within +himself,-- + +"She shall find something more than a child to love; and, God willing, +shall be very happy till the girls come home and--cannot have her." + +Nan's plan was carried into effect. Slowly the divided waters closed +again, and the three fell back into their old life. But the touch of +sorrow drew them closer; and, though invisible, a beloved presence +still moved among them, a familiar voice still spoke to them in the +silence of their softened hearts. Thus the soil was made ready, and in +the depth of winter the good seed was sown, was watered with many +tears, and soon sprang up green with the promise of a harvest for +their after years. + +Di and Laura consoled themselves with their favorite employments, +unconscious that Nan was growing paler, thinner, and more silent, as +the weeks went by, till one day she dropped quietly before them, and +it suddenly became manifest that she was utterly worn out with many +cares and the secret suffering of a tender heart bereft of the +paternal love which had been its strength and stay. + +"I'm only tired, dear girls. Don't be troubled, for I shall be up +to-morrow," she said cheerily, as she looked into the anxious faces +bending over her. + +But the weariness was of many months' growth, and it was weeks before +that "tomorrow" came. + +Laura installed herself as nurse, and her devotion was repaid +four-fold; for, sitting at her sister's bedside, she learned a finer +art than that she had left. Her eye grew clear to see the beauty of a +self-denying life, and in the depths of Nan's meek nature she found +the strong, sweet virtues that made her what she was. + +Then remembering that these womanly attributes were a bride's best +dowry, Laura gave herself to their attainment, that she might become +to another household the blessing Nan had been to her own; and turning +from the worship of the goddess Beauty, she gave her hand to that +humbler and more human teacher, Duty,--learning her lessons with a +willing heart, for Philip's sake. + +Di corked her inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as +if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but +scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. +Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di +had undisputed sway; but if dish-pans and dusters had tongues, direful +would have been the history of that crusade against frost and fire, +indolence and inexperience. But they were dumb, and Di scorned to +complain, though her struggles were pathetic to behold, and her +sisters went through a series of messes equal to a course of "Prince +Benreddin's" peppery tarts. Reality turned Romance out of doors; for, +unlike her favorite heroines in satin and tears, or helmet and shield, +Di met her fate in a big checked apron and dust-cap, wonderful to see; +yet she wielded her broom as stoutly as "Moll Pitcher" shouldered her +gun, and marched to her daily martyrdom in the kitchen with as heroic +a heart as the "Maid of Orleans" took to her stake. + +Mind won the victory over matter in the end, and Di was better all her +days for the tribulations and the triumphs of that time; for she +drowned her idle fancies in her wash-tub, made burnt-offerings of +selfishness and pride, and learned the worth of self-denial, as she +sang with happy voice among the pots and kettles of her conquered +realm. + +Nan thought of John, and in the stillness of her sleepless nights +prayed Heaven to keep him safe, and make her worthy to receive and +strong enough to bear the blessedness or pain of love. + +Snow fell without, and keen winds howled among the leafless elms, but +"herbs of grace" were blooming beautifully in the sunshine of sincere +endeavor, and this dreariest season proved the most fruitful of the +year; for love taught Laura, labor chastened Di, and patience fitted +Nan for the blessing of her life. + +Nature, that stillest, yet most diligent of housewives, began at last +that "spring-cleaning" which she makes so pleasant that none find the +heart to grumble as they do when other matrons set their premises +a-dust. Her handmaids, wind and rain and sun, swept, washed, and +garnished busily, green carpets were unrolled, apple-boughs were hung +with draperies of bloom, and dandelions, pet nurslings of the year, +came out to play upon the sward. + +From the South returned that opera troupe whose manager is never in +despair, whose tenor never sulks, whose prima donna never fails, and +in the orchard _bona fide_ matinees were held, to which buttercups and +clovers crowded in their prettiest spring hats, and verdant young +blades twinkled their dewy lorgnettes, as they bowed and made way for +the floral belles. + +May was bidding June good-morrow, and the roses were just dreaming +that it was almost time to wake, when John came again into the quiet +room which now seemed the Eden that contained his Eve. Of course there +was a jubilee; but something seemed to have befallen the whole group, +for never had they all appeared in such odd frames of mind. John was +restless, and wore an excited look, most unlike his usual serenity of +aspect. + +Nan the cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be +extracted by any hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky +over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she +looked as if she would go off like a torpedo, at a touch; but through +all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression +in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang +like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was +always, "Philip, my king." + +John felt that there had come a change upon the three, and silently +divined whose unconscious influence had wrought the miracle. The +embargo was off his tongue, and he was in a fever to ask that question +which brings a flutter to the stoutest heart; but though the "man" had +come, the "hour" had not. So, by way of steadying his nerves, he paced +the room, pausing often to take notes of his companions, and each +pause seemed to increase his wonder and content. + +He looked at Nan. She was in her usual place, the rigid little chair +she loved, because it once was large enough to hold a curly-headed +playmate and herself. The old work-basket was at her side, and the +battered thimble busily at work; but her lips wore a smile they had +never worn before, the color of the unblown roses touched her cheek, +and her downcast eyes were full of light. + +He looked at Di. The inevitable book was on her knee, but its leaves +were uncut; the strong-minded knob of hair still asserted its +supremacy aloft upon her head, and the triangular jacket still adorned +her shoulders in defiance of all fashions, past, present, or to come; +but the expression of her brown countenance had grown softer, her +tongue had found a curb, and in her hand lay a card with "Potts, +Kettel, & Co." inscribed thereon, which she regarded with never a +scornful word for the "Co." + +He looked at Laura. She was before her easel, as of old; but the pale +nun had given place to a blooming girl, who sang at her work, which +was no prim Pallas, but a Clytie turning her human face to meet the +sun. + +"John, what are you thinking of?" + +He stirred as if Di's voice had disturbed his fancy at some pleasant +pastime, but answered with his usual sincerity,-- + +"I was thinking of a certain dear old fairy tale called 'Cinderella.'" + +"Oh!" said Di; and her "Oh" was a most impressive monosyllable. "I see +the meaning of your smile now; and though the application of the story +is not very complimentary to all parties concerned, it is very just +and very true." + +She paused a moment, then went on with softened voice and earnest +mien:-- + +"You think I am a blind and selfish creature. So I am, but not so +blind and selfish as I have been; for many tears have cleared my eyes, +and much sincere regret has made me humbler than I was. I have found a +better book than any father's library can give me, and I have read it +with a love and admiration that grew stronger as I turned the leaves. +Henceforth I take it for my guide and gospel, and, looking back upon +the selfish and neglectful past, can only say, Heaven bless your dear +heart, Nan!" + +Laura echoed Di's last words; for, with eyes as full of tenderness, +she looked down upon the sister she had lately learned to know, +saying, warmly,-- + +"Yes, 'Heaven bless your dear heart, Nan!' I never can forget all you +have been to me; and when I am far away with Philip, there will always +be one countenance more beautiful to me than any pictured face I may +discover, there will be one place more dear to me than Rome. The face +will be yours, Nan,--always so patient, always so serene; and the +dearer place will be this home of ours, which you have made so +pleasant to me all these years by kindnesses as numberless and +noiseless as the drops of dew." + +"Dear girls, what have I ever done, that you should love me so?" cried +Nan, with happy wonderment, as the tall heads, black and golden, bent +to meet the lowly brown one, and her sisters' mute lips answered her. + +Then Laura looked up, saying, playfully,-- + +"Here are the good and wicked sisters;--where shall we find the +Prince?" + +"There!" cried Di, pointing to John; and then her secret went off like +a rocket; for, with her old impetuosity, she said,-- + +"I have found you out, John, and am ashamed to look you in the face, +remembering the past. Girls, you know, when father died, John sent us +money, which he said Mr. Owen had long owed us and had paid at last? +It was a kind lie, John, and a generous thing to do; for we needed it, +but never would have taken it as a gift. I know you meant that we +should never find this out; but yesterday I met Mr. Owen returning +from the West, and when I thanked him for a piece of justice we had +not expected of him, he gruffly told me he had never paid the debt, +never meant to pay it, for it was outlawed, and we could not claim a +farthing. John, I have laughed at you, thought you stupid, treated you +unkindly; but I know you now, and never shall forget the lesson you +have taught me. I am proud as Lucifer, but I ask you to forgive me, +and I seal my real repentance so--and so." + +With tragic countenance, Di rushed across the room, threw both arms +about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss +upon his cheek. There was a momentary silence; for Di finely +illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of +her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried +to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a +supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own. And Nan sat with +drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender pride,-- + +"They know him now, and love him for his generous heart." + +Di spoke first, rallying to her colors, though a little daunted by her +loss of self-control. + +"Don't laugh, John,--I couldn't help it; and don't think I'm not +sincere, for I am,--I am; and I will prove it by growing good enough +to be your friend. That debt must all be paid, and I shall do it; for +I'll turn my books and pen to some account, and write stories full of +dear old souls like you and Nan; and some one, I know, will like and +buy them, though they are not 'works of Shakspeare.' I've thought of +this before, have felt I had the power in me; _now_ I have the motive, +and _now_ I'll do it." + +If Di had proposed to translate the Koran, or build a new Saint +Paul's, there would have been many chances of success; for, once +moved, her will, like a battering-ram, would knock down the obstacles +her wits could not surmount. John believed in her most heartily, and +showed it, as he answered, looking into her resolute face,-- + +"I know you will, and yet make us very proud of our 'Chaos,' Di. Let +the money lie, and when you have made a fortune, I'll claim it with +enormous interest; but, believe me, I feel already doubly repaid by +the esteem so generously confessed, so cordially bestowed, and can +only say, as we used to years ago,--'Now let's forgive and so +forget.'" + +But proud Di would not let him add to her obligation, even by +returning her impetuous salute; she slipped away, and, shaking off the +last drops, answered with a curious mixture of old freedom and new +respect,-- + +"No more sentiment, please, John. +We know each other now; and when I find a friend, I never let him go. +We have smoked the pipe of peace; so let us go back to our wigwams and +bury the feud. Where were we when I lost my head? and what were we +talking about?" + +"Cinderella and the Prince." + +As he spoke, John's eye kindled, and, turning, he looked down at Nan, +who sat diligently ornamenting with microscopic stitches a great patch +going on, the wrong side out. + +"Yes,--so we were; and now taking pussy for the godmother, the +characters of the story are well personated,--all but the slipper," +said Di, laughing, as she thought of the many times they had played it +together years ago. + +A sudden movement stirred John's frame, a sudden purpose shone in his +countenance, and a sudden change befell his voice, as he said, +producing from some hiding-place a little worn-out shoe,-- + +"I can supply the slipper;--who will try it first?" + +Di's black eyes opened wide, as they fell on the familiar object; then +her romance-loving nature saw the whole plot of that drama which needs +but two to act it. A great delight flushed up into her face, as she +promptly took her cue, saying,-- + +"No need for us to try it, Laura; for it wouldn't fit us, if our feet +were as small as Chinese dolls';--our parts are played out; therefore +'Exeunt wicked sisters to the music of the wedding-bells.'" And +pouncing upon the dismayed artist, she swept her out and closed the +door with a triumphant bang. + +John went to Nan, and, dropping on his knee as reverently as the +herald of the fairy tale, he asked, still smiling, but with lips grown +tremulous,-- + +"Will Cinderella try the little shoe, and--if it fits--go with the +Prince?" + +But Nan only covered up her face, weeping happy tears, while all the +weary work strayed down upon the floor, as if it knew her holiday had +come. + +John drew the hidden face still closer, and while she listened to his +eager words, Nan heard the beating of the strong man's heart, and knew +it spoke the truth. + +"Nan, I promised mother to be silent till I was sure I loved you +wholly,--sure that the knowledge would give no pain when I should tell +it, as I am trying to tell it now. This little shoe has been my +comforter through this long year, and I have kept it as other lovers +keep their fairer favors. It has been a talisman more eloquent to me +than flower or ring; for, when I saw how worn it was, I always thought +of the willing feet that came and went for others' comfort all day +long; when I saw the little bow you tied, I always thought of the +hands so diligent in serving any one who knew a want or felt a pain; +and when I recalled the gentle creature who had worn it last, I always +saw her patient, tender, and devout,--and tried to grow more worthy of +her, that I might one day dare to ask if she would walk beside me all +my life and be my 'angel in the house.' Will you, dear? Believe me, +you shall never know a weariness or grief I have the power to shield +you from." + +Then Nan, as simple in her love as in her life, laid her arms about +his neck, her happy face against his own, and answered softly,-- + +"Oh, John, I never can be sad or tired any more!" + + * * * * * + + +THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. + + A poet came singing along the vale,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the dear old days! + They come no more as they did of yore + By the flowing river of Aise." + + He piped through the meadow, he piped through the grove,-- + "Ah, well-a-day for the good old days! + They have all gone by, and I sit and sigh + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "Knights and ladies and shields and swords,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the grand old days! + Castles and moats, and the bright steel coats, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The lances are shivered, the helmets rust,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the stern old days! + And the clarion's blast has rung its last, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And the warriors that swept to glory and death,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the brave old days! + They have fought and gone, and I sit here alone + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The strength of limb and the mettle of heart,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the strong old days! + They have withered away, mere butterflies' play, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "The queens of beauty, whose smile was life,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rare old days! + With love and despair in their golden hair, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "They have flitted away from hall and bower,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the rich old days! + Like the sun they shone, like the sun they have gone, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And buried beneath the pall of the past,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the proud old days! + Lie valor and worth and the beauty of earth, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "And I sit and sigh by the idle stream,-- + Ah, well-a-day for the bright old days! + For nothing remains for the poet's strains + But the flowing river of Aise." + + Then a voice rang out from the oak overhead,-- + "Why well-a-day for the old, old days? + The world is the same, if the bard has an aim, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There's beauty and love and truth and power,-- + Cease well-a-day for the old, old days! + The humblest home is worth Greece and Rome, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are themes enough for the poet's strains,-- + Leave well-a-day for the quaint old days! + Take thine eyes from the ground, look up and around + From the flowing river of Aise. + + "To-day is as grand as the centuries past,-- + Leave well-a-day for the famed old days! + There are battles to fight, there are troths to plight, + By the flowing river of Aise. + + "There are hearts as true to love, to strive,-- + No well-a-day for the dark old days! + Go put into type the age that is ripe + By the flowing river of Aise." + + Then the merry Poet piped down the vale,-- + "Farewell, farewell to the dead old days! + By day and by night there's music and light + By the flowing river of Aise." + + * * * * * + + +THE ICEBERG OF TORBAY. + +TORBAY. + +Torbay, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. R.T.S. Lowell, +is an arm of the sea, a short strong arm with a slim hand and finger, +reaching into the rocky land and touching the water-falls and rapids +of a pretty brook. Here is a little village, with Romish and +Protestant steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the +universal appendages of fishing-houses, boats, and "flakes." One +seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and wild. The rocks slope +steeply down to the wonderfully clear water. Thousands of poles +support half-acres of the spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, +cool region, crossed with foot-paths, and not unfrequently sprinkled +and washed by the surf,--a most kindly office on the part of the sea, +you will allow, when once you have scented the fish-offal perpetually +dropping from the evergreen fish-house above. These little buildings +on the flakes are conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as +if they had just wandered away from the woodlands. + +There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, or upon the +extreme end of that part of it which runs off frequently over the +water like a wharf, an assemblage of huts and halls, bowers and +arbors, a curious huddle made of poles and sweet-smelling branches and +sheets of birch-bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce +at noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we see in old +pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the stranger only a kind of +buoy by which he is to steer his way through the darkness. To come off +then without pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is +the merest chance. Strange! one is continually allured into these +piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. In spite of the chilly, +salt air, and the repulsive smells about the tables where they dress +the fish, I have a fancy for these queer structures. Their front door +opens upon the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading down +to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also about fine fishes, +fresh from the net and the hook,--the salmon, for example, whose pink +and yellow flesh has given a name to one of the most delicate hues of +Art or Nature. + +THE CLIFFS. + +But where was the iceberg? We were not a little disappointed when all +Torbay was before us, and nothing but dark water to be seen. To our +surprise, no one had ever seen or heard of it. It must lie off Flat +Rock Harbor, a little bay below, to the north. We agreed with the +supposition that the berg must lie below, and made speedy preparations +to pursue, by securing the only boat to be had in the village,--a +substantial fishing-barge, laden rather heavily in the stern with at +least a cord of cod-seine, but manned by six stalwart men, a motive +power, as it turned out, none too large for the occasion. We embarked +at the foot of a fish-house ladder, being carefully handed down by the +kind-hearted men, and took our seats forward on the little bow-deck. +All ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars with the +skill and deliberation of lifelong practice, and we moved out upon the +broad, glassy swells of the bay towards the open sea, not indeed with +the rapidity of a Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable +steadiness, and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, +which, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with lights and +shadows. + +We were presently met by a breeze, which increased the swell, and made +it easier to fail in close under the northern shore, a line of +stupendous precipices, to which the ocean goes deep home. The ride +beneath these mighty cliffs was by far the finest boat-ride of my +life. While they do not equal the rocks of the Saguenay, yet, with all +their appendages of extent, structure, complexion, and adjacent sea, +they are sufficiently lofty to produce an almost appalling sense of +sublimity. The surges lave them at a great height, sliding from angle +to angle, and fretting into foam as they slip obliquely along the face +of the vast walls. They descend as deeply as two hundred feet, and +rise perpendicularly two, three, and four hundred feet from the water. +Their stratifications are up and down, and of different shades of +light and dark, a ribbed and striped appearance that increases the +effect of height, and gives variety and spirit to the surface. At one +point, where the rocks advance from the main front, and form a kind of +headland, the strata, six and eight feet thick, assume the form of a +pyramid,--from a broad base of a hundred yards or more running up to +meet in a point. The heart of this vast cone has partly fallen out, +and left the resemblance of an enormous tent with cavernous recesses +and halls, in which the shades of evening were already lurking, and +the surf was sounding mournfully. Occasionally it was musical, pealing +forth like the low tones of a great organ with awful solemnity. Now +and then, the gloomy silence of a minute was broken by the crash of a +billow far within, when the reverberations were like the slamming of +great doors. + +After passing this grand specimen of the architecture of the sea, +there appeared long rocky reaches like Egyptian temples,--old, dead +cliffs of yellowish gray, checked off by lines and seams into squares, +and having the resemblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean, +of doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. Presently we +came to a break, where there were grassy slopes and crags +intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in +the warm sunshine. A knot of kids--the reckless little creatures--were +sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to +witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single +misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in +proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the +goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a +few days before: a lad playing about the steep fell into the sea, and +was drowned. + +We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to +behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef that flanked +the small cape, in the finest style,--a beautiful dance of breakers of +dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward, +and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our +hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. "There it +is!" one exclaimed. An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the +next headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming down upon +us from the broad waters, and covering the very tract where the berg +was expected to be seen. Farther and farther out the long, strong +sweep of the great oars carried us, until the depth of the bay between +us and the next headland was in full view. It may appear almost too +trifling a matter over which to have had any feeling worth mentioning +or remembering, but I shall not soon forget the disappointment, when +from the deck of our barge, as it rose and sank on the large swells, +we stood up and looked around and saw, that, if the iceberg, over +which our very hearts had been beating with delight for twenty-four +hours, was anywhere, it was somewhere in the depths of that untoward +fog. It might as well have been in the depths of the ocean. + +While the pale cloud slept there, there was nothing left for us but to +wait patiently where we were, or retreat. We chose the latter. C. gave +the word to pull for the settlement at the head of the little bay just +mentioned, and so they rounded the breakers on the reef, and we turned +away for the second time, when the game was fairly ours. Even the +hardy fishermen, no lovers of "islands-of-ice," as they call them, +felt for us, as they read in our looks the disappointment, not to say +a little vexation. While on our passage in, we filled a half-hour with +questions and discussions about that iceberg. + +"We certainly saw it yesterday evening; and a soldier of Signal Hill +told us that it had been close in at Torbay for several days. And you, +my man there, say that you had a glimpse of it last evening. How +happens it to be away just now? Where do you think it is?" + +"Indeed, Sir, he must be out in the fog, a mile or over. De'il a bit +can a man look after a thing in a fog, more nor into a snow-bank. +Maybe, Sir, he's foundered; or he might be gone off to sea, +altogether, as they sometimes do." + +"Well, this is rather remarkable. Huge as these bergs are, they escape +very easily under their old cover. No sooner do we think we have them, +than they are gone. No jackal was ever more faithful to his lion, no +pilot-fish to his shark, than the fog to its berg. We will run in +yonder and inquire about it. We may get the exact bearing, and reach +it yet, even in the fog." + +THE FISHERMAN'S. + +The wind and sea being in our favor, we soon reached a fishery-ladder, +which we now knew very well how to climb, and wound our "dim and +perilous way" through the evergreen labyrinth of fish bowers, emerging +on the solid rock, and taking the path to the fisherman's house. Here +lives and works and wears himself out William Waterland, a +deep-voiced, broad-chested, round-shouldered man, dressed, not in +cloth of gold, but of oil, with the foxy remnant of a last winter's +fur cap clinging to his large, bony head, a little in the style of a +piece of turf to a stone. You seldom look into a more kindly, patient +face, or into an eye that more directly lets up the light out of a +large, warm heart. His countenance is one sober shadow of honest +brown, occasionally lighted by a true and guileless smile. William +Waterland has seen the "island-of-ice." "It lies off there, two miles +or more, grounded on a bank, in forty fathoms water." + +It was nearly six o'clock; and yet, as there were signs of the fog +clearing away, we thought it prudent to wait. A dull, long hour passed +by, and still the sun was high in the northwest. That heavy cod-seine, +a hundred fathoms long, sank the stern of our barge rather deeply, and +made it row heavily. For all that, there was time enough yet, if we +could only use it. The fog still came in masses from the sea, sweeping +across the promontory between us and Torbay, and fading into air +nearly as soon as it was over the land. In the mean time, we sat upon +the rocks, upon the wood-pile, stood around and talked, looked out +into the endless mist, looked at the fishermen's houses, their +children, their fowls and dogs. A couple of young women, that might +have been teachers of the village school, had there been a school, +belles of the place, rather neatly dressed, and with hair nicely +combed, tripped shyly by, each with an arm about the other's waist, +and very merry until abreast of us, when they were as silent and +downcast as if they had been passing by their sovereign queen or the +Great Mogul. Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amusing. +We speculated upon the astonishment that would have seized upon their +simple, innocent hearts, had they beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our +city fashionables in full bloom. + +At length we accepted an invitation to walk into the house, and sat, +not under the good man's roof, but under his chimney, a species of +large funnel, into which nearly one end of the house resolved itself. +Here we sat upon some box-like benches before a wood fire, and warmed +ourselves, chatting with the family. While we were making ourselves +comfortable and agreeable, we made the novel and rather funny +discovery of a hen sitting on her nest just under the bench, with her +red comb at our fingers' ends. A large griddle hung suspended in the +more smoky regions of the chimney, ready to be lowered for the baking +of cakes or frying fish. Having tarred my hand, the fisherman's wife, +kind woman, insisted upon washing it herself. After rubbing it with a +little grease, she first scratched it with her finger-nail, and then +finished with soap and water and a good wiping with a coarse towel. I +begged that she would spare herself the trouble, and allow me to help +myself. But it was no trouble at all for her, and the greatest +pleasure. And what should I know about washing off tar? They were +members of the Church of England, and seemed pleased when they found +that I was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. They had a pastor who +visited them and others in the village occasionally, and held divine +service on Sunday at Torbay, where they attended, going in boats in +summer, and over the hills on snow-shoes in the winter. The woman told +me, in an undertone, that the family relations were not all agreed in +their religious faith, and that they could not stop there any longer, +but had gone to "America," which they liked much better. It was a hard +country, any way, no matter whether one were Protestant or Papist. +Three months were all their summer, and nearly all their time for +getting ready for the long, cold winter. To be sure, they had codfish +and potatoes, flour and butter, tea and sugar; but then it took a deal +of hard work to make ends meet. The winter was not as cold as we +thought, perhaps; but then it was so long and snowy! The snow lay +five, six, and seven feet deep. Wood was a great trouble. There was a +plenty of it, but they could not keep cattle or horses to draw it +home. Dogs were their only teams, and they could fetch but small loads +at a time. In the mean while, a chubby little boy, with cheeks like a +red apple, had ventured from behind his young mother, where he had +kept dodging as she moved about the house, and edged himself up near +enough to be patted on the head, and rewarded for his little liberties +with a half-dime. + +THE ICEBERG. + +The sunshine was now streaming in at a bit of a window, and I went out +to see what prospect of success. C., who had left some little time +before, was nowhere to be seen. The fog seemed to be in sufficient +motion to disclose the berg down some of the avenues of clear air that +were opened occasionally. They all ended, however, with fog instead of +ice. I made it convenient to walk to the boat, and pocket a few cakes, +brought along as a kind of scattering lunch. C. was descried, at +length, climbing the broad, rocky ridge, the eastern point of which we +had doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up the crags by a +short cut, I joined him on the verge of the promontory pretty well +heated and out of breath. The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was +dispersing in the sunny air around us; the ocean was clearing off; the +surge was breaking with a pleasant sound below. At the foot of the +precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in +length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times +abreast, and then in single file, or disorderly, round and round they +went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then +plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large +movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no +muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more +flexibility in their motions than if they had been built of timber. +They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale might be supposed to +move down a mighty rapid, roiling and plunging and borne along +irresistibly by the current. As they rose, we could see their mouths +occasionally, and the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went +under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the +screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then +one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote +sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a +novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they +were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along +these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath +the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast +with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above the +whales the water was green, a darker green as they descended, a +lighter green as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green +water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with +the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were +gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, +there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the +breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of +whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, +was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness +another of a more brilliant character. + +To the north and east, the ocean, dark and sparkling, was, by the +magic action of the wind, entirely clear of fog; and there, about two +miles distant, stood revealed the iceberg in all its cold and solitary +glory. It was of a greenish white, and of the Greek-temple form, +seeming to be over a hundred feet high. We gazed some minutes with +silent delight on the splendid and impressive object, and then +hastened down to the boat, and pulled away with all speed to reach it, +if possible, before the fog should cover it again, and in time for C. +to paint it. The moderation of the oarsmen and the slowness of our +progress were quite provoking. I watched the sun, the distant fog, the +wind and waves, the increasing motion of the boat, and the seemingly +retreating berg. A good half-hour's toil had carried us into broad +waters, and yet, to all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was +freshening from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists, a species +of scout from the main body of the fog lying off in the east, were +scudding across our track. James Goss, our captain, threw out a hint +of a little difficulty in getting back. But Yankee energy was +indomitable. C. quietly arranged his painting--apparatus, and I, +wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck, +a sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves on our way +back, as the black, angry-looking swells chased us up, and flung the +foam upon the bow and stern. All at once, whole squadrons of fog swept +up, and swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, white +obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves foiled again. But still +the word was, "On!" And on they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, now +flushed and moist with rowing. Again the ice was visible, but dimly, +in his misty drapery. There was no time to be lost. Now, or not at +all. And so C. began. For half an hour, pausing occasionally for +passing flocks of fog, he plied the brush with a rapidity not usual, +and under disadvantages that would have mastered a less experienced +hand. We were getting close down upon the berg, and in fearfully rough +water. In their curiosity to catch glimpses of the advancing sketch, +the men pulled with little regularity, and trimmed the boat very +badly. We were rolling frightfully to a landsman. C. begged of them to +keep their seats, and hold the barge just there as near as possible. +To amuse them, I passed an opera-glass around among them, with which +they examined the iceberg and the coast. They turned out to be +excellent good fellows, and entered into the spirit of the thing in a +way that pleased us. I am sure they would have held on willingly till +dark, if C. had only said the word, so much interest did they feel in +the attempt to paint the "island-of-ice." The hope was to linger about +it until sunset, for its colors, lights, and shadows. That, however, +was suddenly extinguished. Heavy fog came on, and we retreated, not +with the satisfaction of a conquest, nor with the disappointment of a +defeat, but cheered with the hope of complete success, perhaps the +next day, when C. thought that we could return upon our game in a +little steamer, and so secure it beyond the possibility of escape. The +seine was hauled from the stern to the centre of the barge, and the +men pulled away for Torbay, a long six miles, rough and chilly. For my +part, I was trembling with cold, and found it necessary to lend a hand +at the oars, an exercise which soon made the weather feel several +degrees warmer, and rendered me quite comfortable. After a little the +wind lulled, the fog dispersed again, and the iceberg seemed to +contemplate our slow departure with complacent serenity. We regretted +that the hour forbade a return. It would have been pleasant to play +around that Parthenon of the sea in the twilight. The best that was +left us was to look back and watch the effects of light, which were +wonderfully fine, and had the charm of entire novelty. The last view +was the very finest. All the east front was a most tender blue; the +fissures on the southern face, from which we were rowing directly +away, were glittering green; the western front glowed in the yellow +sunlight; around were the dark waters, and above one of the most +beautiful of skies. + +We fell under the land presently, and passed near the northern cape of +Flat-Rock Bay, a grand headland of red sandstone, a vast and dome-like +pile, fleeced at the summit with green turf and shrubs of fir. The +sun, at last, was really setting. There was the old magnificence of +the king of day,--airy deeps of ineffable blue and pearl, stained with +scarlets and crimsons, and striped with living gold. A blaze of white +light, deepening into the richest orange, crowned the distant ridge +behind which the sun was vanishing. A vapory splendor, rose-color and +purple, was dissolving in the atmosphere; and every wave of the ocean, +a dark violet, nearly black, was "a flash of golden fire." Bathed with +this almost supernatural glory, the headland, in itself richly +complexioned with red, brown, and green, was at once a spectacle of +singular grandeur and solemnity. I have no remembrance of more +brilliant effects of light and color. The view filled us with emotions +of delight. We shot from beneath the great cliff into Flat-Rock Bay, +rounding, at length, the breakers and the cape into the smoother +waters of Torbay. As the oars dipped regularly into the polished +swells, reflecting the heavens and the wonderful shores, all lapsed +into silence. In the gloom of evening the rocks assumed an unusual +height and sublimity. Gliding quietly below them, we were saluted +every now and then by the billows thundering in some adjacent cavern. +The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite +unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the +chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, +muffled into stillness by the stupendous masses. + +Thus ended our first real hunting of an iceberg. When we landed, we +were thoroughly chilled. Our man was waiting with his wagon, and so +was a little supper in a house near by, which we enjoyed with an +appetite that assumed several phases of keenness as we proceeded. +There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread and butter and +bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried silently, without remark, at +the point of knife and fork. We were a forlorn-hope of two, and fell +to, winning the victory in the very breach. We drove back over the +fine gravel road at a round trot, watching the last edge of day in the +northwest and north, where it no sooner fades than it buds again to +bloom into morning. We lived the new iceberg-experience all over +again, and planned for the morrow. The stars gradually came out of the +cool, clear heavens, until they filled them with their sparkling +multitudes. For every star we seemed to have a lively and pleasurable +thought, which came out and ran among our talk, a thread of light. +When we looked at the hour, as we sat fresh and wakeful, warming at +our English inn in St. John's, it was after midnight. + + * * * * * + + +THEODORE PARKER. + + "Sir Launcelot! ther thou lyest; thou were never matched of none + earthly knights hands; thou were the truest freende to thy lover + that ever bestrood horse; and thou were the kindest man that ever + strooke with sword; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall + foe that ever put spere in the rest." _La Morte d'Arthur._ + +In the year 1828 there was a young man of eighteen at work upon a farm +in Lexington, performing bodily labor to the extent of twenty hours in +a day sometimes, and that for several days together, and at other +times studying intensely when work was less pressing. Thirty years +after, that same man sat in the richest private library in Boston, +working habitually from twelve to seventeen hours a day in severer +toil. The interval was crowded with labors, with acquisitions, with +reproaches, with victories, with honors; and he who experienced all +this died exhausted at the end of it, less than fifty years old, but +looking seventy. That man was Theodore Parker. + +The time is far distant when out of a hundred different statements of +contemporaries some calm biographer will extract sufficient materials +for a true picture of the man; and meanwhile all that each can do is +to give fearlessly his own honest impressions, and so tempt others to +give theirs. Of the multitude of different photographers, each +perchance may catch some one trait without which the whole portraiture +would have remained incomplete; and the time to secure this is now, +while his features are fresh in our minds. It is a daring effort, but +it needs to be made. + +Yet Theodore Parker was so strong and self-sufficing upon his own +ground, he needed so little from any other, while giving so freely to +all, that one would hardly venture to add anything to the +autobiographies he has left, but for the high example he set of +fearlessness in dealing with the dead. There may be some whose fame is +so ill-established, that one shrinks from speaking of them precisely +as one saw them; but this man's place is secure, and that friend best +praises him who paints him just as he seemed. To depict him as he +_was_ must be the work of many men, and no single observer, however +intimate, need attempt it. + +The first thing that strikes an observer, in listening to the words of +public and private feeling elicited by his departure, is the +predominance in them all of the sentiment of love. His services, his +speculations, his contests, his copious eloquence, his many languages, +these come in as secondary things, but the predominant testimony is +emotional. Men mourn the friend even more than the warrior. No fragile +and lovely girl, fading untimely into heaven, was ever more +passionately beloved than this white-haired and world-weary man. As he +sat in his library, during his lifetime, he was not only the awakener +of a thousand intellects, but the centre of a thousand hearts;--he +furnished the natural home for every foreign refugee, every hunted +slave, every stray thinker, every vexed and sorrowing woman. And never +was there one of these who went away uncomforted, and from every part +of this broad nation their scattered hands now fling roses upon his +grave. + +This immense debt of gratitude was not bought by any mere isolated +acts of virtue; indeed, it never is so bought; love never is won but +by a nobleness which, pervades the life. In the midst of his greatest +cares there never was a moment when he was not all too generous of his +time, his wisdom, and his money. Borne down by the accumulation of +labors, grudging, as a student grudges, the precious hour that once +lost can never be won back, he yet was always holding himself at the +call of some poor criminal, at the Police Office, or some sick girl in +a suburban town, not of his recognized parish perhaps, but longing for +the ministry of the only preacher who had touched her soul. Not a mere +wholesale reformer, he wore out his life by retailing its great +influences to the poorest comer. Not generous in money only,--though +the readiness of his beneficence in that direction had few equals,--he +always hastened past that minor bestowal to ask if there were not some +other added gift possible, some personal service or correspondence, +some life-blood, in short, to be lavished in some other form, to eke +out the already liberal donation of dollars. + +There is an impression that he was unforgiving. Unforgetting he +certainly was; for he had no power of forgetfulness, whether for good +or evil. He had none of that convenient oblivion which in softer +natures covers sin and saintliness with one common, careless pall. So +long as a man persisted in a wrong attitude before God or man, there +was no day so laborious or exhausting, no night so long or drowsy, but +Theodore Parker's unsleeping memory stood on guard full-armed, ready +to do battle at a moment's warning. This is generally known; but what +may not be known so widely is, that, the moment the adversary lowered +his spear, were it for only an inch or an instant, that moment +Theodore Parker's weapons were down and his arms open. Make but the +slightest concession, give him but the least excuse to love you, and +never was there seen such promptness in forgiving. His friends found +it sometimes harder to justify his mildness than his severity. I +confess that I, with others, have often felt inclined to criticize a +certain caustic tone of his, in private talk, when the name of an +offender was alluded to; but I have also felt almost indignant at his +lenient good-nature to that very person, let him once show the +smallest symptom of contrition, or seek, even in the clumsiest way, or +for the most selfish purpose, to disarm his generous antagonist. His +forgiveness in such cases was more exuberant than his wrath had ever +been. + +It is inevitable, in describing him, to characterize his life first by +its quantity. He belonged to the true race of the giants of learning; +he took in knowledge at every pore, and his desires were insatiable. +Not, perhaps, precocious in boyhood,--for it is not precocity to begin +Latin at ten and Greek at eleven, to enter the Freshman class at +twenty and the professional school at twenty-three,--he was equalled +by few students in the tremendous rate at which he pursued every +study, when once begun. With strong body and great constitutional +industry, always acquiring and never forgetting, he was doubtless at +the time of his death the most variously learned of living Americans, +as well as one of the most prolific of orators and writers. + +Why did Theodore Parker die? He died prematurely worn out through this +enormous activity,--a warning, as well as an example. To all appeals +for moderation, during the latter years of his life, he had but one +answer,--that he had six generations of long-lived farmers behind him, +and had their strength to draw upon. All his physical habits, except +in this respect, were unexceptionable: he was abstemious in diet, but +not ascetic, kept no unwholesome hours, tried no dangerous +experiments, committed no excesses. But there is no man who can +habitually study from twelve to seventeen hours a day (his friend Mr. +Clarke contracts it to "from six to twelve," but I have Mr. Parker's +own statement of the fact) without ultimate self-destruction. Nor was +this the practice during his period of health alone, but it was pushed +to the last moment: he continued in the pulpit long after a withdrawal +was peremptorily prescribed for him; and when forbidden to leave home +for lecturing, during the winter of 1858, he straightway prepared the +most laborious literary works of his life, for delivery as lectures in +the Fraternity Course at Boston. + +He worked thus, not from ambition, nor altogether from principle, but +from an immense craving for mental labor, which had become second +nature to him. His great omnivorous, hungry intellect must have +constant food,--new languages, new statistics, new historical +investigations, new scientific discoveries, new systems of Scriptural +exegesis. He did not for a day in the year nor an hour in the day make +rest a matter of principle, nor did he ever indulge in it as a +pleasure, for he knew no enjoyment so great as labor. Wordsworth's +"wise passiveness" was utterly foreign to his nature. Had he been a +mere student, this had been less destructive. But to take the standard +of study of a German Professor, and superadd to that the separate +exhaustions of a Sunday-preacher, a lyceum-lecturer, a radical leader, +and a practical philanthropist, was simply to apply half a dozen +distinct suicides to the abbreviation of a single life. And, as his +younger companions long since assured him, the tendency of his career +was not only to kill himself, but them; for each assumed that he must +at least attempt what Theodore Parker accomplished. + +It is very certain that his career was much shortened by these +enormous labors, and it is not certain that its value was increased in +a sufficient ratio to compensate for that evil. He justified his +incessant winter-lecturing by the fact that the whole country was his +parish, though this was not an adequate excuse. But what right had he +to deprive himself even of the accustomed summer respite of ordinary +preachers, and waste the golden July hours in studying Sclavonic +dialects? No doubt his work in the world was greatly aided both by the +fact and the fame of learning, and, as he himself somewhat +disdainfully said, the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was "a +convenience" in theological discussions; but, after all, his popular +power did not mainly depend on his mastery of twenty languages, but of +one. Theodore Parker's learning was undoubtedly a valuable possession +to the community, but it was not worth the price of Theodore Parker's +life. + +"Strive constantly to concentrate yourself," said the laborious +Goethe, "never dissipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever +kind, leads finally to bankruptcy." But Theodore Parker's whole +endeavor was to multiply his channels, and he exhausted his life in +the effort to do all men's work. He was a hard man to relieve, to +help, or to cooperate with. Thus, the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review" +began with quite a promising corps of contributors; but when it +appeared that its editor, if left alone, would willingly undertake all +the articles,--science, history, literature, everything,--of course +the others yielded to inertia and dropped away. So, some years later, +when some of us met at his room to consult on a cheap series of +popular theological works, he himself was so rich in his own private +plans that all the rest were impoverished; nothing could be named but +he had been planning just that for years, and should by-and-by get +leisure for it, and there really was not enough left to call out the +energies of any one else. Not from any petty egotism, but simply from +inordinate activity, he stood ready to take all the parts. + +In the same way he distanced everybody; every companion-scholar found +soon that it was impossible to keep pace with one who was always +accumulating and losing nothing. Most students find it necessary to be +constantly forgetting some things to make room for later arrivals; but +the peculiarity of his memory was that he let nothing go. I have more +than once heard him give a minute analysis of the contents of some +dull book read twenty years before, and have afterwards found the +statement correct and exhaustive. His great library,--the only private +library I have ever seen which reminded one of the Astor,--although +latterly collected more for public than personal uses, was one which +no other man in the nation, probably, had sufficient bibliographical +knowledge single-handed to select, and we have very few men capable of +fully appreciating its scholarly value, as it stands. It seems as if +its possessor, putting all his practical and popular side into his +eloquence and action, had indemnified himself by investing all his +scholarship in a library of which less than a quarter of the books +were in the English language. + +All unusual learning, however, brings with it the suspicion of +superficiality; and in this country, where, as Mr. Parker himself +said, "every one gets a mouthful of education, but scarce one a full +meal,"--where every one who makes a Latin quotation is styled "a ripe +scholar,"--it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the true from the +counterfeit. It is, however, possible to apply some tests. I remember, +for instance, that one of the few undoubted classical scholars, in the +old-fashioned sense, whom New England has seen,--the late John Glen +King of Salem,--while speaking with very limited respect of the +acquirements of Rufus Choate in this direction, and with utter +contempt of those of Daniel Webster, always became enthusiastic on +coming to Theodore Parker. "He is the only man," said Mr. King more +than once to the writer, "with whom I can sit down and seriously +discuss a disputed reading and find him familiar with all that has +been written upon it." Yet Greek and Latin were only the preliminaries +of Mr. Parker's scholarship. + +I know, for one,--and there are many who will bear the same +testimony,--that I never went to Mr. Parker to talk over a subject +which I had just made a speciality, without finding that on that +particular matter he happened to know, without any special +investigation, more than I did. This extended beyond books, sometimes +stretching into things where his questioner's opportunities of +knowledge had seemed considerably greater,--as, for instance, in +points connected with the habits of our native animals and the +phenomena of out-door Nature. Such were his wonderful quickness and +his infallible memory, that glimpses of these things did for him the +work of years. But, of course, it was in the world of books that this +wonderful superiority was chiefly seen, and the following example may +serve as one of the most striking among many. + +It happened to me, some years since, in the course of some historical +inquiries, to wish for fuller information in regard to the barbarous +feudal codes of the Middle Ages,--as the Salic, Burgundian, and +Ripuarian,--before the time of Charlemagne. The common historians, +even Hallam, gave no very satisfactory information and referred to no +very available books; and supposing it to be a matter of which every +well-read lawyer would at least know something, I asked help of the +most scholarly member of that profession within my reach. He regretted +his inability to give me any aid, but referred me to a friend of his, +who was soon to visit him, a young man, who was already eminent for +legal learning. The friend soon arrived, but owned, with some regret, +that he had paid no attention to that particular subject, and did not +even know what books to refer to; but he would at least ascertain what +they were, and let me know. (N.B. I have never heard from him since.) +Stimulated by ill-success, I aimed higher, and struck at the Supreme +Bench of a certain State, breaking in on the mighty repose of His +Honor with the name of Charlemagne. "Charlemagne?" responded my lord +judge, rubbing his burly brow,--"Charlemagne lived, I think, in the +sixth century?" Dismayed, I retreated, with little further inquiry; +and sure of one man, at least, to whom law meant also history and +literature, I took refuge with Charles Sumner. That accomplished +scholar, himself for once at fault, could only frankly advise me to do +at last what I ought to have done at first,--to apply to Theodore +Parker. I did so. "Go," replied he instantly, "to alcove twenty-four, +shelf one hundred and thirteen, of the College Library at Cambridge, +and you will find the information you need in a thick quarto, bound in +vellum, and lettered 'Potgiesser de Statu Servorum.'" I straightway +sent for Potgiesser, and found my fortune made, it was one of those +patient old German treatises which cost the labor of one man's life to +compile and another's to exhaust, and I had no reason to suppose that +any reader had disturbed its repose until that unwearied industry had +explored the library. + +Amid such multiplicity of details he must sometimes have made +mistakes, and with his great quickness of apprehension he sometimes +formed hasty conclusions. But no one has a right to say that his great +acquirements were bought by any habitual sacrifice of thoroughness. To +say that they sometimes impaired the quality of his thought would +undoubtedly be more just; and this is a serious charge to bring. +Learning is not accumulation, but assimilation; every man's real +acquirements must pass into his own organization, and undue or hasty +nutrition does no good. The most priceless knowledge is not worth the +smallest impairing of the quality of the thinking. The scholar cannot +afford, any more than the farmer, to lavish his strength in clearing +more land than he can cultivate; and Theodore Parker was compelled by +the natural limits of time and strength to let vast tracts lie fallow, +and to miss something of the natural resources of the soil. One +sometimes wished that he had studied less and dreamed more,--for less +encyclopedic information, and more of his own rich brain. + +But it was in popularizing thought and knowledge that his great and +wonderful power lay. Not an original thinker, in the same sense with +Emerson, he yet translated for tens of thousands that which Emerson +spoke to hundreds only. No matter who had been heard on any subject, +the great mass of intelligent, "progressive" New-England thinkers +waited to hear the thing summed up by Theodore Parker. This popular +interest went far beyond the circle of his avowed sympathizers; he +might be a heretic, but nobody could deny that he was a marksman. No +matter how well others seemed to have hit the target, his shot was the +triumphant one, at last. Thinkers might find no new thought in the new +discourse, leaders of action no new plan, yet, after all that had been +said and done, his was the statement that told upon the community. He +knew this power of his, and had analyzed some of the methods by which +he attained it, though, after all, the best part was an unconscious +and magnetic faculty. But he early learned, so he once told me, that +the New-England people dearly love two things,--a philosophical +arrangement, and a plenty of statistics. To these, therefore, he +treated them thoroughly; in some of his "Ten Sermons" the demand made +upon the systematizing power of his audience was really formidable; +and I have always remembered a certain lecture of his on the +Anglo-Saxons as the most wonderful instance that ever came within my +knowledge of the adaptation of solid learning to the popular +intellect. Nearly two hours of almost unadorned fact,--for there was +far less than usual of relief and illustration,--and yet the +lyceum-audience listened to it as if an angel sang to them. So perfect +was his sense of purpose and of power, so clear and lucid was his +delivery, with such wonderful composure did he lay out, section by +section, his historical chart, that he grasped his hearers as +absolutely as he grasped his subject: one was compelled to believe +that he might read the people the Sanscrit Lexicon, and they would +listen with ever fresh delight. Without grace or beauty or melody, his +mere elocution was sufficient to produce effects which melody and +grace and beauty might have sighed for in vain. And I always felt that +he well described his own eloquence while describing Luther's, in one +of the most admirably moulded sentences he ever achieved,--"The homely +force of Luther, who, in the language of the farm, the shop, the boat, +the street, or the nursery, told the high truths that reason or +religion taught, and took possession of his audience by a storm of +speech, then poured upon them all the riches of his brave plebeian +soul, baptizing every head anew,--a man who with the people seemed +more mob than they, and with kings the most imperial man." + +Another key to his strong hold upon the popular mind was to be found +in his thorough Americanism of training and sympathy. Surcharged with +European learning, he yet remained at heart the Lexington +farmer's-boy, and his whole atmosphere was indigenous, not exotic. Not +haunted by any of the distrust and over-criticism which are apt to +effeminate the American scholar, he plunged deep into the current of +hearty national life around him, loved it, trusted it, believed in it; +and the combination of this vital faith with such tremendous criticism +of public and private sins formed an irresistible power. He could +condemn without crushing,--denounce mankind, yet save it from despair. +Thus his pulpit became one of the great forces of the nation, like the +New York "Tribune." His printed volumes had but a limited circulation, +owing to a defective system of publication, which his friends tried in +vain to correct; but the circulation of his pamphlet-discourses was +very great; he issued them faster and faster, latterly often in pairs, +and they instantly spread far and wide. Accordingly he found his +listeners everywhere; he could not go so far West but his abundant +fame had preceded him; his lecture-room in the remotest places was +crowded, and his hotel-chamber also, until late at night. Probably +there was no private man in the nation, except, perhaps, Beecher and +Greeley, whom personal strangers were so eager to see; while from a +transatlantic direction he was sought by visitors to whom the two +other names were utterly unknown. Learned men from the continent of +Europe always found their way, first or last, to Exeter Place; and it +is said that Thackeray, on his voyage to this country, declared that +the thing in America which he most desired was to hear Theodore Parker +talk. + +Indeed, his conversational power was so wonderful that no one could go +away from a first interview without astonishment and delight. There +are those among us, it may be, more brilliant in anecdote or repartee, +more eloquent, more profoundly suggestive; but for the outpouring of +vast floods of various and delightful information, I believe that he +could have had no Anglo-Saxon rival, except Macaulay. And in Mr. +Parker's case, at least, there was no alloy of conversational +arrogance or impatience of opposition. He monopolized, not because he +was ever unwilling to hear others, but because they did not care to +hear themselves when he was by. The subject made no difference; he +could talk on anything. I was once with him in the society of an +intelligent Quaker farmer, when the conversation fell on agriculture: +the farmer held his own ably for a time; but long after he was drained +dry, our wonderful companion still flowed on exhaustless, with +accounts of Nova Scotia ploughing and Tennessee hoeing, and all things +rural, ancient and modern, good and bad, till it seemed as if the one +amusing and interesting theme in the universe were the farm. But it +soon proved that this was only one among his thousand departments, and +his hearers felt, as was said of old Fuller, as if he had served his +time at every trade in town. + +But it must now be owned that these astonishing results were bought by +some intellectual sacrifices which his nearer friends do not all +recognize, but which posterity will mourn. Such a rate of speed is +incompatible with the finest literary execution. A delicate literary +ear he might have had, perhaps, but he very seldom stopped to +cultivate or even indulge it. This neglect was not produced by his +frequent habit of extemporaneous speech alone; for it is a singular +fact, that Wendell Phillips, who rarely writes a line, yet contrives +to give to his hastiest efforts the air of elaborate preparation, +while Theodore Parker's most scholarly performances were still +stump-speeches. Vigorous, rich, brilliant, copious, they yet seldom +afford a sentence which falls in perfect cadence upon the ear; under a +show of regular method, they are loose and diffuse, and often have the +qualities which he himself attributed to the style of John Quincy +Adams,--"disorderly, ill-compacted, and homely to a fault." He said of +Dr. Channing,--"Diffuseness is the old Adam of the pulpit. There are +always two ways of hitting the mark,--one with a single bullet, the +other with a shower of small shot: Dr. Channing chose the latter, as +most of our pulpit orators have done." Theodore Parker chose it also. + +Perhaps Nature and necessity chose it for him. If not his temperament, +at least the circumstances of his position, cut him off from all high +literary finish. He created the congregation at the Music Hall, and +that congregation, in turn, moulded his whole life. For that great +stage his eloquence became inevitably a kind of brilliant +scene-painting,--large, fresh, profuse, rapid, showy;--masses of light +and shade, wonderful effects, but farewell forever to all finer +touches and delicate gradations! No man can write for posterity, while +hastily snatching a half-day from a week's lecturing, during which to +prepare a telling Sunday harangue for three thousand people. In the +perpetual rush and hurry of his life, he had no time to select, to +discriminate, to omit anything, or to mature anything. He had the +opportunities, the provocatives, and the drawbacks which make the work +and mar the fame of the professional journalist. His intellectual +existence, after he left the quiet of West Roxbury, was from hand to +mouth. Needing above all men to concentrate himself, he was compelled +by his whole position to lead a profuse and miscellaneous life. + +All popular orators must necessarily repeat themselves,--preachers +chiefly among orators, and Theodore Parker chiefly among preachers. +The mere frequency of production makes this inevitable,--a fact which +always makes every finely organized intellect, first or last, grow +weary of the pulpit. But in his case there were other compulsions. +Every Sunday a quarter part of his vast congregation consisted of +persons who had never, or scarcely ever, heard him before, and who +might never hear him again. Not one of those visitors must go away, +therefore, without hearing the great preacher define his position on +every point,--not theology alone, but all current events and permanent +principles, the Presidential nomination or message, the laws of trade, +the laws of Congress, woman's rights, woman's costume, Boston +slave-kidnappers, and Dr. Banbaby,--he must put it all in. His ample +discourse must be like an Oriental poem, which begins with the +creation of the universe, and includes all subsequent facts +incidentally. It is astonishing to look over his published sermons and +addresses, and see under how many different names the same stirring +speech has been reprinted;--new illustrations, new statistics, and all +remoulded with such freshness that the hearer had no suspicions, nor +the speaker either,--and yet the same essential thing. Sunday +discourse, lyceum lecture, convention speech, it made no difference, +he must cover all the points every time. No matter what theme might be +announced, the people got the whole latitude and longitude of Theodore +Parker, and that was precisely what they wanted. He broke down the +traditional non-committalism of the lecture-room, and oxygenated all +the lyceums of the land. He thus multiplied his audience very greatly, +while perhaps losing to some degree the power of close logic and of +addressing a specific statement to a special point. Yet it seemed as +if he could easily leave the lancet to others, grant him only the +hammer and the forge. + +Ah, but the long centuries, where the reading of books is concerned, +set aside all considerations of quantity, of popularity, of immediate +influence, and sternly test by quality alone,--judge each author by +his most golden sentence, and let all else go. The deeds make the man, +but it is the style which makes or dooms the writer. History, which +always sends great men in groups, gave us Emerson by whom to test the +intellectual qualities of Parker. They cooperated in their work from +the beginning, in much the same mutual relation as now; in looking +back over the rich volumes of the "Dial," the reader now passes by the +contributions of Parker to glean every sentence of Emerson's, but we +have the latter's authority for the fact that it was the former's +articles which originally sold the numbers. Intellectually, the two +men form the complement to each other; it is Parker who reaches the +mass of the people, but it is probable that all his writings put +together have not had so profound an influence on the intellectual +leaders of the nation as the single address of Emerson at Divinity +Hall. + +And it is difficult not to notice, in that essay in which Theodore +Parker ventured on higher intellectual ground, perhaps, than anywhere +else in his writings,--his critique on Emerson in the "Massachusetts +Quarterly,"--the indications of this mental disparity. It is in many +respects a noble essay, full of fine moral appreciations, bravely +generous, admirable in the loyalty of spirit shown towards a superior +mind, and all warm with a personal friendship which could find no +superior. But so far as literary execution is concerned, the beautiful +sentences of Emerson stand out like fragments of carved marble from +the rough plaster in which they are imbedded. Nor this alone; but, on +drawing near the vestibule of the author's finest thoughts, the critic +almost always stops, unable quite to enter their sphere. Subtile +beauties puzzle him; the titles of the poems, for instance, giving by +delicate allusion the key-note of each,--as "Astraea," "Mithridates," +"Hamatreya," and "Etienne de la Boece,"--seem to him the work of "mere +caprice"; he pronounces the poem of "Monadnoc" "poor and weak"; he +condemns and satirizes the "Wood-notes," and thinks that a pine-tree +which should talk like Mr. Emerson's ought to be cut down and cast +into the sea. + +The same want of fine discrimination was usually visible in his +delineations of great men in public life. Immense in accumulation of +details, terrible in the justice which held the balance, they yet left +one with the feeling, that, after all, the delicate main-springs of +character had been missed. Broad contrasts, heaps of good and evil, +almost exaggerated praises, pungent satire, catalogues of sins that +seemed pages from some Recording Angel's book,--these were his mighty +methods; but for the subtilest analysis, the deepest insight into the +mysteries of character, one must look elsewhere. It was still +scene-painting, not portraiture; and the same thing which overwhelmed +with wonder, when heard in the Music Hall, produced a slight sense of +insufficiency, when read in print. It was certainly very great in its +way, but not in quite the highest way; it was preliminary work, not +final; it was Parker's Webster, not Emerson's Swedenborg or Napoleon. + +The same thing was often manifested in his criticisms on current +events. The broad truths were stated without fear or favor, the finer +points passed over, and the special trait of the particular phase +sometimes missed. His sermons on the last revivals, for instance, had +an enormous circulation, and told with great force upon those who had +not been swept into the movement, and even upon some who had been. The +difficulty was that they were just such discourses as he would have +preached in the time of Edwards and the "Great Awakening"; and the +point which many thought the one astonishing feature of the new +excitement, its almost entire omission of the "terrors of the Lord," +the far gentler and more winning type of religion which it displayed, +and from which it confessedly drew much of its power, this was +entirely ignored in Mr. Parker's sermons. He was too hard at work in +combating the evangelical theology to recognize its altered phases. +Forging lightning-rods against the tempest, he did not see that the +height of the storm had passed by. + +These are legitimate criticisms to make on Theodore Parker, for he was +large enough to merit them. It is only the loftiest trees of which it +occurs to us to remark that they do not touch the sky, and a man must +comprise a great deal before we complain of him for not comprising +everything. But though the closest scrutiny may sometimes find cases +where he failed to see the most subtile and precious truth, it will +never discover one where, seeing, he failed to proclaim it, or, +proclaiming, failed to give it force and power. He lived his life much +as he walked the streets of Boston,--not quite gracefully, nor yet +statelily, but with quick, strong, solid step, with sagacious eyes +wide open, and thrusting his broad shoulders a little forward, as if +butting away the throng of evil deeds around him, and scattering whole +atmospheres of unwholesome cloud. Wherever he went, there went a +glance of sleepless vigilance, an unforgetting memory, a tongue that +never faltered, and an arm that never quailed. Not primarily an +administrative nor yet a military mind, he yet exerted a positive +control over the whole community around him, by sheer mental and moral +strength. He mowed down harvests of evil as in his youth he mowed the +grass, and all his hours of study were but whetting the scythe. + +And for this great work it was not essential that the blade should +have a razor's edge. Grant that Parker was not also Emerson; no +matter, he was Parker. If ever a man seemed sent into the world to +find a certain position, and found it, he was that man. Occupying a +unique sphere of activity, he filled it with such a wealth of success, +that there is now no one in the nation whom it would not seem an +absurdity to nominate for his place. It takes many instruments to +complete the orchestra, but the tones of this organ the Music Hall +shall never hear again. + +One feels, since he is gone, that he made his great qualities seem so +natural and inevitable, we forgot that all did not share them. We +forgot the scholar's proverbial reproach of timidity and selfishness, +in watching him. While he lived, it seemed a matter of course that the +greatest acquirements and the heartiest self-devotion should go +together. Can we keep our strength, without the tonic of his example? +How petty it now seems to ask for any fine-drawn subtilties of poet or +seer in him who gave his life to the cause of the humblest! Life +speaks the loudest. We do not ask what Luther said or wrote, but only +what he did; and the name of Theodore Parker will not only long +outlive his books, but will last far beyond the special occasions out +of which he moulded his grand career. + + * * * * * + + +ICARUS. + +I. + +_Io triumphe!_ Lo, thy certain art, +My crafty sire, releases us at length! +False Minos now may knit his baffled brows, +And in the labyrinth by thee devised +His brutish horns in angry search may toss +The Minotaur,--but thou and I are free! +See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast +Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, +Thy glory and our prison! Either hand +Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad +In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows, +Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top +The sun, discovering first an earthly throne, +Sits down in splendor: lucent vapors rise +From folded glens among the awaking hills, +Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread +In airy planes beneath us, hearths of air +Whereon the morning burns her hundred fires. + +II. + +Take thou thy way between the cloud and wave, +O Daedalus, my father, steering forth +To friendly Samos, or the Carian shore! +But me the spaces of the upper heaven +Attract, the height, the freedom, and the joy. +For now, from that dark treachery escaped, +And tasting power which was the lust of youth, +Whene'er the white blades of the sea-gull's wings +Flashed round the headland, or the barbed files +Of cranes returning clanged across the sky, +No half-way flight, no errand incomplete +I purpose. Not, as once in dreams, with pain +I mount, with fear and huge exertion hold +Myself a moment, ere the sickening fall +Breaks in the shock of waking. Launched, at last, +Uplift on powerful wings, I veer and float +Past sunlit isles of cloud, that dot with light +The boundless archipelago of sky. +I fan the airy silence till it starts +In rustling whispers, swallowed up as soon; +I warm the chilly ether with my breath; +I with the beating of my heart make glad +The desert blue. Have I not raised myself +Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar? +The curious eagles wheel about my path: +With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me, +With harsh, impatient screams they menace me, +Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship +Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,-- +Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds, +I claim the azure empire of the air! +Henceforth I breast the current of the morn, +Between her crimson shores: a star, henceforth, +Upon the crawling dwellers of the earth +My forehead shines. The steam of sacred blood, +The smoke of burning flesh on altars laid, +Fumes of the temple-wine, and sprinkled myrrh, +Shall reach my palate ere they reach the Gods. + +III. + +Nay, am not I a God? What other wing, +If not a God's, could in the rounded sky +Hang thus in solitary poise? What need, +Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes +Should grow, like yonder eagle's, from the nest? +It may be, ere my crafty father's line +Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer, +Who found you roaming wingless on the hills, +Naked, asserting godship in the dearth +Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same. +Thence did you seize Olympus; thence your pride +Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear +The temple from the mountain's marble womb, +To carve you shapes more beautiful than they, +To sate your idle nostrils with the reek +Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold. + +IV. + +Lo, where Hyperion, through the glowing air +Approaching, drives! Fresh from his banquet-meats, +Flushed with Olympian nectar, angrily +He guides his fourfold span of furious steeds, +Convoyed by that bold Hour whose ardent torch +Burns up the dew, toward the narrow beach, +This long, projecting spit of cloudy gold +Whereon I wait to greet him when he comes. +Think not I fear thine anger: this day, thou, +Lord of the silver bow, shalt bring a guest +To sit in presence of the equal Gods +In your high hall: wheel but thy chariot near, +That I may mount beside thee! + ----What is this? +I hear the crackling hiss of singed plumes! +The stench of burning feathers stifles me! +My loins are stung with drops of molten wax!-- +Ai! ai! my ruined vans!--I fall! I die! + + * * * * * + +Ere the blue noon o'erspanned the bluer strait +Which parts Icaria from Samos, fell, +Amid the silent wonder of the air, +Fell with a shock that startled the still wave, +A shrivelled wreck of crisp, entangled plumes, +A head whence eagles' beaks had plucked the eyes, +And clots of wax, black limbs by eagles torn +In falling: and a circling eagle screamed +Around that floating horror of the sea +Derision, and above Hyperion shone. + + * * * * * + + +WALKER. + +I confess to knowledge of a large book bearing the above title,--a +title which is no less appropriate for this brief, disrupted +biographical memorandum. That I have a right to act as I have done, in +adopting it, will presently appear,--as well as that the honored name +thus appropriated by me refers neither io the dictionary nor the +_filibustero_, both of which articles appear to have been superseded +by newer and better things. + +At the first flush, Fur would seem to be rather a sultry subject to +open either a store or a story with, in these glowing days of a justly +incensed thermometer. + +And yet there is a fine bracing mountain-air to be drawn from the +material, as with a spigot, if you will only favor your mind with a +digression from the tangible article to the wild-rose associations in +which it is enveloped. + +Think of the high, wind-swept ridges, among the clefts of which are +the only homesteads of the hardy pioneers by whose agency alone one +kind of luxury is kept up to the standard demand for it in the great +cities. It might not be so likely a place to get fancy drinks in as +Broome Street, certainly, we must admit, as we picture to ourselves +some brushy ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set +out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed +"fisher-cat,"--but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a +brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the +fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the +mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more +conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy in cool images +connected with fur and its finders, we shall see what contrasts will +arise. The blue shadow of a cottonwood-tree stretching over a +mountain-spring. By the edge of the sparkling water sits, embroidering +buckskin, a red-legged squaw, keeper of the wigwam to the ragged +mountain-man who set the traps that caught the martens which furnished +the tails that mark so gracefully the number of skins of which the +rich banker's wife's _fichu-russe_ is composed. Here is a striking +contrast, in which extremes meet,--not the martens' tails, but the two +men's wives, the banker's and the trapper's, brought into antithetical +relation by the simple circumstance of a _fichu-russe_, the material +of which was worn in some ravine of the wilderness, mayhap not a +twelvemonth since, by a creature faster even than a banker's wife. +Great is the hereafter of the marten-cat, whose skin may be looked +upon as the soul by which the animal is destined to attain a sort of +modified immortality in the Elysian abodes of Wealth and Fashion,--the +place where good martens go! + +The men through whose intervention eventual felicity is thus secured +to the fur-creature are as much a race in themselves as the Gypsies. +No genuine type of them ever approaches nearer to the confines of +civilization than a frontier settlement beckons him. Old Adams, the +bear-tutor, might have been of this type once, but he is adulterated +with sawdust and gas-light now, with city cookery and spurious +groceries. Many men of French Canadian origin are to be found trading +and trapping in the Far West; although, taken in the aggregate, there +are no people less given to stirring enterprise than these colonial +descendants of the Gaul. The only direction, almost, in which they +exhibit any expansive tendency is in the border trade and general +adventure business, in which figure the names of many of them +conspicuously and with honor. The Chouteaus are of that stock; and of +that stock came the late Major Aubry, renowned among the guides and +trappers of the southwestern wilderness; and if J.C. Fremont is not a +French Canadian by birth, the strong efforts made about the time of +the last Presidential election to establish him as one had at least +the effect of determining his Canadian descent. + +Pierre La Marche was a Franco-Canadian of the spread-eagle kind +referred to. Departing widely from the conservative prejudices of his +race, his wandering propensities took him away, at an early age, from +the primitive colonial village in which he first saw the light of day. +He was but fourteen years old when he left his peaceful and thoroughly +whitewashed home on the banks of the St. Francois, in company with a +knot of Canadian _voyageurs_, whose principles tended towards the Red +River of the North. Leaving this convoy at Fond-du-Lac, he pushed his +way on to the Mississippi, alone and friendless, and, falling in with +a party of trappers at St. Louis, accompanied them when they returned +to the mountain "gulches" in which their business lay. + +After six years of trapper and trader life, but little trace of the +simple young Canadian _habitant_ was left in Pierre La Marche. He +spoke mountain English and French _patois_ with equal fluency. There +was a decision of character about him that commanded the respect of +his comrades. When the other trappers went to St. Louis, they used to +drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring +for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre +was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his +aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or +squandering it upon deteriorating drinks. + +About this time of his life, Pierre began to think that the fact of +his being "only a French Canadian" was likely to be a bar to his +advancement. He despised himself greatly for one thing, indeed,--that +his name was La Marche, and not Walker,--which patronymic he made out +to be the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent for his French one. He +adopted it,--calling himself Peter Walker,--and had an adventure out +of it, to begin with. + +While trading furs at St. Louis, on one occasion, he offered a remnant +of his stock to a dealer with whom he was not acquainted. They had an +argument as to prices. The dealer, a man of hasty temper, asked him +his name. + +"Walker," was the reply. + +When La Marche arose from the distant corner into which he was +projected in company with the bundle of furs levelled at his head, +revenge was his natural sentiment. Drawing his heavy knife from its +sheath, he flung it away: the temptation to use it might have been too +much for him. Small in stature, but remarkable for muscular strength, +and for inventive resource in the "rough-and-tumble" fight, La Marche +clenched with the burly store-keeper, who was getting the worst of it, +when some of his _employes_ interfered. This led to a general +engagement. Several of La Marche's companions now rushed in, and in +five minutes their opponents gave out, succumbent to superior wind and +sinew. + +Next morning, when the trappers took their way out of St. Louis, La +Marche was a leader among them for life. But the reason of the +store-keeper's rage was for many years a mystery to him. He knew not +the enormity of "Walker," as an exponent of disparagement; he simply +thought it a nicer name than La Marche, while it fully embodied the +sentiment of that name. He adopted it, then, as I said before, and +went on towards posterity as Peter Walker. + +I heard many strange anecdotes of Peter Walker at the residence of a +retired _voyageur_, who used to sing him Homerically to his chosen +friends. These _voyageurs_ are professional canoe-men; adventurers +extending, sparsely, from the waters of French Canada to those of +Oregon,--and sometimes back. Honest old Quatreaux! I mentioned his +"residence" just now, and the term is truly grandiloquent in its +application. The residence of old Quatreaux was a log _cabane_, about +twenty feet square. Planks, laid loosely upon the cross-ties of the +rafters, formed the up-stairs of the building: up-ladder would be a +term more in accordance with facts; for it was by an appliance of that +kind that the younger and more active of the sixteen members composing +the old _voyageur's_ family removed themselves from view when they +retired for the night. A partition, extending half-way across the +ground-floor, screened off the state or principal bed from outside +gaze; at least, it was exposed to view only from points rendered +rather inaccessible by tubs, with which these Canadian families are +generally provided to excess. This apartment was strictly assigned to +me, as a visitor; and although I firmly declined the honor,--chiefly +with reference to certain large and very hard fleas I knew of in its +dormitory arrangements,--it was kept religiously vacant, in case my +heart should relent towards it, and the family in general slept +huddled together on the outer floor, without manifest classification: +the two old people; son and wife; daughter and husband; children; the +extraordinary little hunch-backed and one-eyed girl, whom nobody would +marry, but everybody liked; dogs. I used to stretch myself on a +buffalo-robe before the wood-fire, in company with a faithful spaniel, +who was as wakeful on these occasions as if he suspected that the +low-bred curs of the establishment might pick his pockets. + +Quatreaux's _cabane_ was situated on the edge of an extensive tract of +marsh,--lagoon would be a more descriptive word for it, perhaps,--a +splashy, ditch-divided district, extending along the borders of a lake +for miles. Snipe-shooting was my motive there; and dull work it was in +those dark, Novembry, October days, with "the low rain falling" half +the time, and the yellow leaves all the time, and no snipe. But +whether we poled our log canoe up to some stunted old willow-tree that +sat low in the horizontal marsh, and took shelter under it to smoke +our pipes, or whether we mollified the privation of snipe in the +_cabane_ at night with mellow rum and tobacco brought by me, still was +Walker the old _voyageur's_ favorite theme. + +Old Quatreaux spoke English perfectly well, although his conservatism +as a Canadian induced him to prefer his mother tongue as a vehicle for +general conversation. But I remarked that his anecdotes of Walker were +always related in English, and on these occasions, therefore, for my +benefit alone: for but little of the Anglo-Saxon tongue appeared to be +known to, or at least used by, any member of his numerous family. +Indeed, I can recall but two words of that language which I could +positively aver to have heard in colloquial use among them,--_poodare_ +and _schotte_. And why should the old _voyageur_ have thus reserved +his experiences from those who were near and dear to him? Simply +because most of his adventures with Walker were not of the strictly +mild character becoming a family-man. But it was all the same to these +good people; and when I laughed, they all took up the idea and laughed +their best,--the little hunch-backed girl generally going off into a +kind of epilepsy by herself, over in the darkest corner of the room, +among the tubs. + +When divested of the strange Western expletives and imprecations with +which the old man used to spice his reminiscences, some of them are +enough. I remember one, telling how Peter Walker "raised the wind" on +a particular occasion, when he got short of money on his way to some +distant trading-post, in a district strange to him. It is before me, +in short-hand, on the pages of an old, old pocket-book, and I will +tell it with some slight improvements on the narrator's style, such as +suppressing his unnecessary combinations of the curse. + +Mounted on a two-hundred-dollar buffalo-horse, for which he would not +have taken double that amount, Peter Walker found himself, one +afternoon, near the end of a long day's ride. He had but little +baggage with him, that little consisting entirely of a bowie-knife and +holster-pistols,--for the revolver was a scarce piece of furniture +then and there. Of money he was entirely destitute, having expended +his last dollar upon the purchase of his noble steed, and of the +festive suit of clothes with which he calculated upon astonishing +people who resided outside the limits of civilization. The pantaloon +division of that suit was particularly superb, consisting principally +of a stripe by which the outer seam of each leg was made conducive to +harmony of outline. He was about three days' journey from the +trading-post to which he was bound. The country was a frontier one, +sparsely provided with inns. + +The sun was framed in a low notch of the horizon, as he approached a +border-hostelry, on the gable of which "Cat's Bluff Hotel" was painted +in letters quite disproportioned in size to the city of Cat's Bluff, +which consisted of the house in question, neither more nor less. In +that house Peter Walker decided upon sojourning luxuriously for that +night, at least, if he had to draw a check upon his holsters for it. + +Having stabled his horse, then, and seen him supplied with such +provender as the place afforded, he looked about the hotel, which he +found to be an institution of very considerable pretensions. It seemed +to have a good deal of its own way, in fact, being the only house of +entertainment for many miles upon a great south-western thoroughfare, +from which branched off the trail to be taken by him tomorrow,--a +trail which led only to the trading-post or fort already mentioned. + +The deportment of the landlord was gracious, as he went about +whistling "Wait for the wagon," and jingling with gold chains and +heavy jewelry. Still more exhilarating was the prosperous confidence +of the bar-keeper, who took in, while Walker was determining a drink, +not less than a dozen quarter-dollars, from blue-shirted, bearded, +thirsty men with rifles, who came along in a large covered wagon of +western tendency, in which they immediately departed with haste, late +as it was, as if bound to drive into the sun before he went down +behind the far-off edge. Walker used to say, jocularly, that he +supposed this must have been the wagon for which the landlord +whistled, and which came to his call. + +Everything denoted that there was abundance of money in that favored +place. Even small boys who came in and called for cigars and drinks +made a reckless display of coin as they paid for them, and then drove +off in their wagons,--for they all had wagons, and were all intent +upon driving rapidly in then toward the west. + +But, as night fell, travel went down with the declining day; and +Walker felt himself alone in the world,--a man without a dollar. +Nevertheless, he called for good cheer, which was placed before him on +a liberal scale: for landlords thereabouts were accustomed to provide +for appetites acquired on the plains, and their supply was obliged to +be both large and ready for the chance comers who were always dropping +in, and upon whom their custom depended. So he ate and drank; and +having appeased hunger and thirst, he went into the bar, and opened +conversation with the landlord by offering him one of his own cigars, +a bunch of which he got from the bar-keeper, whom he particularly +requested not to forget to include them in his bill, when the time for +his departure brought with it the disagreeable necessity of being +served with that document. + +Western landlords, in general, are not remarkable for the reserve with +which they treat their guests. This particular landlord was less so +than most others. He was especially inquisitive with regard to +Walker's exquisite pantaloons, the like of which had never been seen +in that part of the country before. His happiness was evidently +incomplete in the privation of a similar pair. + +"Them pants all wool, now?" asked he, as he viewed them with various +inclinations of head, like a connoisseur examining a picture. + +"All except the stripes," replied Walker;--"stripes is wool and cotton +mixed; gives 'em a finer grain, you see, and catches the eye." + +The landlord respected Walker at once. Perhaps he might be an Eastern +dry-goods merchant, come along for the purpose of making arrangements +to inundate the border-territory with stuffs for exquisite pantaloons. +He proceeded with his interrogatories. He laid himself out to extract +from Walker all manner of information as to his origin, occupation, +and prospects, which gave the latter an excellent opportunity of +glorifying himself inferentially, while he affected mystery and +reticence with regard to his mission "out West." At last the landlord +set him down for an agent come on to open the sluices for a great tide +of foreign emigration into the territory,--an event to which he +himself had been looking for a long time, and the prospect of which +had guided him to the spot where he had established his hotel, which +he now looked upon as the centre from which a great city was destined +immediately to radiate. And the landlord retired to his bed to +meditate upon immense speculations in town-lots, and, when sleep came +upon him, to dream that he had successfully arranged them through the +medium of an angel with a speaking-trumpet, whose manifest wardrobe +consisted of a pair of fancy pantaloons with stripes on the seams and +side-pockets, exactly like Walker's. + +Walker, too, retired to rest, but not to sleep, for his mind was +occupied in turning over means whereby to obtain some of the real +capital with which people here seemed to be superabundantly provided. +He had speculations to carry out, and money was the indispensable +element. Had he only been able to read the landlord's thoughts, he +might have turned quietly over and slept; for so held was that +person's mind by the idea that his ultimate success was to be achieved +through the medium of his unknown guest, that he would without +hesitation have lent him double the sum necessary for his financial +arrangements. + +There was a disturbance some time about the middle of the night. +People came along in wagons, as usual, waking up the bar-keeper, whose +dreams perpetually ran upon that kind of trouble. Walker, who was wide +awake, gathered from the conversation below that the travellers had +only halted for drinks, and would immediately resume their way +westward with all speed. He arose and looked out at the open window, +which was about fifteen feet from the ground. Something white loomed +up through the darkness: it was the awning of one of the wagons, which +stood just under the window, to the sill of which it reached within a +few feet. Walker, brought up in the rough-and-ready school, had lain +down to rest with his trousers on. A sudden inspiration now seized +him: he slipped them rapidly off, and dropped them silently on to the +roof of the wagon, which soon after moved on with the others, and +disappeared into the night. This done, he opened softly the door of +the room, and, leaving it ajar, returned to bed and slept. + +Morning was well advanced when Walker arose, and began operations by +moving the furniture about in an excited manner, to attract the +attention of those in the bar below, and convey an idea of search. +Presently he went to the door of the room, and, uttering an Indian +howl, by way of securing immediate attendance, cried out,-- + +"Hullo, below! where's my pants?--bar-keeper, fetch along my +pants!--landlord, I don't want to be troublesome, but just take off +them pants, if you happen to have mistook 'em for your own, and oblige +the right owner with a look at 'em, will you?" + +Puzzled at this address, which was couched in much stronger +language--according to old Quatreaux's version of it--than I should +like to commit to paper, the landlord and bar-keeper at once proceeded +to Walker's room, where they found him sitting, expectantly, on the +side of the bed, with his horse-pistols gathered together beside him. +Of course, they denied all knowledge of his pantaloons,--didn't steal +nobody's pants in that house, nor nothin'. + +Walker looked sternly at them, and, playing with one of his pistols, +exclaimed, with the usual redundants,-- + +"You lie!--you've stole my pants between you; you've found out what +they were worth by this time, I guess; but I'll have 'em back, and +that in a hurry, or else my name a'n't Walker,--Peter Walker." + +He added his Christian name, because a reminiscence of the mystery +belonging to his patronymic by itself flashed upon him. + +Now the name of Pete Walker was potent along the frontier, because of +his influence with the wild mountain-men, who did reckless deeds on +his account, unknown to him and otherwise. Another vision than that of +last night overcame the landlord,--a vision of Lynch and ashes. + +"So you're Pete Walker, be you?" asked he, in a tone of mingled +respect and admiration, slightly tremulous with fear. "How do you do, +Mr. Walker?--how do you find yourself this morning, Sir?" + +"I didn't come here to find myself," retorted Walker, fiercely. "I +found my door open, though, when I woke up,--but I couldn't find my +pants. You must get 'em, or pay for 'em, and that right away." + +"Them cusses that passed through here last night!" exclaimed the +landlord. "I guess the pants is gone on the sundown trail, stripes and +all." + +Walker thought it was quite probable that they had; but they were +stolen from that house, and the house must pay for them. + +Lynch and ashes again blazed before the landlord's eyes. + +"How much might the pants be worth, now, at cost price?" asked he. +"All wool, you say, only the stripes; but, as they was nearly all +stripes, you needn't holler much about the wool, I reckon. How much, +now?" + +"Two hundred and ten dollars," replied Walker, with impressive +exactness. + +"Thunder!" exclaimed the landlord. "I thought they might be +fancy-priced, sure-ly, but that's awful!" + +"Ten dollars, cash price, for the pants," proceeded Walker, "and two +hundred for that exact amount in gold stitched up in the waistband of +em." + +"The Devil has got 'em, anyhow!" said the landlord,--"for I saw a +queer critter, in my sleep, flying about with 'em on. Wings looks +kinder awful along o' pants with stripes. There'll be no luck round +till they're paid for, I guess. Couldn't you take my best checkers for +'em, now, with fifty dollars quilted into the waistband,--s-a-ay?" + +"My name's Walker,--Peter Walker," was the reply. + +The landlord was no match for that name, so disagreeably redolent of +Lynch and ashes. Thorough search was made upon the premises, and to +some distance around, in the wild hope that the missing trousers might +have walked off spontaneously, and lain down somewhere to sleep; but, +of course, nothing came of the investigation, although Walker assisted +at it with his usual energy. All compromise was rejected by him, and +it was not yet noon when he rode proudly away from the lone hostelry, +in the landlord's best checkers, for which he kindly allowed him five +dollars, receiving from him the balance, two hundred and five dollars, +in gold. + +I forget now what Walker did with that money, although Quatreaux knew +exactly, and told me all about it. Suffice it to say that he made a +grand _coup_ with it, in the purchase of a mill-privilege, or claim, +or something of the kind. Less than a year after the events narrated, +he again rode up to the lone hostelry, which was not so lonely now, +however; for houses were growing up around it, and it took boarders +and rang a dinner-bell, and maintained a landlady as well as a +landlord, besides. The landlord was astonished when Walker counted out +to him two hundred and five dollars in gold,--surprised when to that +was added a round sum for interest,--ecstatic, on being presented with +a brand-new pair of pantaloons, of the same pattern as the expensive +ones formerly so admired by him. But his features collapsed, and for +some time wore an expression of imbecility, when he learned the +details of the adventure, and found out that "some things"--landlords, +for example--"can be done as well as others." + +It was with little reminiscences like the one just narrated that old +Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate +ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that +our horizon was within paddle's length of us. With that presumptive +_clairvoyance_ which appears to be an essential property of the French +_raconteur_, he did not confine himself to external fact in his +narratives, but always professed to report minutely the thoughts that +flashed through the mind of such and such a person, on the particular +occasion referred to. He was a master of dialects,--Yankee, +Pennsylvanian Dutch, and Irish. + +"Where did you get your English, old man?" I asked him, as we scudded +across the lake in our canoe, with a small sail up, one red October +evening. + +"In Pennsylvania," replied he. "I went there on my own hook, when I +was about twelve year old, and worked in an oil-mill for four year." + +"In an oil-mill? Perhaps that accounts for the glibness with which +language slips off your tongue." + +"'Guess it do," said the old _voyageur_, with ready assent. + +We nearly got foul of a raft coming down the lake, manned with a +rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and +were very drunk and boisterous. + +"Ugly customers to deal with, those _brules_," remarked I, when we had +got clear away from them. + +"Some on 'em is," replied the old _voyageur_. "Did you notice the one +with the queer eye,--him in the Scotch cap and _shupac_ moccasons?" + +I _had_ noticed him, and an ill-looking thief he was. One of his eyes, +either from natural deformity or the effect of hostile operation, was +dragged down from its proper parallel, and planted in a remote socket +near the corner of his mouth, whence it glared and winked with +super-natural ferocity. + +"That's Rupe Falardeau," continued my companion. "His father, old +Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi +boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,--only the eye's +lower down still. If that's to go on in the family, I guess there'll +be a Falardeau with his eye in his knee, some time." + +In the deck-fight in which old Rupe got his ugly mark Pete Walker had +a hand; and the part he took in it, as related to me by old Quatreaux, +who was also present, affords a good example of the tact and coolness +which gave him such mastery over the wild spirits among whom he worked +out his destiny. + +Walker was coming down a lumbering-river--I forget the name of it--on +board a small tug-steamboat, in which he had an interest. He had gone +into other speculations beside furs, by this time, and had contracts +in two or three places for supplying remote stations with salt pork, +tea, and other staple provisions of the lumbering-craft. + +Stopping to wood at the mouth of a creek, a gang of raftsmen came on +board,--half-breed Canadians of fierce and demoralized aspect,--men of +great muscular strength, and armed heavily with axes and +butcher-knives. The gang was led by Rupe Falardeau, a dangerous man, +whether drunk or sober, and one whose antecedents were recorded in +blood. These men had been drinking, and were very noisy and intrusive, +and presently a row arose between them and some of the boat-hands. +Fisticuffs and kicks were first exchanged, but without any great loss +of blood. Knives were then drawn and nourished, and matters were +beginning to assume a serious aspect, when Walker made his appearance +forward of the paddle-box, pointing a heavy pistol right at the head +of the ringleader. + +"Rupe!" shouted he, in a voice that attracted immediate attention, +"drop that knife, or else I shoot!" + +The crowd parted for a moment, and Rupe, standing alone near the bows, +wheeled round with a yell, and glared fiercely at the speaker. + +"Drop that knife!" repeated Walker.--"One, two, _three_!--I'll give +you a last chance, and when I say _three_ again, I shoot, by thunder!" + +The last word had not rolled away, when the gleaming knife flashed +from the hand of Rupe, glanced close by Walker's ear, and sped +quivering into the paddle-box, just behind his head. + +"Good for you, Rupe!" exclaimed Walker, lowering his pistol, with a +pleasant smile,--"good for you!--but, _sacre bapteme_! how dead I'd +have shot you, if you hadn't dropped that knife!" + +The forbearance of Walker put an end to the row. Rupe, disarmed at +once by the loss of his knife and the coolness of Walker, was seized +by a couple of the deck-hands, and might have been secured without +injury to his beauty, had not a Mississippi boatman, who owed him an +old grudge, struck him on the face with a heavy iron hook, lacerating +and disfiguring him hideously for life. + +"But why didn't Walker shoot Falardeau, old man?" asked I of the +_voyageur_, wishing to learn something of the etiquette of life and +death among these peculiar people, who appear to be so reckless of the +former and fearless of the latter. + +"Ah!" replied he, "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a +man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known +before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the Ottawa to +the Columbia." + +Some time after this I again fell in with young Rupe, under +circumstances indicating that his life was not considered quite so +valuable as that of the old gentleman from whom he inherited his +frightful aspect. + +In company with a friend, one day, I was beating about for wild-fowl +in a marshy river, down which small rafts or "cribs" of timber were +worked by half-breeds and Canadians. + +About dark we came to a small, flat island in the marsh, where we +found an Iroquois camp, in which we proposed to pass the night, as we +had no camping-equipage in our skiff. The men were absent, hunting, +and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized +squaw, with her two ugly, undersized children. + +We were much fatigued, and agreed to sleep by watches, knowing the +sort of people we had to deal with. It was my watch, when voices were +heard as of men landing and pulling up a canoe or boat. Presently +three men came into the wigwam, railing-men, dressed in gray Canada +homespun and heavy Scotch bonnets. The light of the fire outside +flashed on their faces, as they stooped to enter the elm-bark tent, +and in the foremost I recognized the hideous Rupe Falardeau, Junior. +This man carried in his hand a small tin pail full of whiskey. He was +very drunk and dangerous, and greatly disgusted at the absence of the +Iroquois men, with whom he had evidently laid himself out for a +roaring debauch. + +I woke up my companion, and a judicious display of our +double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They +insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and +horrible stuff it was,--distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with +vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate +on such "fire-water" as that! + +By-and-by they slept,--two of them outside, by the fire,--Falardeau +inside the wigwam, the repose of which was broken by the hollow rattle +of his drunken breath. + +In the dead of the night something clutched me by the arm. It was the +ugly squaw, who forced a greasy butcher-knife into my hand, pointing +towards where the raftsman lay, and whispering to me in +English,--"Stick heem! stick heem!--nobody never know. He kill my +brother long time ago with this old knife. Kill heem! kill heem now!" + +I did not avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me for the +improvement of river society: nay, worse, I connived at the further +career of the redoubtable Rupert Falardeau, Junior; for, on leaving in +the morning, I roused him with repeated kicks, thus saving him for +that time, probably, from the Damoclesian blade of the _vengeresse_. + +_L'ete de Saint Martin_!--how blue and yellow it is in the marshes in +those days! It is the name given by the French Canadians to the Indian +Summer,--the Summer of St. Martin, whose anniversary-day falls upon +the eleventh of November; though the brief latter-day tranquillity +called after him arrives, generally, some two or three weeks earlier. +Looking lakeward from the sedgy nook in which we are waiting for the +coming of the wood-ducks, the low line of water, blue and calm, is +broken at intervals by the rise of the distant _masquallonge_, as he +plays for a moment on the surface. But the channels that separate the +flat, alluvial islets are yellow, their sluggish waters being bedded +heavily down with the broad leaves of the wintering basswood-trees, +which, in some places, touch branch-tips across the narrow straits. +The muskrat's hut is thatched with the wet, dead leaves,--no thanks to +_him_; and there is a mat of them before his door,--a heavy, yellow +mat, on which are scattered the azure shells of the fresh-water clams +to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on +them, or are they only the cups and saucers of his vegeto-aquarian +_menage_? Blue and yellow all,--the sky and the sedge-rows, the calm +lake and the canoe, the plashing basswood-leaves and the oval, azure +shells. + +Also Marance, the _voyageur's_ buxom young daughter, who came with us, +today, commissioned to cull herbs of wondrous properties among the +vine-tangled thickets of the islands. Blue and yellow. Eyes blue as +the azure shells; hair flashing out golden gleams, like that of +Pyrrha, when she braided hers so featly for the coming of some +ambrosial boy. + +"I must marry you, Marance," said I, jocularly, to the damsel, as I +jumped her out of the canoe,--"I shall marry you when we get back." + +It is good to live in a marsh. No fast boarding-house women there, +lurking for the unwary; no breaches of promise; "no nothing" in the +old-man-trap line. Abjure fast boarding-houses, you silly old +bachelors, and go to grass in a marsh! + +Marance laughed merrily, as she tripped away; then, turning, she +said,-- + +"But what if I never get back? I may lose myself in these lonely +places, and never be heard of again." + +"Oh, in that case," replied I, hard driven for a compliment, "in that +case, I must wait until Gilette"--a younger sister--"grows up. She +will be exactly like you: I must only wait for Gilette." + +"You remind me of Pete Walker," said the old man, as we shot away up +the channel, our canoe ripping up the matted surface like the cue of a +novice, when he runs a fatal reef along the sere and yellow cloth of +some billiard-table erewhile in verdure clad. "You are as bad as Pete +Walker, who thought one sister must be as good as another, because +they looked so much alike." + +And then, as we loitered about in the bays, the old man told me the +story of Walker's honeymoon, which was a sad and a short one. This is +the story. + +Near that wild rapid of the Columbia River known as the "Dalles," +there was, years ago, a Jesuit mission, established in a small fort, +built, like that at Nez-Perces, of mud. The labors of the holy men +composing the mission involved no inconsiderable amount of danger, +devoted as they were to the hopeless task of reforming such sinners as +the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Gros-Ventres, the Flat-Heads, the +Assiniboines, the Nez-Perces, and a few other such. + +Some of these missionaries had sojourned for a long time with a branch +of the Blackfoot tribe, among whom they found two young white girls, +remarkable for their exact resemblance to each other, and therefore +supposed to be twins. I say _supposed_, because of their origin there +was no trace. All that was known about them was, that they were the +sole survivors of a train of emigrants, attacked and murdered by the +Nez-Perces, who, actuated by one of those whims characteristic of the +red men, spared the lives of the two children, and adopted them into +the tribe. Subsequently, in a skirmish with the Blackfeet, they fell +into the hands of the latter, among whom they had lived for some time, +when they were ransomed by the missionaries, at the price of certain +trading-privileges negotiated by the latter for the tribe. + +When adopted by the Jesuits, the children had lost all remembrance of +their parentage; nor had they any names except the Indian ones +bestowed upon them by their captors. The good fathers christened them, +however, arranging them alphabetically, by the names of Alixe and +Bloyse, and confiding them to the especial charge of the wife of a +trader connected with the station, who had no family of her own. They +were fair-haired children, probably of German or Norwegian origin, and +had grown up to be robust young women of seventeen, when Walker saw +them for the first time, as he stopped at the Dalles on his way from +Fort Nez-Perces about one hundred and twenty-five miles higher up the +Columbia. + +Walker, whose business detained him for some time at the mission, +decided upon marrying one of the fair-haired sisters,--he did not much +care which, they were so singularly alike. Alixe happened to be the +one, however, to whom he tendered a share in his fortunes, which she +accepted in the random manner of one to whom it was of but little +consequence whether she said "Yes" or "No." Bloyse would have followed +him, and him only, to the end of all; but he never knew it at the +right time, though the women of the fort could have told him. + +It was late one afternoon when he was married to Alixe, in the chapel +of the mission. That was the night of the massacre. Two hours after +the wedding, the Blackfeet, combined with some allied tribe, came down +like wolves upon the fort. There was treachery, somewhere, and they +got in. In the thick of the fight, and when all seemed hopeless, +Walker shot down a tall Indian who was dragging his bride away to +where the horses of the tribe were picketed. In a second he had leaped +upon a horse, and, holding the young girl before him, galloped away in +the direction of a stream running into the Columbia,--a stream of +fierce torrents, navigable only at one place, and that by +flat-bottomed boats or scows, in which passengers warped themselves +across by a grass rope stretched from bank to bank. Once over this +river, he could easily reach a friendly camp, where he and his bride +would have been in safety. + +The moon had risen when he reached the ferry. Turning the horse +adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp +rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his +fainting companion close to him with the other. Suddenly, a sharp +click sounded from the opposite bank: the rope gave way, and Walker +and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat +shooting far away from beneath their feet. It ran a strong current +there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower +down. Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely +against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and +faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of +consciousness. When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his +companion was gone. The current had driven them forcibly against a +rock, throwing her from his grasp. The wild rapid was just below them. +She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore, +where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was +daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened. + +The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an +Indian, in whose brother's removal by hanging he had been +instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the +purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance. + +Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the +mission a heap of ruins,--blackened walls, charred rafters, and +unrecognizable human remains. + +Long afterwards, he learned that his bride was again living among the +Blackfeet;--for it was Bloyse, and not Alixe, with whom he had +galloped away to the fatal ferry, in the confusion of that terrible +night. It was poor Bloyse who went away from his arms down those +crushing rapids. It was Alixe, his bride, who shot back the bolts for +the entrance of the Blackfeet. She was secretly betrothed in the +tribe, and it was her betrothed whom Walker shot down as he was +rushing away in triumph with his supposed _fiancee_ of the pale-faces. +She married another Indian of the tribe, however; for she was a savage +woman at heart, and could live among savages only. + +"Sisters may be as like as two walnuts, to look at," said the old +_voyageur_, when he had finished his narration. "Take any two walnuts +from a heap, at random, though, and, like as not, you'll find one on +'em all heart and the other all hollow." + +"True," replied I; "but these be wild adventures for one whose boyhood +was passed in a peaceful and thoroughly whitewashed home on the banks +of the St. Francois." + +"'Guess they be," said the old _voyageur_. + + * * * * * + + +THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER AND ITS EDITORS. + +The families of Gales and Seaton are, in their origin, the one Scotch, +the other English. The Seatons are of that historic race, a daughter +of which (the fair and faithful Catherine) is the heroine of one of +Sir Walter Scott's romances. It was to be supposed that they whose +lineage looked to such an instance of devoted personal affection for +the ancient line would not slacken in their loyalty when fresh +calamities fell upon the Stuarts and again upset their throne. +Accordingly, the Seatons appear to have clung to the cause of their +exiled king with fidelity. Henry Seaton seems to have made himself +especially obnoxious to the new monarch, by taking part in those +Jacobite schemes of rebellion which were so long kept on foot by the +lieges and gentlemen of Scotland; so that, when, towards the close of +the seventeenth century, the cause he loved grew desperate, and +Scotland itself anything but safe for a large body of her most gallant +men, he was forced, like all others that scorned to submit, to fly +beyond the seas. Doing so, it was natural that he should choose to +take refuge in a Britain beyond the ocean, where a brotherly welcome +among his kindred awaited the political prescript. It is probable, +however, that a special sympathy towards that region which, by its +former fidelity to the Stuarts, had earned from them the royal +quartering of its arms and the title of "The Ancient Dominion," +directed his final choice. At any rate, it was to Virginia that he +came,--settling there, as a planter, first in the county of +Gloucester, and afterwards in that of King William. From one of his +descendants in a right line sprang (by intermarriage with a lady of +English family, the Winstons) William Winston Seaton, the editor, +whose mother connected him with a second Scotch family, the +Henrys,--the mother of Patrick Henry being a Winston. These last had +come, some three generations before, from the old seat of that family +in its knightly times, Winston Hall, in Yorkshire, and had settled in +the county of Hanover, where good estates gave them rank among the +gentry; while commanding stature, the gift of an equally remarkable +personal beauty, a very winning address, good parts, high character, +and the frequent possession among them of a fine natural eloquence, +gave them as a race an equal influence over the body of the people. In +William (popularly called Langaloo) and his sister Sarah, the mother +of Patrick Henry, these hereditary qualities seem to have been +particularly striking; so that, in their day, it seemed a sort of +received opinion that it was from the maternal side that the great +orator derived his extraordinary powers. + +The Galeses are of much more recent naturalization amongst us,--later +by just about a century than that of the Seatons, but alike in its +causes. For they, too, were driven hither by governmental resentment. +Their founder, (as he may be called,) the elder Joseph Gales, was one +of those rare men who at times spring up from the body of the people, +and by mere unassisted merit, apart from all adventitious advantages, +make their way to a just distinction. Perhaps no better idea of him +can be given than by likening him to one, less happy in his death, +whom Science is now everywhere lamenting,--the late admirable Hugh +Miller. A different career, rather than an inferior character, made +Joseph Gales less conspicuous. He was born in 1761, at Eckington, near +the English town of Sheffield. The condition of his family was above +dependence, but not frugality. + +Be education what else it may, there is one sort which never fails to +work well: namely, that which a strong capacity, when denied the usual +artificial helps, shapes out to its own advantage. Such, with little +and poor assistance, became that of Joseph Gales, obtained +progressively, as best it could be, in the short intervals which the +body can allow to be stolen between labor and necessary rest. + +Now the writer is thoroughly convinced, that, after this boy had +worked hard all the day long, he never would have sat down to study +half the night through, if it had not been a pleasure to him. In +short, no sort of toil went hard with him. For he was a fine, manly +youngster, cheerful and stalwart, one who never slunk from what he had +set about, nor turned his back except upon what was dishonest. He +wrought lightsomely, and even lustily, at his coarser pursuits; for, +in that sturdy household, to work had long been held a duty. + +Thus improving himself, at odd hours, until he was fit for the +vocation of a printer, and looked upon by the village as a genius, our +youth went to Manchester, and applied himself to that art, not only +for itself, but as the surest means of further knowledge. Of course he +became a master in the craft. At length, returning to his own town to +exercise it, he grew, by his industry and good conduct, into a +condition to exercise it on his own account, and set up a +newspaper,--"The Sheffield Register." + +Born of the people, it was natural that Joseph Gales should in his +journal side with the Reformers; and he did so: but with that +unvarying moderation which his good sense and probity of purpose +taught him, and which he ever after through life preserved. He kept +within the right limits of whatever doctrine he embraced, and held a +measure in all his political principles,--knowing that the best, in +common with the worst, tend, by a law of all party, to exaggeration +and extremes. Beyond this temperateness of mind nothing could move +him. Thus guarded, by a rare equity of the understanding, from excess +as to measures, he was equally guarded by a charity and a gentleness +of heart the most exhaustless. In a word, it may safely be said of +him, that, amidst all the heats of faction, he never fell into +violence,--amidst all the asperities of public life, never stooped to +personalities,--and in all that he wrote, left scarcely an unwise and +not a single dishonest sentence behind him. + +Such qualities, though not the most forward to set themselves forth to +the public attention, should surely bring success to an editor. The +well-judging were soon pleased with the plain good sense, the general +intelligence, the modesty, and the invariable rectitude of the young +man. Their suffrage gained, that of the rest began to follow. For, in +truth, there are few things of which the light is less to be hid than +that of a good newspaper. "The Register," by degrees, won a general +esteem, and began to prosper. And as, according to the discovery of +Malthus, Prosperity is fond of pairing, it soon happened that our +printer went to falling in love. Naturally again, being a printer, he, +from a regard for the eternal fitness of things, fell in love with an +authoress. + +This was Miss Winifred Marshall, a young lady of the town of Newark, +who to an agreeable person, good connections, and advantages of +education, joined a literary talent that had already won no little +approval. She wrote verse, and published several novels of the +"Minerva Press" order, (such as "Lady Emma Melcombe and her Family," +"Matilda Berkley," etc.,) of which only the names survive. + +Despite the poetic adage about the course of true love, that of Joseph +Gales ran smooth: Miss Marshall accepted his suit and they were +married. Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together +most happily and long,--she dying, at an advanced age, only two years +before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some +marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with +their daughters,--namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three +sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three +(Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born +in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from +which she was named; and the rest in America. + +To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with +his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his +printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also +flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he +should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an +advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended +youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future +man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his +employment,--at first, merely to keep his accounts,--but, by degrees, +for superior things,--until, progressively, he (the youth) matured +into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his +successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet. + +On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their +rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the +"Intelligencer." [Mr. Gales has since died.] Happy at home, the young +mother could as delightedly look without. The business of her husband +throve apace; nor less the general regard and esteem in which he was +personally held. He grew continually in the confidence and affection +of his fellow-citizens; endearing himself especially, by his sober +counsels and his quiet charities, to all that industrious class who +knew him as one of their own, and could look up without reluctance to +a superiority which was only the unpretending one of goodness and +sense. Over them, without seeking it, he gradually obtained an +extraordinary ascendancy, of which the following is a single instance. +Upon some occasion of wages or want among the working-people of +Sheffield, a great popular commotion had burst out, attended by a huge +mob and riot, which the magistracy strove in vain to appease or quell. +When all else had failed, Mr. Gales bethought him of trying what he +could do. Driven into the thick of the crowd, in an open carriage, he +suddenly appeared amongst the rioters, and, by a few plain words of +remonstrance, convinced them that they could only hurt themselves by +overturning the laws, that they should seek other modes of redress, +and meantime had all better go home. They agreed to do so,--but with +the condition annexed, that they should first see him home. Whereupon, +loosening the horses from the carriage, they drew him, with loud +acclamations, back to his house. + +Such were his prospects and position for some seven years after his +marriage, when, of a sudden, without any fault of his own, he was made +answerable for a fact that rendered it necessary for him to flee +beyond the realm of Great Britain. + +As a friend to Reform, he had, in his journal, at first supported +Pitt's ministry, which had set out on the same principle, but which, +when the revolutionary movement in France threatened to overthrow all +government, abandoned all Reform, as a thing not then safe to set +about. From this change of views Mr. Gales dissented, and still +advocated Reform. So, again, as to the French Revolution, not yet +arrived at the atrocities which it speedily reached,--he saw no need +of making war upon it. In its outset, he had, along with Fox and other +Liberals, applauded it; for it then professed little but what Liberals +wished to see brought about in England. He still thought it good for +France, though not for his own country. Thus, moderate as he was, he +was counted in the Opposition and jealously watched. + +It was in the autumn of 1792, while he was gone upon a journey of +business, that a King's-messenger, bearing a Secretary-of-State's +warrant for the seizure of Mr. Gales's person, presented himself at +his house. For this proceeding against him the following facts had +given occasion. In his office was employed a printer named Richard +Davison,--a very quick, capable, useful man, and therefore much +trusted,--but a little wild, withal, at once with French principles +and religion, with conventicles, and those seditious clubs that were +then secretly organized all over the island. This person corresponded +with a central club in London, and had been rash enough to write them, +just then, an insurrectionary letter, setting forth revolutionary +plans, the numbers, the means they could command, the supplies of +arms, etc., that they were forming. This sage epistle was betrayed +into the hands of the Government. The discreet Dick they might very +well have hanged; but that was not worth while. From his connection +with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover +for a deeper man,--its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, +had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual +fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of +the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to +reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and +he, on learning what awaited him at home, instead of trusting to his +innocence, chose rather to trust the seas; and, making his way to the +coast, took the only good security for his freedom, by putting the +German Ocean between him and pursuit. He sailed for Amsterdam, where +arriving, he thence made his way to Hamburg, at which city he had +decided that his family should join him. To England he could return +only at the cost of a prosecution; and though this would, of +necessity, end in an acquittal, it was almost sure to be preceded by +imprisonment, while, together, they would half-ruin him. It was plain, +then, that he must at once do what he had long intended to do, go to +America. + +Accordingly, he gave directions to his family to come to him, and to +Montgomery that he should dispose of all his effects and settle up all +his affairs. These offices that devoted friend performed most +faithfully; remitting him the proceeds. The newspaper he himself +bought and continued, under the name of the "Sheffield Iris." Still +retaining his affection for the family, he passed into the household +of what was left of them, and supplied to the three sisters of the +elder Joseph Gales the place of a brother, and, wifeless and +childless, lived on to a very advanced age, content with their society +alone. The last of these dames died only a few months ago. + +At Hamburg, whence they were to take ship for the United States, the +family were detained all the winter by the delicate health of Mrs. +Gales. This delay her husband put to profit, by mastering two things +likely to be needful to him,--the German tongue and the art of +short-hand. In the spring, they sailed for Philadelphia. Arrived +there, he sought and at once obtained employment as a printer. It was +soon perceived, not only that he was an admirable workman, but every +way a man of unusual merit, and able to turn his hand to almost +anything. By-and-by, reporters of Congressional debates being few and +very indifferent, his employer, Claypole, said to him,--"You seem able +to do everything that is wanted: pray, could you not do these +Congressional Reports for us better than this drunken Callender, who +gives us so much trouble?" Mr. Gales replied, with his usual modesty, +that he did not know what he could do, but that he would try. + +The next day, he attended the sitting of Congress, and brought away, +in time for the compositors, a faithful transcript of such speeches as +had been made. Appearing in the next morning's paper, it of course +greatly astonished everybody. It seemed a new era in such things. They +had heard of the like in Parliament, but had scarcely credited it. +Claypole himself was the most astonished of all. Seizing a copy, he +ran around the town, showing it to all he met, and still hardly +comprehending the wonder which he himself had instigated. It need +hardly be said that here was something far more profitable for Mr. +Gales than type-setting. + +But to apply this skill, possessed by none else, to the exclusive +advantage of a journal of his own was yet more inviting; and the +opportunity soon offering itself, he became the purchaser of the +"Independent Gazetteer," a paper already established. This he +conducted with success until the year 1799, making both reputation and +many friends. Among the warmest of these were some of the North +Carolina members, and especially that one whose name has ever since +stood as a sort of proverb of honesty, Nathaniel Macon. By the +representations of these friends, he was led to believe that their new +State capital, Raleigh, where there was only a very decrepit specimen +of journalism, would afford him at once a surer competence and a +happier life than Philadelphia. Coming to this conclusion, he disposed +of his newspaper and printing-office, and removed to Raleigh, where he +at once established the "Register." Of his late paper, the +"Gazetteer," we shall soon follow the fortunes to Washington, where it +became the "Intelligencer": meantime, we must finish what is left to +tell of his own. + +At Raleigh he arrived under auspices which gave him not only a +reputation, but friends, to set out with. Both he soon confirmed and +augmented. By the constant merit of his journal, its sober sense, its +moderation, and its integrity, he won and invariably maintained the +confidence of all on that side of politics with which he concurred, +(the old Republican,) and scarcely less conciliated the respect of his +opponents. He quickly obtained, for his skill, and not merely as a +partisan reward, the public printing of his State, and retained it +until, reaching the ordinary limit of human life, he withdrew from the +press. In the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long +served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in +the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and +esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened, +as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for +his character and person; and the good North State honored and +cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In +Raleigh, there was no figure that, as it passed, was greeted so much +by the signs of a peculiar veneration as that great, stalwart one of +his, looking so plain and unaffected, yet with a sort of nobleness in +its very simplicity, a gentleness in its strength, an inborn goodness +and courtesy in all its roughness of frame,--his countenance mild and +calm, yet commanding, thoughtful, yet pleasant and betokening a bosom +that no low thought had ever entered. You had in him, indeed, the +highest image of that stanch old order from which he was sprung, and +might have said, "Here's the soul of a baron in the body of a +peasant." For he really looked, when well examined, like all the +virtues done in roughcast. + +With him the age of necessary and of well-merited repose had now come; +and judging that he could attain it only by quitting that habitual +scene of business where it would still solicit him, he transferred his +newspaper, his printing-office, and the bookstore which he had made +their adjunct in Raleigh, as in Sheffield, to his third son, Weston; +and removed to Washington, in order to pass the close of his days near +two of the dearest of his children,--his son Joseph and his daughter +Mrs. Seaton,--from whom he had been separated the most. + +In renouncing all individual aims, Mr. Gales fell not into a mere life +of meditation, but sought its future pleasures in the adoption of a +scheme of benevolence, to the calm prosecution of which he might +dedicate his declining powers, so long as his advanced age should +permit. A worthy object for such efforts he recognized in the plan of +African colonization, and of its affairs he accepted and almost to his +death sustained the management in chief; achieving not less, by his +admirable judgment, the warm approval and thanks of that wide-spread +association, than, by the most amiable virtues of private life, +winning in Washington, as he had done everywhere else, from all that +approached him, a singular degree of deference and affection. + +But the close of this long career of honor and of usefulness was now +at hand. In 1839, he lost the wife whose tenderness had cheered the +labors and whose gay intelligence had brightened the leisure of his +existence. She had lived the delight of that intimate society to which +she had confined faculties that would have adorned any circle +whatever; and she died lamented in proportion by it, and by the only +others to whom she was much known,--the poor. Her husband survived her +but two years,--expiring at his son's house in Raleigh, where he was +on a visit, in April, 1841, at the age of eighty. He died as calm as a +child, in the placid faith of a true Christian. + +Still telling his story in the order of dates, the writer would now +turn to the younger Joseph Gales. As we have seen, he arrived in this +country when seven years old, and went to Raleigh about six years +afterwards. There he was placed in a school, where he made excellent +progress,--profiting by the recollection of his earlier lessons, +received from that best of all elementary teachers, a mother of +well-cultivated mind. His boyhood, as usual, prefigured the mature +man: it was diligent in study, hilarious at play; his mind bent upon +solid things, not the showy. For all good, just, generous, and kindly +things he had the warmest impulse and the truest perceptions. Quick to +learn and to feel, he was slow only of resentment. Never was man born +with more of those lacteals of the heart which secrete the milk of +human kindness. Of the classic tongues, he can be said to have learnt +only the Latin: the Greek was then little taught in any part of our +country. For the Positive Sciences he had much inclination; since it +is told, among other things, that he constructed instruments for +himself, such as an electrical machine, with the performances of which +he much amazed the people of Raleigh. Meantime he was forming at home, +under the good guidance there, a solid knowledge of all those fine old +authors whose works make the undegenerate literature of our language +and then constituted what they called Polite Letters. With these went +hand in hand, at that time, in the academies of the South, a profane +amusement of the taste. In short, our sinful youth were fond of +stage-plays, and even wickedly enacted them, instead of resorting to +singing-schools. Joseph Gales the younger had his boyish emulation of +Roscius and Garrick, and performed "top parts" in a diversity of those +sad comedies and merry tragedies which boys are apt to make, when they +get into buskins. But it must be said, that, as a theatric star, he +presently waxed dim before a very handsome youth, a little his senior, +who just then had entered his father's office. He was not only a +printer, but had already been twice an editor,--last, in the late +North Carolina capital, Halifax,--previously, in the great town of +Petersburg,--and was bred in what seemed to Raleigh a mighty city, +Richmond; in addition to all which strong points of reputation, he +came of an F.F.V., and had been taught by the celebrated Ogilvie, of +whom more anon. He was familiar with theatres, and had not only seen, +but even criticized the great actors. He outshone his very +brother-in-law and colleague that was to be. For this young gentleman +was William Seaton. + +Meantime, Joseph, too, had learnt the paternal art,--how well will +appear from a single fact. About this time, his father's office was +destroyed by fire, and with it the unfinished printing of the +Legislative Journals and Acts of the year. Time did not allow waiting +for new material from Philadelphia. Just in this strait, he that had +of old been so inauspicious, Dick Davison, came once more into +play,--but, this time, not as a marplot. He, strange to say, was at +hand and helpful. For, after his political exploit, abandoning England +in disgust at the consequences of his Gunpowder Plot, he, too, had not +only come to America, but had chanced to set up his "type-stick" in +the neighboring town of Warrenton, where, having flourished, he was +now the master of a printing-office and the conductor of a newspaper. +Thither, then, young Joseph was despatched, "copy" in hand. +Richard--really a worthy man, after all--gladly atoned for his ancient +hurtfulness, by lending his type and presses; and, falling to work +with great vigor, our young Faust, with his own hands, put into type +and printed off the needful edition of the Laws. + +He had also, by this time, as an important instrument of his intended +profession, attained the art of stenography. When, soon after, he +began to employ it, he rapidly became an excellent reporter; and +eventually, when he had grown thoroughly versed in public affairs, +confessedly the best reporter that we ever had. + +He was now well-prepared to join in the manly strife of business or +politics. His father chose, therefore, at once to commit him to +himself. He judged him mature enough in principles, strong enough in +sense; and feared lest, by being kept too long under guidance and the +easy life of home, he should fall into inertness. He first sent him to +Philadelphia, therefore, to serve as a workman with Birch and Small; +after which, he made for him an engagement on the "National +Intelligencer," as a reporter, and sent him to Washington, in October, +1807. + +To that place, changing its name to the one just mentioned, the +father's former paper, "The Gazetteer," had been transferred by his +old associate, Samuel Harrison Smith. Its first issue there +(tri-weekly) was on the 31st of October, 1800, under the double title +of "The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser." The latter +half of the title seems to have been dropped in 1810, when its present +senior came, for a time, into its sole proprietorship. + +More than twice the age of any other journal now extant there,--for +the "Globe" came some thirty, the "Union" some forty-five years +later,--the "Intelligencer" has long stood, in every worthy sense, the +patriarch of our metropolitan press. It has witnessed the rise and +fall around it of full a hundred competitors,--many of them declared +enemies; not a few, what was more dangerous far, professed friends. +Yet, in the face of all enmity and of such friendship, it has ever +held on its calm way, never deserting the public cause,--as little +extreme in its opposition as in its support of those in power; so that +its foes never forgot it, when they prevailed, but its friends +repeatedly. To estimate the value of its influence, during its long +career, would be impossible,--so much of right has it brought about, +so much of wrong defeated. + +Though it came hither with our Congress, a newspaper had once before +been set up here,--either upon the expectation created by the laying +of certain corner-stones, in 1792, that the Government would fix +itself at this spot, or through an odd local faith in the dreams of +some ancient visionary dwelling hard by, who had, many years before, +foretold this as the destined site of a great imperial city, a second +Rome, and so had bestowed upon Goose Creek the name of Tiber, long +before this was Washington. The founder of this Pre-Adamite journal +was Mr. Benjamin Moore; its name, "The Washington Gazette"; its issue, +semi-weekly; its annual price, four dollars; and the two leading +principles which, in that day of the infancy of political "platforms," +his salutatory announced, were, first, "to obtain a living for +himself," and, secondly, "to amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How +long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again +swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have +been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our +penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point. + +To the "Intelligencer" young Mr. Gales brought such vigor, such +talent, and such skill in every department, that within two years, in +1809, he was admitted by Mr. Smith into partnership; within less than +a year from which date, that gentleman, grown weary of the laborious +life of the press, was content to withdraw and leave him sole +proprietor, editor, and reporter. An enormous worker, however, it +mattered little to him what tasks were to be assumed: he could +multiply himself among them, and suffice for all. + +In thus assuming the undivided charge of the paper, the young editor +thought it becoming to set forth one main principle, that has, beyond +a question, been admirably the guide of his public life: he said to +his readers,--"It is the dearest right, and ought to be cherished as +the proudest prerogative of a freeman, to be guided by the unbiassed +convictions of his own judgment. This right it is my firm purpose to +maintain, and to preserve inviolate the independence of the print now +committed into my hands." Never was pledge more universally made or +more rarely kept than this. + +It was towards the close of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency that Mr. Gales +had entered the office of the "Intelligencer"; and it was during Mr. +Madison's first year that he became joint-editor of that paper. Of +these Administrations it had been the supporter,--only following, in +that regard, the transmitted politics of its original, the +"Gazetteer," derived from the elder Mr. Gales. Bred in these, the son +had learnt them of his sire, just as he had adopted his religion or +his morals. Sprung from one who had been persecuted in England as a +Republican, it was natural that the son should love the faith for +which an honored parent had suffered. + +The high qualities and the strong abilities of the young editor did +not fail to strike the discerning eye of President Madison, who +speedily gave him his affection and confidence. To that Administration +the "Intelligencer" stood in the most intimate and faithful +relations,--sustaining its policy as a necessity, where it might not +have been a choice. During the entire course of the war, the +"Intelligencer" sustained most vigorously all the measures needful for +carrying it on with efficiency; and it did equally good service in +reanimating, whenever it had slackened at any disaster, the drooping +spirit of our people. Nor did its editors, when there were two, stop +at these proofs of sincerity, nor slink, when danger drew near, from +that hazard of their own persons to which they had stirred up the +country. When invasion came, they at once took to arms, as volunteer +common-soldiers, went to meet the enemy, and remained in the field +until he had fallen back to the coast. And during the invasion of +Washington, moreover, their establishment was attacked and partially +destroyed, through an unmanly spirit of revenge on the part of the +British forces. In October, 1812, proposing to himself the change of +his paper into a daily one, as was accordingly brought about on the +first of January ensuing, Mr. Gales invited Mr. Seaton, who had by +this time become his brother-in-law, to come and join him. He did so; +and the early tie of youthful friendship, which had grown between them +at Raleigh, and which the new relation had drawn still closer, +gradually matured into that more than friendship or brotherhood, that +oneness and identity of all purposes, opinions, and interests which +has ever since existed between them, without a moment's interruption, +and has long been, to those who understood it, a rare spectacle of +that concord and affection so seldom witnessed, and could never have +come about except between men of singular virtues. + +The same year that brought Gales and Seaton together as partners in +business witnessed an alliance of a more interesting character; for it +was in 1813 that Mr. Gales married the accomplished daughter of +Theodorick Lee, younger brother of that brilliant soldier of the +Revolution, the "Legionary Harry." + +But, at this natural point, the writer must go back for a while, in +order to bring down the story of William Seaton to where, uniting with +his associate's, the two thus flow on in a single stream. + +He was born January 11th, 1785, on the paternal estate in King William +County, Virginia, one of a family of four sons and three daughters. At +the good old mansion passed his childhood. There, too, according to +what was then the wont in Virginia, he trod the first steps of +learning, under the guidance of a domestic tutor, a decayed gentleman, +old and bedridden; for the only part left him of a genteel inheritance +was the gout. But when it became necessary to send his riper progeny +abroad, for more advanced studies, Mr. Seaton very justly bethought +him of going along with them; and so betook himself, with his whole +family, to Richmond, where he was the possessor of houses enough to +afford him a good habitation and a genteel income. Here, then, along +with his brothers and sisters, William was taught, through an +ascending series of schools, until, at last, he arrived at what was +the wonder of that day,--the academy of Ogilvie, the Scotchman. He, be +it noted, had an earldom, (that of Finlater,) which slept while its +heir was playing pedagogue in America: a strange mixture of the +ancient rhapsodist with the modern strolling actor, of the lord with +him who lives by his wits. Scot as he was, he was better fitted to +teach anything rather than common sense. The writer must not give the +idea, however, that there was in Lord Ogilvie anything but +eccentricity to derogate from the honors of either his lineage or his +learning. A very solid teacher he was not. A great enthusiast by +nature, and a master of the whole art of discoursing finely of even +those things which he knew not well, he dazzled much, pleased greatly, +and obtained a high reputation; so that, if he did not regularly +inform or discipline the minds of his pupils, he probably made them, +to an unusual degree, amends on another side: he infused into them, by +the glitter of his accomplishments, a high admiration for learning and +for letters. Certainly, the number of his scholars that arrived at +distinction was remarkable; and this is, of course, a fact conclusive +of great merit of some sort as a teacher, where, as in his case, the +pupils were not many. Without pausing to mention others of them who +arrived at honor, it may be well enough to refer to Winfield Scott, +William Campbell Preston, B. Watkins Leigh, William S. Archer, and +William C. Rives. + +The writer does not know if it had ever been designed that young +Seaton should proceed from Ogilvie's classes to the more systematic +courses of a college. Possibly not. Even among the wealthy, at that +time, home-education was often employed. The children of both sexes +were committed to the care of private tutors, usually young Scotchmen, +the graduates of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, sent over to the +planter, upon order, along with his yearly supply of goods, by his +merchant abroad. Or else the sons were sent to select private schools, +like that of Ogilvie, set up by men of such abilities and scholarship +as were supposed capable of performing the whole work of institutions. + +At any rate, our youth, without further preparation, at about the age +of eighteen, entered earnestly upon the duties of life. He fell at +once into his vocation,--impelled to it, no doubt, by the ambition for +letters and public affairs which the lessons of Ogilvie usually +produced. Party ran high. Virginia politics, flushed with recent +success, had added to the usual passions of the contest those of +victory. + +Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in +common with nearly all others of a like age and condition. He became, +in short, a politician. Though talent of every other sort abounded, +that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not. Young Seaton was +found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise +it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals. He had already +made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where +he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it +is more than probable that many of his youthful "editorials" were "set +up" by his own hands. Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he +received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper +in Petersburg, "The Republican," the editor and proprietor of which, +Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months. +Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a +still better position,--that of the proprietary editorship of the +"North Carolina Journal," published at Halifax, the former capital of +that State, and the only newspaper there. He accepted the offer, and +became the master of his own independent journal. Of its being so he +proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token. They +were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the +gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism: but he +forthwith changed its politics to Republican. + +There can be no doubt that he who made a change so manly conducted his +paper with spirit. Yet he must have done it also with that wise and +winning moderation and fairness which have since distinguished him and +his associate. William Seaton could never have fallen into anything of +the temper or the taste, the morals or the manners, which are now so +widely the shame of the American press; he could never have written in +the ill spirit of mere party, so as to wound or even offend the good +men of an opposite way of thinking. The inference is a sure one from +his character, and is confirmed by what we know to have happened +during his editorial career among the Federalists of Halifax. Instead +of his paper's losing ground under the circumstances just mentioned, +it really gained so largely and won so much the esteem of both sides, +that, when he desired to dispose of it, in order to seek a higher +theatre, he easily sold the property for double what it had cost him. + +It was now that he made his way to Raleigh, the new State-capital, and +became connected with the "Register." Nor was it long before this +connection was drawn yet closer by his happy marriage with the lady +whose virtues and accomplishments have so long been the modest, yet +shining ornament and charm of his household and of the society of +Washington. After this union, he continued his previous relationship +with the "Register," until, as already mentioned, he came to the +metropolis to join all his fortunes with those of his brother-in-law. +From this point, of course, their stories, like their lives, become +united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no +bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a +consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a +division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn +whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a +settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest +not merely a singular harmony of character, but an admirable +conformity of virtues? + +The history of the "Intelligencer" has, as to all its leading +particulars, been for fifty years spread before thousands of readers, +in its continuous diary. To re-chronicle any part of what is so well +known would be idle in the extreme. Of the editors personally, their +lives, since they became mature and settled, have presented few events +such as are not common to all men,--little of vicissitude, beyond that +of pockets now full and now empty,--nothing but a steady performance +of duty, an exertion, whenever necessary, of high ability, and the +gradual accumulation through these of a deeply felt esteem among all +the best and wisest of the land. Amidst the many popular passions with +which nearly all have, in our country, run wild, they have maintained +a perpetual and sage moderation; amidst incessant variations of +doctrine, they have preserved a memory and a conscience; in the +frequent fluctuations of power, they have steadily checked the +alternate excesses of both parties; and they have never given to +either a factious opposition or a merely partisan support. Of their +journal it may be said, that there has, in all our times, shone no +such continual light on public affairs, there has stood no such sure +defence of whatever was needful to be upheld. Tempering the heats of +both sides,--re-nationalizing all spirit of section,--combating our +propensity to lawlessness at home and aggression abroad,--spreading +constantly on each question of the day a mass of sound +information,--the venerable editors have been, all the while, a power +and a safety in the land, no matter who were the rulers. Neither party +could have spared an opposition so just or a support so well-measured. +Thus it cannot be deemed an American exaggeration to declare the +opinion as to the influence of the "Intelligencer" over our public +counsels, that its value is not easily to be overrated. + +Never, meantime, was authority wielded with less assumption. The +"Intelligencer" could not, of course, help being aware of the weight +which its opinions always carried among the thinking; but it has never +betrayed any consciousness of its influence, unless in a ceaseless +care to deserve respect. Its modesty and candor, its fairness and +courtesy have been invariable; nor less so, its observance of that +decorum and those charities which constitute the very grace of all +public life. + +From the time of their coming together, down to the year 1820, Gales +and Seaton were the exclusive reporters, as well as editors, of their +journal,--one of them devoting himself to the Senate, and the other to +the House of Representatives. Generally speaking, they published only +running reports,--on special occasions, however, giving the speeches +and proceedings entire. In those days they had seats of honor assigned +to them directly by the side of the presiding officers, and over the +snuff-box, in a quiet and familiar manner, the topics of the day were +often discussed. To the privileges they then enjoyed, but more +especially to their sagacity and industry, are we now indebted, as a +country, for their "Register of Debates," which, with the +"Intelligencer," has become a most important part of our national +history. As in their journal nearly all the most eminent of American +statesmen have discussed the affairs of the country, so have they been +the direct means of preserving many of the speeches which are now the +acknowledged ornaments of our political literature. Had it not been +for Mr. Gales, the great intellectual combat between Hayne and +Webster, for example, would have passed into a vague tradition, +perhaps. The original notes of Mr. Webster's speech, now in Mr. +Gales's library, form a volume of several hundred pages, and, having +been corrected and interlined by the statesman's own hand, present a +treasure that might be envied. At the period just alluded to, Mr. +Gales had given up the practice of reporting any speeches, and it was +a mere accident that led him to pay Mr. Webster the compliment in +question. That it was appreciated was proved by many reciprocal acts +of kindness and the long and happy intimacy that existed between the +two gentlemen, ending only with the life of the statesman. It was Mr. +Webster's opinion, that the abilities of Mr. Gales were of the highest +order; and yet the writer has heard of one instance in which even the +editor could not get along without a helping hand. Mr. Gales had for +some days been engaged upon the Grand Jury, and, with his head full of +technicalities, entered upon the duty of preparing a certain +editorial. In doing this, he unconsciously employed a number of legal +phrases; and when about half through, found it necessary to come to a +halt. At this juncture, he dropped a note to Mr. Webster, transmitting +the unfinished article and explaining his difficulty. Mr. Webster took +it in hand, finished it to the satisfaction of Mr. Gales, and it was +published as editorial. + +But the writer is trespassing upon private ground, and it is with +great reluctance that he refrains from recording a long list of +incidents which have come to his knowledge, calculated to illustrate +the manifold virtues of his distinguished friends. That they are +universally respected and beloved by those who know them,--that their +opinions on public matters have been solicited by Secretaries of State +and even by Presidents opposed to them in politics,--that their +journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a +healthy tone in polite literature,--that their home-life has been made +happy by the influences of refinement and taste,--and that they have +given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the +unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all +assertions which none can truthfully deny. If, therefore, to look back +upon a long life not _uselessly spent_ is what will give us peace at +last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could +desire; and their "silver hairs," the most appropriate crown of true +patriotism, + + "Will purchase them a good opinion, + And buy men's voices to commend their deeds." + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + +WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY. + + An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay, + Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death, + With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath, + And languid eyeballs darkening to the day; + A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway + Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath, + The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath, + Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray: + When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown + Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind, + Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone + Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,-- + But pausing soon, behold creation shrined + In a new birth, God's covenant clasping all! + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who +had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such +relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a +real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need +counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was +competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. +That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth +words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which +win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure +was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and +clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must +have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof +or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say quietly to +her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. +These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated +watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in +the heats of summer that they were most common and most strongly +characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, +and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her +sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged +to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All winter long +she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in +her motions; her eye would lose something of its strange lustre; and +the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that her whole expression +and aspect would show the change, and people would say to her, "Why, +Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie +there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, +the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep +would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter +was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or +movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures +that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when +the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were +following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, +(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers +dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal +sounds,--_frsh_,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all +pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to +the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the +life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. +This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most +cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of +The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, +whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given +to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown +more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as +the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament +came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so +superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The +barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous +muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own +pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly +left her arm. Without some necklace she was never seen,--either the +golden cord she wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or +simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a +necklace, and that when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a +fancy of hers,--but many thought there was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there +was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so +far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to +him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing +was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with +others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have +got a foot-hold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession +against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good +listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to +effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling +well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and +the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place of +much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house and +farmlands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her without +questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he +had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system +of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he +had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If +he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly, +in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life +between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl +might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after +he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner, +as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and +agreeable to lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise +children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and +disagreeable, so much the worse for those that made it so. Like many +other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue +were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there +might be contingencies in which the property would be better without +its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the +light of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some +new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With +the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own +interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd +where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young +man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as +probably at the bottom of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let +him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. +What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. +Don't like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about _something_, +anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so often? Not +out of our library, that's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep +into her chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what +mischief she was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a +shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of +moonlight into the shadow of the the trees. She was setting out on one +of her midnight rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks +flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to +invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful +hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber +he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this +season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if he +ventured down-stairs to her apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose +and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust +his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the +stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady +had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the +key with her, no doubt,--unless, indeed, she had got out by the +window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this +window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his +footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own +chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It +was open. He then went to one of his trunks, wich he unlocked, and +began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not +stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various +patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in +certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of +these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and +drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a +noose,--a tough, well-seasoned _lasso_, looking as if it had seen +service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this +and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out +of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's +room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and with a +slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a match, found +a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously about him, as +Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was +a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those +who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could +hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, +which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the +forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a +quick eye and hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of +unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as +Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like +any naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees +does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of +life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we +could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and +General Jackson on horse-back, done by Nature in green leaves, each +with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and +smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and +her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of +animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually reach +the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that +extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, except +the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have a +glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that +one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his +fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if +a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like +branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which +strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the +bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. +With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of +them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in +form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture +might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her +apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not +detain Mr. Richard Venner very long, whatever may have been his +sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A +copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of +_Bernard C. Langdon_ on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table +with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was +empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was +locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen +enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the +school,--this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--_he_ was aspiring to +become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward +his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the _diablo_ had Elsie to do with +hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, +it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the +innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, +some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the +question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, +and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way +of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could +think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the +window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own +chamber and drew in the lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in +love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. +As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was +his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated +themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of +securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must come +into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from +this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her +affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company again, to +propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was +strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to +the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed +to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen +and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or +gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a +strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to +himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the +moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and +sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon +him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she +could exercise a kind of fascination over him,--though there were +times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, +an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still +centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so +curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. +His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her +as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity +with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until +tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature +was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He +was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not +strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his +nephew, represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. +Had Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less +willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had +long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had +in common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious +instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of +life and death, or more than that,--some dark ending, perhaps, which +would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon +the lips of all coming generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of +looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional +in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of +her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, +when others court their female relatives; they know them as good young +or old women enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they +may be,--but never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any +more than of their being struck by lightning. + +But in this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common +family delusion,--reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she +should attract a suitor. Who would _dare_ to marry Elsie? No, let her +have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome +excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into +melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of +superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent +idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from +her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind +and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of +any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to +become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at +that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence +the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union +of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual +attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many +years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most of +all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought whether, in +case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he +might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but it had not +occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son-in-law for +the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticize other people's modes of dealing with +their children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. +They notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood +of this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement +of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the +common observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy +sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; +his grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement +of the eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper +of the other. + +These are things parents can see, and which they must take account of +in education, but which few except parents can be expected to really +understand. Here and there a sagacious person, old, or of middle age, +who has _triangulated_ a race, that is, taken three or more +observations from the several standing-places of three different +generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the +limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a given stock,--errors +excepted always, because children of the same stock are not bred just +alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to +break out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a +small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so +that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of +justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal +oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We +make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes. That +is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the +physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle of +selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The +magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made +up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear +solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated +in the opaque sediment of history---- + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley Venner of weakness +and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of +opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when she +was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they said, +but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If _they_ had had the +charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the upperhand +of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in season! There +are people who think that everything may be done, if the doer, be he +educator or physician, be only called "in season." No doubt,--but _in +season_ would often be a hundred or two years before the child was +born; and people never send so early as that. + +The father of Elsie Venner knew his duties and his difficulties too +well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So +soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life +up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a +stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not +without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for +himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his +position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such a +nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for bearing +his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He could +not talk of them even with those who knew their secret spring. His +minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in the meaner +sort of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for +sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and +Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more +odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could he speak with +the old physician and the old black woman about a sorrow and a terror +which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's +faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and +making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found his +other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and wasted +his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we may say of +most, who infringe the patent of our social order by intruding +themselves into a life already upon half-allowance of the necessary +luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief space was not +only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it +to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of +two souls to each other, string by string, not without little +half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the +other proves to be over-strained or over-lax, but always approaching +nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two +instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this +blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when he found +himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little diamond-eyed +child lying in the old woman's arms, with the coral necklace round her +throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. +There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was +enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this +child's sake, at any rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with what +thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features would look +placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; then all his +tender feelings would rush up into his eyes, and he would put his arms +out to take her from the old woman,--but all at once her eyes would +narrow and she would throw her head back; and a shudder would seize +him as he stooped over his child,--he could not look upon her,--he +could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there would sometimes come +into his soul such frightful suggestions that he would hurry from the +room lest the hinted thought should become a momentary madness and he +should lift his hand against the helpless infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in his +restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in outward +action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the summit of any +of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them recklessly, as having +no particular care for his life. Sometimes he would go into the +accursed district where the venomous reptiles were always to be +dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he could come near +with a kind of blind fury that was strange in a person of his gentle +nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon his +home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and +fissures that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off some +time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs below? He +thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular indifference, +in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such a swift +and thorough solution of this great problem of life he was working out +in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote possibility of such a +catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers beneath The Mountain to +other places of residence; here the danger was most imminent, and yet +he loved to dwell upon the chances of its occurrence. Danger is often +the best _counter-irritant_ in cases of mental suffering; he found a +solace in careless exposure of his life, and learned to endure the +trials of each day better by dwelling in imagination on the +possibility that it might be the last for him and the home that was +his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually +fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from +his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from the +great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for +centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his +time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. Old +Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the red +coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys had +bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father +forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom he had +such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial to him +and often a terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, +and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of +filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never +would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, +punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical +effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of +expression and color that it would have been senseless to attempt to +govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could +be to some extent indirectly influenced,--not otherwise. She called +her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered +everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the +household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons +laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely +talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in +whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely +indifferent, not only with the indifference which all gentlemen feel +to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which +did not wonder or blame. He knew that his position was not simply a +difficult, but an impossible one, and schooled himself to bear his +destiny as well as he might and report himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning +to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual +sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn +to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to +rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and +the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed +himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to +his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always +beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing +agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of +wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, +wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of the night. + +It was understood between Dudley Venner and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection +of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in +the mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied Elsie's case in the +light of all the books he could find which might do anything towards +explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science +for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his +imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it +to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish those two +fancies before alluded to: that the ominous birthmark she had carried +from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that the age of +complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change in her +physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all of us +nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world would he +have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the probability +or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of asking +questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes +we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and +varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised +at the extent of Dudley Venner's information. Doctor Kittredge found +that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological +discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural +chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints +about the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance +with the classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and +calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and +periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the +passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing +to see his neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but on the other +hand not cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost +something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories +had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even +that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an +endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their +acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until +their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than +they were at twenty, Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and +tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he +counted but half his present years. He was now on the verge of that +decade which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in +knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or +the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly +downward. At the entrance of this decade his inward nature was richer +and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could only be +summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies +could only find an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for +his natural affections had been gathering in the course of all these +years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were +softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, +as the wreck left by a mountain-slide is covered over by the gentle +intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the +stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Venner had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if +he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with +which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in +the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a +person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. +But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an +additional motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the +routine of Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Venner did not know just what he wanted at this period of +his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who +thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough,--nigh twenty +year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there wa'n't +anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. +What was the reason he didn't go abaout to taown-meetin's, 'n' +Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school-'xaminations, 'n' +s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and other entertainments where the +still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see +if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?--Fac' was, he was +livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't +he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him +and--let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'-twenty,--no, +six-'n'-twenty,--Born the same year we buried aour little Anny Mari. + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But +"Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not +happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met +her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen +of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a +woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite +so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but +with two or three more joints in her frame and two or three soft +inflections in her voice which for some absurd reason or other drew +him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half his secrets +and looked into her eyes all that, he could not tell, in less time +than it would have taken him to discuss the champion paper of the last +Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." _Heu, quanta minus!_ How much +more was that lost image to him than all it left on earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know that +just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what particular +day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that just about +so much love will be made every year in a given population; but who +will rain his young affections upon the heart of whom is not known +except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And why rain falls as +it does, and why love is made just as it is, are equally puzzling +questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his +daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of +life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he loves: +before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, it has +passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned over +by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by millions of lateral +impulses which bandy it about through the mental spaces as a +reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. +With this altered image of the woman before him his preexisting ideal +becomes blended. The object of his love is half the offspring of her +legal parents and half of her lover's brain. The difference between +the real and the ideal objects of love must not exceed a fixed +maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them stereoscopically into a +single image, if the divergence passes certain limits. A formidable +analogy, much in the nature of a proof, with very serious +consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do well to +remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous +physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious falls. + +Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a breathing image near enough to +his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was +very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would +steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of +silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public +worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old +griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into +sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such woman as this, if +Heaven should send him such, might call him back to the world of +happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again +be the young lover who walked through the garden-alleys all red with +roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. He could never +forget the bride of his youth, whose image, growing phantom-like with +the lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream while waking and +like a reality in dreams. But if it might be in God's good providence +that this desolate life should come under the influence of human +affections once more, what an ecstasy of renewed existence was in +store for him! His life had not all been buried under that narrow +ridge of turf with the white stone at its head. It seemed so for a +while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be so. His first +passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or stain upon +it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of any word +or look he would have wished to forget. All those little differences, +such as young married people with any individual flavor in their +characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added to +the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some +perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the +whole harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate, had +inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was +clean, and its edge was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in +healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may say, by the wise and +beneficent law of our being. The recollection of a deep and true +affection, is rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow strong +upon than a poison to destroy it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early +bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between +natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary +tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and +fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an +anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the +heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! some +new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his heart; +but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent which rose +with every morning's sun and watched with every evening star,--what +power save alone that of him who comes bearing the inverted torch, and +leaving after him only the ashes printed with his footsteps? + + * * * * * + + +THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER. + +While all of us have been watching, with that admiring sympathy which +never fails to wait on courage and magnanimity, the career of the new +Timoleon in Sicily,--while we have been reckoning, with an interest +scarcely less than in some affair of personal concern, the chances and +changes that bear with furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of +united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which +more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own +form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our +domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we +became a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good +or evil that will follow from the popular decision in November, we +might be tempted to regard the remarkable moderation which has thus +far characterized the Presidential canvass as a guilty indifference to +the duty implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid +unconsciousness of the result which may depend upon its exercise in +this particular election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly +from the general persuasion that the success of the Republican party +was a foregone conclusion. + +In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private +thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a +peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve +us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, +and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For, though +during its term of office the government be practically as independent +of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the +people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. +Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an +argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing +it should be statesmen and thinkers. It is a proverb, that to turn a +radical into a conservative there needs only to put him into office, +because then the license of speculation or sentiment is limited by a +sense of responsibility,--then for the first time he becomes capable +of that comparative view which sees principles and measures, not in +the narrow abstract, but in the full breadth of their relations to +each other and to political consequences. The theory of democracy +presupposes something of these results of official position in the +individual voter, since in exercising his right he becomes for the +moment an integral part of the governing power. + +How very far practice is from any likeness to theory a week's +experience of our politics suffices to convince us. The very +government itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boys' +debating-club, with the disadvantage of being reported. As our +party-creeds are commonly represented less by ideas than by persons, +(who are assumed, without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of +certain ideas,) our politics become personal and narrow to a degree +never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our +Congress debates and our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after +day, not questions of national interest, not what is wise and right, +but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad +whiskey said for him, half a dozen years ago. If that personage, +outraged in all the finer sensibilities of our common nature, by +failing to get the contract for supplying the District Court-House at +Skreemeropolisville City with revolvers, was led to disparage the +union of these States, it is seized on as proof conclusive that the +party to which he belongs are so many Cat_a_lines,--for Congress is +unanimous only in misspelling the name of that oft-invoked +conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms always in advance, +so that we seem never to have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a +prospective one, looking to the chances of reelection, and mingling in +all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent +for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the White House lures +our public men away from present duties and obligations; and if +matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a Committee of Congress +to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, whenever a President +goes out of office,--with a policeman to watch every member of the +Committee. We are kept normally in that most unprofitable of +predicaments, a state of transition, and politicians measure their +words and deeds by a standard of immediate and temporary +expediency,--an expediency not as concerning the nation, but which, if +more than merely personal, is no wider than the interests of party. + +Is all this a result of the failure of democratic institutions? Rather +of the fact that those institutions have never yet had a fair trial, +and that for the last thirty years an abnormal element has been acting +adversely with continually increasing strength. Whatever be the effect +of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that +its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has +compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their +moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent +ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of +statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for +opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized +world for patriotism. We have been asked to admit, first, that it was +a necessary evil; then that it was a good both to master and slave; +then that it was the corner-stone of free institutions; then that it +was a system divinely instituted under the Old Law and sanctioned +under the New. With a representation, three-fifths of it based on the +assumption that negroes are men, the South turns upon us and insists +on our acknowledging that they are things. After compelling her +Northern allies to pronounce the "free and equal" clause of the +preamble to the Declaration of Independence (because it stood in the +way of enslaving men) a manifest absurdity, she has declared, through +the Supreme Court of the United States, that negroes are not men in +the ordinary meaning of the word. To eat dirt is bad enough, but to +find that we have eaten more than was necessary may chance to give us +an indigestion. The slaveholding interest has gone on step by step, +forcing concession after concession, till it needs but little to +secure it forever in the political supremacy of the country. Yield to +its latest demand,--let it mould the evil destiny of the +Territories,--and the thing is done past recall. The next Presidential +Election is to say _Yes_ or _No_. + +But we should not regard the mere question of political preponderancy +as of vital consequence, did it not involve a continually increasing +moral degradation on the part of the Nonslaveholding States,--for Free +States they could not be called much longer. Sordid and materialistic +views of the true value and objects of society and government are +professed more and more openly by the leaders of popular outcry, if it +cannot be called public opinion. That side of human nature which it +has been the object of all lawgivers and moralists to repress and +subjugate is flattered and caressed; whatever is profitable is right; +and already the slave-trade, as yielding a greater return on the +capital invested than any other traffic, is lauded as the highest +achievement of human reason and justice. Mr. Hammond has proclaimed +the accession of King Cotton, but he seems to have forgotten that +history is not without examples of kings who have lost their crowns +through the folly and false security of their ministers. It is quite +true that there is a large class of reasoners who would weigh all +questions of right and wrong in the balance of trade; but--we cannot +bring ourselves to believe that it is a wise political economy which +makes cotton by unmaking men, or a far-seeing statesmanship which +looks on an immediate money-profit as a safe equivalent for a beggared +public sentiment. We think Mr. Hammond even a little premature in +proclaiming the new Pretender. The election of November may prove a +Culloden. Whatever its result, it is to settle, for many years to +come, the question whether the American idea is to govern this +continent, whether the Occidental or the Oriental theory of society is +to mould our future, whether we are to recede from principles which +eighteen Christian centuries have been slowly establishing at the cost +of so many saintly lives at the stake and so many heroic ones on the +scaffold and the battle-field, in favor of some fancied assimilation +to the household arrangements of Abraham, of which all that can be +said with certainty is that they did not add to his domestic +happiness. + +We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history; for, +although there are four candidates, there are really, as everybody +knows, but two parties, and a single question that divides them. The +supporters of Messrs. Bell and Everett have adopted as their platform +the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws. This may +be very convenient, but it is surely not very explicit. The cardinal +question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn--a +question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the +other--is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the +Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to +that instrument. Indeed, it is quite the fashion. The removers of all +the ancient landmarks of our policy, the violators of thrice-pledged +faith, the planners of new treachery to established compromise, all +take refuge in the Constitution,-- + + "Like thieves that in a hemp-plot lie, + Secure against the hue and cry." + +In the same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in +the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows +the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any +logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the +Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our +statesmen could be "happy with either, were t'other dear charmer +away." Mr. Douglas confides the secret of his passion to the +unloquacious clams of Rhode Island, and the chief complaint made +against Mr. Lincoln by his opponents is that he is _too_ +Constitutional. + +Meanwhile the only point in which voters are interested is,--What do +they mean by the Constitution? Mr. Breckinridge means the superiority +of a certain exceptional species of property over all others, nay, +over man himself. Mr. Douglas, with a different formula for expressing +it, means practically the same thing. Both of them mean that Labor has +no rights which Capital is bound to respect,--that there is no higher +law than human interest and cupidity. Both of them represent not +merely the narrow principles of a section, but the still narrower and +more selfish ones of a caste. Both of them, to be sure, have +convenient phrases to be juggled with before election, and which mean +one thing or another, or neither one thing nor another, as a +particular exigency may seem to require; but since both claim the +regular Democratic nomination, we have little difficulty in divining +what their course would be after the fourth of March, if they should +chance to be elected. We know too well what regular Democracy is, to +like either of the two faces which each shows by turns under the same +hood. Everybody remembers Baron Grimm's story of the Parisian showman, +who in 1789 exhibited the _royal_ Bengal tiger under the new character +of _national_, as more in harmony with the changed order of things. +Could the animal have lived till 1848, he would probably have found +himself offered to the discriminating public as the _democratic_ and +_social_ ornament of the jungle. The Pro-slavery party of this country +seeks the popular favor under even more frequent and incongruous +_aliases_; it is now _national_, now _conservative_, now +_constitutional_; here it represents Squatter-Sovereignty, and there +the power of Congress over the Territories; but, under whatever name, +its nature remains unchanged, and its instincts are none the less +predatory and destructive. Mr. Lincoln's position is set forth with +sufficient precision in the platform adopted by the Chicago +Convention; but what are we to make of Messrs. Bell and Everett? Heirs +of the stock in trade of two defunct parties, the Whig and +Know-Nothing, do they hope to resuscitate them? or are they only like +the inconsolable widows of Pere la Chaise, who, with an eye to former +customers, make use of the late Andsoforth's gravestone to advertise +that they still carry on the business at the old stand? Mr. Everett, +in his letter accepting the nomination, gave us only a string of +reasons why he should not have accepted it at all; and Mr. Bell +preserves a silence singularly at variance with his patronymic. The +only public demonstration of principle that we have seen is an +emblematic bell drawn upon a wagon by a single horse, with a man to +lead him, and a boy to make a nuisance of the tinkling symbol as it +moves along. Are all the figures in this melancholy procession equally +emblematic? If so, which of the two candidates is typified in the +unfortunate who leads the horse?--for we believe the only hope of the +party is to get one of them elected by some hocus-pocus in the House +of Representatives. The little boy, we suppose, is intended to +represent the party, which promises to be so conveniently small that +there will be an office for every member of it, if its candidate +should win. Did not the bell convey a plain allusion to the leading +name on the ticket, we should conceive it an excellent type of the +hollowness of those fears for the safety of the Union, in case of Mr. +Lincoln's election, whose changes are so loudly rung,--its noise +having once or twice given rise to false alarms of fire, till people +found out what it really was. Whatever profound moral it be intended +to convey, we find in it a similitude that is not without significance +as regards the professed creed of the party. The industrious youth who +operates upon it has evidently some notion of the measured and regular +motion that befits the tongues of well-disciplined and conservative +bells. He does his best to make theory and practice coincide; but with +every jolt on the road an involuntary variation is produced, and the +sonorous pulsation becomes rapid or slow accordingly. We have observed +that the Constitution was liable to similar derangements, and we very +much doubt whether Mr. Bell himself (since, after all, the +Constitution would practically be nothing else than his interpretation +of it) would keep the same measured tones that are so easy on the +smooth path of candidacy, when it came to conducting the car of State +over some of the rough places in the highway of Manifest Destiny, and +some of those passages in our politics which, after the fashion of new +countries, are rather _corduroy_ in character. + +But, fortunately, we are not left wholly in the dark as to the aims of +the self-styled Constitutional party. One of its most distinguished +members, Governor Hunt of New York, has given us to understand that +its prime object is the defeat at all hazards of the Republican +candidate. To achieve so desirable an end, its leaders are ready to +coalesce, here with the Douglas, and there with the Breckinridge +faction of that very Democratic party of whose violations of the +Constitution, corruption, and dangerous limberness of principle they +have been the lifelong denouncers. In point of fact, then, it is +perfectly plain that we have only two parties in the field: those who +favor the extension of slavery, and those who oppose it,--in other +words, a Destructive and a Conservative party. + +We know very well that the partisans of Mr. Bell, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. +Breckinridge all equally claim the title of conservative: and the fact +is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign +critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to +compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic +propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the +working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are +promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the _rights_ of property, +but by a well-founded jealousy of its usurpations; and it is +Privilege, and not Property, that is perplexed with fear of change. +The conservative effect of ownership operates with as much force on +the man with a hundred dollars in an old stocking as on his neighbor +with a million in the funds. During the Roman Revolution of '48, the +beggars who had funded their gains were among the stanchest +reactionaries, and left Rome with the nobility. No question of the +abstract right of property has ever entered directly into our +politics, or ever will,--the point at issue being, whether a certain +exceptional kind of property, already privileged beyond all others, +shall be entitled to still further privileges at the expense of every +other kind. The extension of slavery over new territory means just +this,--that this one kind of property, not recognized as such by the +Constitution, or it would never have been allowed to enter into the +basis of representation, shall control the foreign and domestic policy +of the Republic. + +A great deal is said, to be sure, about the rights of the South; but +has any such right been infringed? When a man invests money in any +species of property, he assumes the risks to which it is liable. If he +buy a house, it may be burned; if a ship, it may be wrecked; if a +horse or an ox, it may die. Now the disadvantage of the Southern kind +of property is,--how shall we say it so as not to violate our +Constitutional obligations?--that it is exceptional. When it leaves +Virginia, it is a thing; when it arrives in Boston, it becomes a man, +speaks human language, appeals to the justice of the same God whom we +all acknowledge, weeps at the memory of wife and children left +behind,--in short, hath the same organs and dimensions that a +Christian hath, and is not distinguishable from ordinary Christians, +except, perhaps, by a simpler and more earnest faith. There are people +at the North who believe, that, beside _meum_ and _tuum_, there is +also such a thing as _suum_,--who are old-fashioned enough, or weak +enough, to have their feelings touched by these things, to think that +human nature is older and more sacred than any claim of property +whatever, and that it has rights at least as much to be respected as +any hypothetical one of our Southern brethren. This, no doubt, makes +it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human +nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be +counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the +cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these +images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the +incident risks along with the advantages. We should be very sorry to +deem this risk capable of diminution; for we think that the claims of +a common manhood upon us should be at least as strong as those of +Freemasonry, and that those whom the law of man turns away should find +in the larger charity of the law of God and Nature a readier welcome +and surer sanctuary. We shall continue to think the negro a man, and +on Southern evidence, too, as long as he is counted in the population +represented on the floor of Congress,--for three-fifths of perfect +manhood would be a high average even among white men; as long as he is +hanged or worse, as an example and terror to others,--for we do not +punish one animal for the moral improvement of the rest; as long as he +is considered capable of religious instruction,--for we fancy the +gorillas would make short work with a missionary; as long as there are +fears of insurrection,--for we never heard of a combined effort at +revolt in a menagerie. Accordingly, we do not see how the particular +right of whose infringement we hear so much is to be made safer by the +election of Mr. Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or Mr. Douglas,--there being +quite as little chance that any of them would abolish human nature as +that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The same generous instinct +that leads some among us to sympathize with the sorrows of the +bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others to take part +with the rescued man. + +But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our +constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular +divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to +forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and +extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the +traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high +time that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States, +and of the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to +be respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the +safety of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever +there is soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for +making him a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not +to justice, freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting +with the current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully +nursing the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow +worse? + +To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when +it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with +the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured. The +discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what? +The manufacturers of the Free States constitute a more numerous class +than the slaveholders of the South: suppose they should claim an equal +sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of +free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral +enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. +The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the +mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail +roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm +the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when +the encroachments of the Slave-Power and the concessions of the +Trade-Power shall have made it a burden instead of a blessing. The +real avalanche to be dreaded, are we to expect it from the +ever-gathering mass of ignorant brute force, with the irresponsibility +of animals and the passions of men, which is one of the fatal +necessities of slavery, or from the gradually increasing consciousness +of the non-slaveholding population of the Slave States of the true +cause of their material impoverishment and political inferiority? From +one or the other source its ruinous forces will be fed, but in either +event it is not the Union that will be imperilled, but the privileged +Order who on every occasion of a thwarted whim have menaced its +disruption, and who will then find in it their only safety. + +We believe that the "irrepressible conflict"--for we accept Mr. +Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever +meant to give it--is to take place in the South itself; because the +Slave-System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy +which are sure, sooner or later, to work their own retribution. The +inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the +soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to +reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower +level of property, intelligence, and enterprise,--their increase in +numbers adding much to the economical hardship of their position and +nothing to their political weight in the community. There is no +home-encouragement of varied agriculture,--for the wants of a slave +population are few in number and limited in kind; none of inland +trade, for that is developed only by communities where education +induces refinement, where facility of communication stimulates +invention and variety of enterprise, where newspapers make every man's +improvement in tools, machinery, or culture of the soil an incitement +to all, and bring all the thinkers of the world to teach in the cheap +university of the people. We do not, of course, mean to say that +slaveholding states may not and do not produce fine men; but they +fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its attendant +consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing +communities of men, which is the true object of all political +organizations, and which is essential to the prolonged existence of +all those whose life and spirit are derived directly from the people. +Every man who has dispassionately endeavored to enlighten himself in +the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, the course of things in +slaveholding states is substantially what we have described, a +downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and in all those +results of material prosperity which in a free country show themselves +in the general advancement for the good of all and give a real meaning +to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous the wealth centred in +the hands of a few, it has no longer the conservative force or the +beneficent influence which it exerts when equably distributed,--even +loses more of both where a system of absenteeism prevails so largely +as in the South. In such communities the seeds of an "irrepressible +conflict" are purely, if slowly, ripening, and signs are daily +multiplying that the true peril to their social organization is looked +for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in an insurrection of +intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds itself none the +richer for it. To multiply such communities is to multiply weakness. + +The election in November turns on the single and simple question, +Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and +the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against +such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor +of it, is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted +that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess +that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward +since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater +ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to +the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr. +Seward's nomination, for the very reason we have seen assigned for +passing him by,--that he represented the most advanced doctrines of +his party. He, more than any other man, combined in himself the +moralist's oppugnancy to Slavery as a fact, the thinker's resentment +of it as a theory, and the statist's distrust of it as a policy,--thus +summing up the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and +concentrated the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, +he has that best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of +being always able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of +his opinions which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect +of his speeches in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to +their power. Safe from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional +eloquence as if he had been inoculated for it early in his career, he +addresses himself to the reason, and what he says sticks. It was +assumed that his nomination would have embittered the contest and +tainted the Republican creed with radicalism; but we doubt it. We +cannot think that a party gains by not hitting its hardest, or by +sugaring its opinions. Republicanism is not a conspiracy to obtain +office under false pretences. It has a definite aim, an earnest +purpose, and the unflinching tenacity of profound conviction. It was +not called into being by a desire to reform the pecuniary corruptions +of the party now in power. Mr. Bell or Mr. Breckinridge would do that, +for no one doubts their honor or their honesty. It is not unanimous +about the Tariff, about State-Rights, about many other questions of +policy. What unites the Republicans is a common faith in the early +principles and practice of the Republic, a common persuasion that +slavery, as it cannot but be the natural foe of the one, has been the +chief debaser of the other, and a common resolve to resist its +encroachments everywhen and everywhere. They see no reason to fear +that the Constitution, which has shown such pliant tenacity under the +warps and twistings of a forty-years' proslavery pressure, should be +in danger of breaking, if bent backward again gently to its original +rectitude of fibre. "All forms of human government," says Machiavelli, +"have, like men, their natural term, and those only are long-lived +which possess in themselves the power of returning to the principles +on which they were originally founded." It is in a moral aversion to +slavery as a great wrong that the chief strength of the Republican +party lies. They believe as everybody believed sixty years ago; and we +are sorry to see what appears to be an inclination in some quarters to +blink this aspect of the case, lest the party be charged with want of +conservatism, or, what is worse, with abolitionism. It is and will be +charged with all kinds of dreadful things, whatever it does, and it +has nothing to fear from an upright and downright declaration of its +faith. One part of the grateful work it has to do is to deliver us +from the curse of perpetual concession for the sake of a peace that +never comes, and which, if it came, would not be peace, but +submission,--from that torpor and imbecility of faith in God and man +which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. A question +which cuts so deep as the one which now divides the country cannot be +debated, much less settled, without excitement. Such excitement is +healthy, and is a sign that the ill humors of the body politic are +coming to the surface, where they are comparatively harmless. It is +the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have +once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative. The +vital and formative principle, which was active during the process of +crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or governments, +ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the Eternal +Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead formula on +men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been our good +fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has forced us to +reconsider the primal principles of government, which has appealed to +conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories of the +Declaration of Independence to the test of experience in our thought +and life and action, has realized a tradition of the memory into a +conviction of the understanding and the soul. It will not do for the +Republicans to confine themselves to the mere political argument, for +the matter then becomes one of expediency, with two defensible sides +to it; they must go deeper, to the radical question of Right and +Wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What +Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party-platforms,--that those +are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which +compel the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind. + +No man pretends that under the Constitution there is any possibility +of interference with the domestic relations of the individual States; +no party has ever remotely hinted at any such interference; but what +the Republicans affirm is, that in every contingency where the +Constitution can be construed in favor of freedom, it ought to be and +shall be so construed. It is idle to talk of sectionalism, +abolitionism, and hostility to the laws. The principles of liberty and +humanity cannot, by virtue of their very nature, be sectional, any +more than light and heat. Prevention is not abolition, and unjust laws +are the only serious enemies that Law ever had. With history before +us, it is no treason to question the infallibility of a court; for +courts are never wiser or more venerable than the men composing them, +and a decision that reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any +immunity from reversal. Truth is the only unrepealable thing. + +We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to +suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, +Presidents' messages, and Congress, for the last dozen years, lest we +endanger the safety of the Union. The true danger to popular forms of +government begins when public opinion ceases because the people are +incompetent or unwilling to think. In a democracy it is the duty of +every citizen to think; but unless the thinking result in a definite +opinion, and the opinion lead to considerate action, they are nothing. +If the people are assumed to be incapable of forming a judgment for +themselves, the men whose position enables them to guide the public +mind ought certainly to make good their want of intelligence. But on +this great question, the wise solution of which, we are every day +assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no +opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion +prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections +have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which +support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the +election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back +peace to the distracted country. The distracted country will continue +to take care of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question +that needs an answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous +future to the helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or +mar for all coming time? What will save the country from a Senate and +Supreme Court where freedom shall be forever at a disadvantage? + +There is always a fallacy in the argument of the opponents of the +Republican party. They affirm that all the States and all the citizens +of the States ought to have equal rights in the Territories. +Undoubtedly. But the difficulty is that they cannot. The slaveholder +moves into a new Territory with his _institution_, and from that +moment the free white settler is virtually excluded. _His_ +institutions he cannot take with him; they refuse to root themselves +in soil that is cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; +the post-office is Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may +be enough to hang him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free +States are being driven out and murdered for pretended complicity in a +plot the evidence for the existence of which has been obtained by +means without a parallel since the trial of the Salem witches, and the +stories about which are as absurd and contradictory as the confessions +of Goodwife Corey. Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the +experience of Kansas that disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's +panacea of "Squatter Sovereignty." + +The claim of _equal_ rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. +Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every +inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. +For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,--that +their _local law_ be made the law of the land, and coextensive with +the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no +unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; +and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law +makes property," (confounding a law existing anywhere with the law +which is binding everywhere,) can deceive only those who have either +never read the Constitution or are ignorant of the opinions and +intentions of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where +slavery already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery +are well aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by +positive enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of +existence for their institution in the Territories,--a title which +they do not possess, and the possession of which would give them the +oyster and the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for +to protect Southern property in the Territories,--that is, to protect +the inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of +government shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion +of our national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the +Non-Slave-holding States fail to do their duty in the present crisis. + +But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a +little remarkable, that, as the prospect of his success increases, the +menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W.L. Yancey, +to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without +him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But +Governor Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at +Washington,--perhaps because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. +The old Mumbo-Jumbo is occasionally paraded at the North, but, however +many old women may be frightened, the pulse of the stock-market +remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right +of the late Mr. James the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on +the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, +some thinking that it means a Military Despot--though in that case the +force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,--and others the Pony +Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would +have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry of +Disunion has lost its terrors, if it ever had any, at the North. The +South itself seems to have become alarmed at its own scarecrow, and +speakers there are beginning to assure their hearers that the election +of Mr. Lincoln will do them no harm. We entirely agree with them, for +it will save them from themselves. + +To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb +the existing internal policy of the Southern States possible +presupposes a manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could +take place, the country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But +there is no premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we +except Mr. Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset +will hardly turn the continent head over heels. The administration of +Mr. Lincoln will be conservative, because no government is ever +intentionally otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines +the foundation on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is +that influence in the councils of the nation to which they are justly +entitled by their population, wealth, and intelligence. That these +elements of prosperity have increased more rapidly among them than in +communities otherwise organized, with greater advantages of soil, +climate, and mineral productions, is certainly no argument that they +are incapable of the duties of efficient and prudent administration, +however strong a one it may be for their endeavoring to secure for the +Territories the single superiority that has made them what they are. +The object of the Republican party is not the abolition of African +slavery, but the utter extirpation of dogmas which are the logical +sequence of the attempts to establish its righteousness and wisdom, +and which would serve equally well to justify the enslavement of every +white man unable to protect himself. They believe that slavery is a +wrong morally, a mistake politically, and a misfortune practically, +wherever it exists; that it has nullified our influence abroad and +forced us to compromise with our better instincts at home; that it has +perverted our government from its legitimate objects, weakened the +respect for the laws by making them the tools of its purposes, and +sapped the faith of men in any higher political morality than interest +or any better statesmanship than chicane. They mean in every lawful +way to hem it within its present limits. + +We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than +anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved +both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in +public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a +politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in +the eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced +public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close. He +represents a party who know that true policy is gradual in its +advances, that it is conditional and not absolute, that it must deal +with facts and not with sentiments, but who know also that it is wiser +to stamp out evil in the spark than to wait till there is no help but +in fighting fire with fire. They are the only conservative party, +because they are the only one based on an enduring principle, the only +one that is not willing to pawn tomorrow for the means to gamble with +today. They have no hostility to the South, but a determined one to +doctrines of whose ruinous tendency every day more and more convinces +them. + +The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like +those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon +with his glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an +anachronism of summer, the relic of a bygone world where such monsters +swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work +against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, +fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous +devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant +sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no +trace but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed +boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in +the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and +believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually +before it. "All the earth cries out upon Truth, and the heaven +blesseth it; ill works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no +unrighteous thing." + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +_History of Flemish Literature_. By OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, LL. D. 8vo. +London. John Murray. 1860. + +"When I write in Danish," says Oehlenschlaeger, "I write for only six +hundred persons." And so, in view of this somewhat exaggerated +statement, he himself translated his best works into the more favored +and more widely spread Germanic idiom. It requires a certain amount of +courage in an author to write in his own native tongue only, when he +knows that he thereby limits the number of his readers. We see in our +own days, among the Sclavonic races, men whose writings breathe the +most ardent patriotism, whose labors and researches are all +concentrated within the sphere of their nationality, publishing, not +in their own Polish, Czechish, or Serbian, but in German or French. + +The history of language shows us a two-fold tendency,--one of +divergence from some common stem, followed by one of concentration, of +unity, in the literature. Thus, in France, the _Langue d'Oil_ +superseded the richer and more melodious Provencal; in Spain the +Castilian predominated; while for several centuries it has been the +steady tendency of the High-German to become the language of letters +and of the upper classes among the various Teutonic races. Since the +Bible-translation of Luther, this central dialect has not only become +the medium in which poet and philosopher, historian and critic address +the nation, but it may be said to have entirely superseded the +Northern and Southern forms. Whatever local or linguistic interest may +be manifested for the works of Groth in the Ditmarsch _Platt-Deutsch_, +or for the sweet Alemannic songs of Hebel, the centralizing tongue is +that in which Schiller and Goethe wrote. + +The allied Danish and Dutch have escaped this ingulfing process. The +former, instead of retreating, seeks in the present to enlarge its +circuit; and great are the complaints in Schleswig-Holstein of the +arbitrary and despotic imposition of Danish on a State of the German +Confederation. The present government of Holland has not remained +inactive. Much has been done to encourage men of letters and +counteract the Gallic influences which prevailed in the early part of +the century. + +But the Flemings speaking nearly the same language as their Protestant +neighbors, where is their literature now? The language itself, in +which are handed down to us some of the masterpieces of the Middle +Ages, as "Reynard the Fox" and "Gudrun," is disregarded, even +discountenanced, by Government. It is with a feeling of sadness that +we read the annals of a literature which met so many obstacles to its +progress. Despised by foreign rulers, thrust back by the Spanish +policy of the Duke of Alva, its authors exiled and seeking refuge in +other lands, its very existence has been a constant battling against +the inroads of more powerful neighbors. + +Surely, "if words be made of breath, and breath of life," there is +nothing a nation can hold more dear than its own tongue. Its laws, its +rulers, may change, its privileges and charters be wrenched from it, +but that remains as an heirloom, the first gift to the child, the last +and dearest treasure of the man. Perhaps nowhere more than in Flanders +do we meet with a systematic oppression of a vernacular idiom. From +the days of the contests with France, through the long Spanish +troubles and dominion, the military occupation of the country by the +troops of Louis XIV., the Austrian rule, the levelling tendency of the +French Revolution, and the present aping of French manners by the +higher powers of the land,--through all this there has been but one +long, continuous struggle, and the ultimate result is now too plain. + +We find the Flemish spoken by nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of +Belgium, divided from the Walloon or _Rouchi-Fran ais_ by a line of +demarcation running from the Meuse through Liege and Waterloo, and +ending in France, between Calais and Dunkirk. It differs in no +material points from the Dutch, being essentially the same, if we +except slight differences in spelling, as _ae_ for _aa_, _ue_ for +_uu_, _y_ for _ij_. Both should bear but one common name, the +Netherlandish. That differences should be sought can be accounted for +only by the petty feeling of jealousy that exists between the +neighboring states, their literary productions varying in grammatical +construction scarcely more than the writings of English and American +authors. + +Mr. Octave Delepierre, who since 1830 has published some ten or twelve +monographs relating to the antiquities and history of Flanders, has +presented the English public during the course of the present year +with a history of Flemish literature. With an evident predilection for +authors south of the Meuse, Mr. Delepierre has nevertheless given us +the first clear and connected account we possess of the history of +letters in the Netherlands. Without careful or minute critical +research, he has shown little that is new, nor has he sought to clear +one point that was obscure. His work is pleasant reading, interspersed +with occasional translations, though scarcely answering the requisites +of literary history in the nineteenth century. Having followed the +older work of Snellaert [_Histoire de la Litterature Flamande_. +Bruxelles. 1654.], in the latter half of the volume, page for page, he +has not even mentioned by name the authors of the last quarter of a +century. + +Let us glance at that portion of literature more particularly +belonging to Flanders and Brabant. + +The first expressions of the Germanic mind, the song of "Hildebrand," +"Gudrun," the "Nibelungen," have been handed down to us in a form +which shows their origin to have been Netherlandish. The first part of +"Gudrun" is evidently so; and we find, as well in many of the older +poems of chivalry, as "Charles and Elegast," "Floris and +Blanchefloer," as in the national epos, intrinsic proofs that the +unknown authors were from the regions of the Lower Rhine. These elder +remnants, however, can scarcely be claimed by any one of the Teutonic +races, as they are the common property of all; for we find the hero +Siegfried in the Scandinavian Saga, as well as in the more southern +tradition. Mr. Delepierre has translated the following song, almost +Homeric in its form, which belongs to this early period, when +Christianity had not obliterated the memories of barbarous days:-- + + "The Lord Halewyn knew a song: all those + who heard it were attracted towards him. + + "It was once heard by the daughter of the + King, who was so beloved by her parents. + + "She stood before her father: 'O father, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her mother: 'O mother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to + him never come back again.' + + "She stood before her sister: 'O sister, may + I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Oh, no, sister, no! They who go to him + never come back again.' + + "She stood before her brother: 'O brother, + may I go to the Lord Halewyn?' + + "'Little care I where thou goest, provided + thou preservest thine honor and thy crown. + + "She goes up into her chamber; she clothes + herself in her best garments. + + "What does she put on first? A shift finer + than silk. + + "What does she gird round her lovely + waist? Strong bands of gold. + + "What does she put upon her scarlet petticoat? + On every seam a golden button. + + "What does she set on her beautiful fair + hair? A massive golden crown. + + "What does she put upon her kirtle? On + every seam a pearl. + + "She goes into her father's stable, and takes + out his best charger. She mounts him proudly, + and so, laughing and singing, rides through + the forest. When she reaches the middle of + the forest, she meets the Lord Halewyn. + + "'Hail!' said he, approaching her, 'hail, + beautiful virgin, with eyes so black and brilliant!' + + "They proceed together, chatting as they go. + + "They arrive at a field in which stands a + gallows. The bodies of several women hang + from it. + + "The Lord Halewyn says to her: 'As you + are the loveliest of all virgins, say, how will + you die? The time is come.' + + "'It is well: as I may choose, I choose the + sword. + + "'But, first of all, take off your tunic; for + the blood of a virgin gushes out so far, that it + might reach you, and I should be sorry.' + + "But before he had divested himself of his + tunic, his head rolled off and lay at his feet: + his lips still murmured these words: + + "'Go down there into that corn-field, and blow + the horn, so that my friends may hear it.' + + "'Into that corn-field I shall not go, neither + shall I blow the horn. I do not follow the counsel + of a murderer.' + + "'Go, then, down under the gallows, and + gather the balm which you shall find there, + and spread it over my bloody throat.' + + "'Under the gallows I shall not go; on your + bloody throat I shall spread no balm. I do + not follow the counsel of a murderer.' + + "She took up the head by the hair, and + washed it at a clear fountain. + + "She mounted her charger proudly, and, + laughing and singing, she rode through the + forest. + + "When she reached the middle of the forest, + she met the mother of Halewyn. 'Beautiful + virgin, have you not seen my son?' + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is gone + hunting: you will never see him again. + + "'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is dead. I + have his head in my apron, which is red with + his blood.' + + "And when she arrived at her father's gate, + she blew the horn like a man. + + "And when her father saw her, he rejoiced + at her return. + + "He celebrated it by a feast, and the head + of Halewyn was placed on the table." + +Flemish writers claim as entirely their own that epic of the people, +"Reynard the Fox." Their right to it was long contested; nor has +anything been done since the labors of Willems, who, in opposition to +the opinion of William Grimm, settles the authorship of the "Reinaert +de Vos" on Utenhove, a priest of Aerdenburg. It seems natural to +suppose that this most popular of Middle-Age productions should have +originated in the very region which later gave to the world a school +of painting that incarnated on canvas the phases of animal life, +taking its delight and best inspirations in the burlesque side of +human passions. + +In its first period, Flemish literature found some encouragement from +its princes. John I. of Brabant fostered it, and even took, himself, +the title of Flemish Troubadour. Under Guy of Dampierre, who neither +in heart nor mind was sympathetic with the people he ruled, we find +Maerlant, still revered by his country; his name is ever coupled with +the epithet of Father of Flemish Poets. Didactic rather than poetical, +his influence was great in breaking down the barriers which separated +the people from the higher classes, by adapting to their own +home-idiom the best productions of the age. About this period we find +prevalent those Northern singers corresponding to the _Trouveres_, +_Troubadours_, and _Jongleurs_. They are in Flanders the _Spreker_, +_Segger_, and _Vinder_, who, when travelling through the country, took +the name of _Gezel_, received in town or village, court or hamlet, as +the wandering minstrel of the South. The golden age when sovereigns +doffed their royal robes to lay them on the shoulders of some +sweet-singing poet, as the old chronicles tell us, was of short +duration in the North, if ever the _Sproken_ or erotic poems may be +said to have brought their authors into such favor. On the other hand, +we find some of the wanderers arrested for theft and other crimes. + +Little light has been thrown on their first ante-historical attempts. +Until the late labors of German philologers, little had been done to +clear up the confusion resting on this period of literary history. As +yet the field has scarcely been explored beyond the regions not +immediately connected with the literature of Germany. We have long +historical poems of little interest, arranged without +order,--interminable productions of thousands and ten thousands of +lines of uncertain date, didactic and encyclopedia-like, besides +unmistakable remnants of a Netherlandish theatre. + +The battle of Roosebeke, where the second Artevelde and his companions +succumbed to superior numbers, was the last great enterprise of the +Flemings against the French. Half a century earlier, a strong league +had been formed against these powerful neighbors. In the interior, the +country was divided into factions,--the partisans and enemies of +France. Prominent were the _Clauwaerts_ and the _Leliarts_, from the +lion's claw and the _fleur-de-lis_ which they respectively wore on +their badges. The country, which has ever been one of the +battle-fields of Europe, was abandoned to all the horrors of civil +war. The Duke of Brabant was childless. The Count of Flanders gave his +daughter, his only legitimate child, in marriage to the Duke of +Burgundy; and the provinces soon came into the hands of those +ambitious and restless enemies of the Court of France. It may easily +be imagined that these events were not without their influence on a +language deteriorated on the one hand by constant contact with a +Romanic idiom, and in Holland by the transmission of the sovereign +crown to the House of Avesnes. + +The "Chambers of Rhetoric," an institution peculiar to the Low +Countries, reached their highest point of prosperity under the +Burgundian rule. The wandering life of poets and authors had nearly +ceased. The _Gezellen_, settled in towns, and moved by the prevalent +spirit which prompted men of one calling to unite into bodies, +naturally fell into corporations analogous to the Guilds. Without +attaching any very definite or clear idea to the term Rhetoric which +they employed, these associations exerted great influence upon the +whole literature of the Netherlands. Many would date their origin as +far back as the early part of the twelfth century. In Alost, the +Catherinists claimed to have existed as early as 1107, on the mere +strength of their motto, AMOR VINCIT. At any rate, we are left +entirely to conjecture with regard to the first beginnings of these +literary guilds, which seem in many respects an imitation of the +poetical societies of Provence. Every poet of note was a participant +in them. In Flanders there was scarcely a town or village that did not +possess its Chamber. Brabant, Holland, Zealand soon followed in the +movement. One of the principal, the Fountain of Ghent, seems to have +exercised a certain supremacy over the other confraternities of art. + +The proceedings of these companies, protected at first by princes, +were carried on with great magnificence. They were in constant +communication with each other throughout the country. Their _facteurs_ +or poets composed songs and theatrical pieces, which were performed by +the members. They had a long array of officers, with princely names; +and none was complete without a jester. Their larger assemblies were +accompanied with long festivities, the solemn entry into a town or +village being styled _Landjuweel_ (Landjewel). The nobility mingled in +them, incited by the example of Henry IV. of Brabant or +Philippe-le-Bel. The wealth of the Netherlands was displayed on these +solemnities, and the citizens rivalled their monarchs in magnificence. +The burghers of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp shone, on these +occasions, in the gaudy pomp of princely patricians. All were invited +to take part and dispute the prizes awarded by fair hands. + +It can scarcely be expected that these guilds, composed in many cases +of mechanics, should give rise to works of the highest order of merit. +Their dramatic representations were rather gorgeous than tasteful, +their attempts at wit little better than buffoonery, their humor mere +personal vituperation. Yet even in matters of taste they are not much +inferior to the then more pretentious academies of other lands. It was +an age of long religious dramas, of tortured rhymes and impossible +metres, when strange and new versification imported from France found +favor among a people whose silks and linens and rich tapestries were +destined to reach a wider circulation than all the poetical effusions +of their guilds, the "Lily," the "Violet," and the "Jesus with the +Balsam Flower." + +It was Philip the Fair who, wishing to centralize the scattered +efforts of these societies, established at Malines, in 1493, a +sovereign chamber, of which he appointed his chaplain, Pierre Aelters, +_sovereign prince_. With an admixture of religion, in accordance with +the spirit of the Middle Ages, the sacred number was fifteen. There +were fifteen members. Fifteen young girls were to form part of it, in +honor of the fifteen joys of Mary. Fifteen youths were instructed in +the art of rhetoric, and the assemblies were held fifteen times a +year. Charles V. was the last chief of this assembly, which had +previously been removed to Ghent. In 1577 it greeted the arrival of +the Prince of Orange, but this was its last sign of vitality. + +The Chambers of Rhetoric reached their climax in a time of +fermentation. The impatience, the feeling of uneasiness and restraint, +is felt in the drama of these days, which was wholly under the control +of the Chambers. The stage, that "mirror of the times," is often the +first manifestation of the unquiet heaving and subsequent up-bubbling +in the fluid compost of the mass that constitutes a nation. When +freely developed, it is the pulse-beat of the people. And so, +throughout the Netherlands, at the end of the fifteenth century and +the beginning of the sixteenth, we find the allegorical drama giving +way to more definite and direct personations. Those cold +representations of vices and virtues, of vice in its nakedness, such +as to render the reading, when not absolutely tedious, distasteful, to +say the least, to our modern ideas,--all such aimless productions were +giving way to the conscious expression of satire. Diatribes against +prevalent abuses, personal invectives scarcely veiled, were fast +becoming the order of the day. It is no wonder, then, that the guilds, +which had found favor formerly, should gradually be crushed, in +proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among +the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The +_refrain_ was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the +expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic +party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under +Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her +poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, and were +read as masterpieces till the middle of the last century. + +A taste for religious writing prevailed in the Netherlands throughout +the sixteenth century. William van Zuylen van Nyevelt first published +a collection of the Psalms of David. These, in imitation of the French +Calvinists, were sung to the most popular melodies. Zuylen found many +imitators. The Catholic party composed songs in opposition to the +Reformers; and we have psalms and songs by Utenhove, the painters Luc +de Heere and Van Mander, by Van Haecht and Fruytiers. A long list of +obscure names, if we except those of Marnix and Houwaert, is mentioned +as belonging to this period,--their works mostly didactic or +controversial. Houwaert, a Catholic, one of the avowed friends and +partisans of the Prince of Orange, courted the Muses in the hottest +days of civil strife. He published a poem, in sixteen cantos, entitled +"The Gardens of the Virgins," tending to show the dangers to which the +fair sex is exposed, and condemning as unreal all love not centred in +God. With a remarkable fertility of composition he possesses an +uncommon smoothness of versification, combined with a power, so +successful in his age, of illustration from history or romance, from +the sacred writings or the legendary lore of the people. The work was +received in those days of trouble with unbounded enthusiasm. Brabant +was thought to have given birth to a new Homer. His praises resounded +in verse and song, and the young girls of Brussels crowned him with +laurel. + +The government of the Duke of Alva, and the succeeding years of +revolution, were a period of desolation for Flanders. The Guilds of +Rhetoric were dispersed; town after town was depopulated; Ghent, the +loved city of Charles V., lost six thousand families; Leyden, +Amsterdam, Haerlem, Gouda, afforded refuge to the emigrants. The +golden age of literary activity is about to dawn in the Dutch +republic. In the other provinces the national language is more and +more neglected. It gives umbrage to the foreign chiefs who act as +sovereigns. With it they identify all the opposition that has +prevailed against them. Archduke Albert carries his condescension no +farther than to address in High-German such of his subjects as can +speak only Flemish. His Walloons he treats with no more civility, +answering them but in Spanish or Latin. Ymmeloot, lord of Steenbrugge, +a native of Ypres, endeavors in 1614 to stem the current of opposition +and reawaken a love for letters. He suggests many reforms in the +versification, and gives the example. He is followed by many, and +Ypres becomes for a time a centre of versifiers. But the spirit of +originality has flown, and the literature of Holland is enriched with +the name of many a Fleming who preferred exile to the new rule. + +In 1618, the General Synod of Dordrecht decreed that a new translation +of the Bible should be undertaken. Two Flemings, Baudaert and Walaeus, +and two Dutchmen, Bogerman and Hommius, completed it. Like the work of +Luther, this tended in a great measure to fix the language, preventing +the preponderance of one dialect over the other. + +Foreign imitation begins to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq +constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary +quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An +action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest _patois_ of +Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage +the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms. +His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to +represent vice on the stage, as the Romans formerly on certain days +intoxicated their slaves and showed them to their children, in order +that they might at an early age become inspired with a disgust for +debauchery." Yet his comedies enjoyed the highest favor, and have been +pronounced by native critics among the most remarkable and meritorious +productions of the epoch. They are ever distinguished by vivacity, +truth, and fidelity, in depicting the many-sided life of the people. +He seems to have been a literary Ostade or Teniers, with less of +ingenuousness and good-nature in the portraiture. + +In the mean time the French language continues to gain ground every +day. In Brussels, native authors seek in vain to oppose the +encroachments of the "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but, +save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers, +and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations. +Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly +style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious +ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;--the country, +after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of +inaction. + +Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing. Its poets and +historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the +poet of the people. Bruges, in the eighteenth century, produces two +writers of merit,--Smidts and Labare. In French Flanders, De Swaen +adapts from Corneille, and publishes original dramas. Many songs are +composed both in the northern and southern provinces, mostly of a +religious character. Philologers seek to revive the neglected idiom +with little success. But the century is blank of great names. The +Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres, established at Brussels by +Maria Theresa, was composed of members totally unacquainted with the +Flemish. It took no notice of the language beyond publishing a few +prize-memoirs in its annals. The German barons who ruled cared little +for their own tongue: how should they have manifested interest in that +of their Belgian subjects? The subsequent French domination was no +improvement. On the 13th of June, 1803, it was decreed by the +Republic,--"In a year, reckoning from the publication of this present +ordinance, the public acts, in the departments once called Belgium, +... in those on the left bank of the Rhine, ... where the custom of +drawing up acts in the language of those countries may have been +preserved, are henceforth to be written in French." The Bonaparte rule +was not of a nature to restore former privileges. In spite of the +feeble remonstrances that were urged against such arbitrary measures, +an imperial decree of 1812 enjoined that all Flemish papers should +appear with a French translation. + +Under the rule of King William, vigorous measures were employed to +reinstate the native idiom. At first warmly seconded, Government soon +met with an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects. The Dutch +was combated by those connected with education. It was ridiculed by +the Walloon population. Since the independence of Belgium, the +_mouvement flamand_ has been felt more than once by the would-be +French rulers. In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the +members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were +addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little avail. At +present, though the language is nominally on a par with French, it +meets with little encouragement. The philological labors of Willems +entitle him to a place among the greatest of the present century; he +was until his death the leader of the intellectual movement of his +country. + +Of later authors, we may mention the laureate Ledeganck, Henri +Conscience, whose works have now been translated into English, French, +German, Danish, and Swedish, Renier Snieders, Van Duyse, Dantzenberg. +Modern literature seems to have taken a new flight; it is animated by +the purest love of country, by an ardent desire in its authors to +revive the use of their native tongue. The tendency is rather +Germanic. At the Singers' Festival, held in Ghent a short time ago, +the songs sung breathed a spirit of union and love for the sister +languages. As a fair sample, we may quote the following:-- + + "Welaen, Germaen en Belg tezaem ten stryd + Voor vryheid, tael en vaderland! + De vaen van't duitsch en vlaemsche zangverbond + Prael op't gentsch eeregoud! + Wy willen vry zyn, als de adelaer + Die stout op eigen wieken dryft, + Voor wien er slechts een koestring is, de zon. + Alom waer der Germanen tael + Zich heft en bloeid en't volk, + Daer is ons vaderland!" + + * * * * * + + +_The Glaciers of the Alps_. Being a Narrative of Excursions and +Ascents, an Account of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers, and an +Exposition of the Physical Principles to which they are related. By +JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., etc., etc. With Illustrations. London: John +Murray. 1860. pp. xx., 444. + +Our readers are probably aware that the question of the causes of +glacier formation and motion, cool as the subject may seem in itself, +has demonstrated the existence of a great deal of latent heat among +scientific men. In England, the so-called _viscous_ theory of +Professor J.D. Forbes held for a long while undisputed possession of +the field. According to him, "a glacier is an imperfect fluid, or +viscous body, which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by +the mutual pressure of its parts." With that impartial +superciliousness to all foreign achievement which not seldom +characterizes the British mind, the credit of all the results of +observation and experiment on the glaciers was attributed to Professor +Forbes, who seems to have accepted it with delightful complacency. But +presently doubt, then unbelief, and at last downright opposition began +to show themselves. The leader of the revolt was Professor Tyndall, +whose book is now before us. The controversy has begotten no little +bitterness of feeling; but none is shown in Mr. Tyndall's volume, +which is throughout written in the truest spirit of science,--with the +earnest frankness that becomes a seeker of truth, and the dignity that +befits a lover of it. + +Not content with any theoretic antagonism to the Forbes explanation of +the phenomena, Mr. Tyndall devoted all the leisure of several years to +an examination of them on the spot. At the risk of his life, he +verified the previous observations of others and made new ones +himself. At home, he made experiments upon the nature of ice, +especially upon its capacity for regulation and the effect of pressure +upon it. He satisfied himself that snow may be changed to ice by +pressure, that crumbled ice may in like manner be restored to its +original condition, and that solid ice may be forced to take any form +desired. Under proper conditions, lamination may be produced by the +same means. The result of his investigations is, that the glacier is a +solid body, and that _pressure_ answers all the requirements of the +glacier-problem, and is the only thing that will. + +The book is one of uncommon interest, and discusses many topics beside +the glaciers, though nothing that is not in some way related to them. +Mr. Tyndall does justice to former investigators,--especially to M. +Rendu, who, though imperfectly supplied with demonstrated facts, +theorized the phenomena with the happiest inspiration,--and to +Agassiz, of whose important observations, establishing for the first +time the fact of more rapid motion in the middle of the glacier, +Professor Forbes had appropriated the credit. The style is remarkably +agreeable, in description vivid, and in its scientific parts clear. +Indeed, we do not know whether we have enjoyed the narrative or the +science the most. Professor Tyndall has the uncommon gift of being +able to write science so that the unscientific can understand it, +without descending to the low level of science made easy. The Royal +Institution may well congratulate itself on having in him a man every +way qualified to succeed Faraday, whenever (and may it be long first!) +his chair is vacant. + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +MR. JARVES'S COLLECTION. + +It seems an odd turn in the kaleidoscope of Fortune that associates a +Prime Minister of the Sandwich Islands--where the only pictorial Art +is a kind of illumination laboriously executed by the natives on each +other's skins, thus forming a free peripatetic gallery--with a +collection of pictures by early Italian masters. It is certainly a +striking illustration of American multifariousness. From the dawning +civilization of Hawaii Mr. Jarves withdraws to Italy, where culture +has passed far beyond its noon, and finds himself equally at home in +both. From Italy he has returned to America with by far the most +important contribution to historical Art that has ever reached us. It +is not easy to overestimate its value, whether intrinsically, or as an +aid to intelligent and refining study. We can hardly expect, it is +true, ever to form such collections of Art in this country as would +save our students the necessity of visiting Europe. This, indeed, +would be hardly desirable; since a great deal of the refining and +enlightening influence of foreign travel and observation is not +received directly from the special objects that may have drawn us +abroad, but incidentally and unexpectedly, by being brought into +contact with strange systems of government and new forms of thought. +But what we might have is such a collection as would enable those of +us who cannot travel to enjoy some of the highest aesthetic advantages +of travel, and would send our students to the galleries of the Old +World already in a condition to appreciate and profit by them. Mr. +Jarves's pictures afford the opportunity for an excellent beginning in +such an undertaking. + +Mr. Jarves's object has been to form a gallery that should exhibit the +origin, progress, and culmination of Italian Art from the thirteenth +to the seventeenth century, in such chronological order as should show +the sequence and affiliation of the various schools and the various +motive and inspiration that were operative in them. To quote his own +language, Mr. Jarves began his undertaking with no "expectation of +acquiring masterpieces, or many, if any, of those specimens upon which +the reputation of the great masters is based. These are in the main +either fixtures in their native localities or permanently absorbed +into the great galleries of Europe; and America may scarcely hope ever +to possess such. He did propose, however, to get together a collection +which should _fairly_ represent the varied qualities of the masters +themselves, and the phases of inspiration, religious, aesthetic, or +naturalistic, by which they were actuated. And he claims now to have +succeeded in this to an extent which in the outset he did not dare to +hope, and to have secured for the collection the approving verdict of +European taste and connoisseurship in the recognition of it as a +_valuable historical gallery of original paintings of the epochs and +schools they claim to represent_. + +"In putting forward this claim, he does it in full view of the +character of the criticism and doubts such an assumption naturally +begets. The public are right in doubting; and they should not be +convinced except upon sound evidence. Therefore, while he +unhesitatingly claims for the collection the foregoing character, he +expects and invites from the public the fullest measure of impartial +and intelligent criticism. + +"The object of the collection is a nucleus for an American Gallery, to +be established in the most fitting place and upon a broad basis, +sufficient to gratify and improve every variety of taste and to +advance the aesthetic culture of the people. + +"With this aim, he has declined repeated overtures pecuniarily +advantageous to divert it in whole or part to other purposes; and in +bringing it to America at his own risk and expense, it is solely to +test the disposition of the public to second such a project. If it +meet their approbation, the means best adapted for the purpose are to +be maturely considered; but if otherwise, it is his intention to +return the gallery to Europe. + +"It is a simple question, whether, after having had the opportunity of +becoming acquainted with the collection and his object in making it, +the American public will sustain perfect this humble beginning of a +Public Gallery of Art, or abandon the formation of one to future +chances, when the difficulties will be much greater and the +opportunities for success much fewer. It must be considered, that, at +this moment, while genuine works of Art are growing more and more +difficult to be procured, the rivalry of public and private collectors +is rapidly increasing. It is true that the existing great galleries +come into the market only for pictures specially wanted to fill some +important gap in their series, for which they pay prices that would +startle our public economists. America will have to undergo the +competition, even if she now enters this field, of several important +foreign galleries in the process of formation, among which are those +of Manchester, with a subscribed capital, _as a beginning_, of +L100,000; of the Association of St. Petersburg, for the same purpose, +under the patronage of the Imperial Family; and of one even in +Australia." + +Mr. Jarves's collection is not confined by any means to what may be +called the _curiosities_ of Art. It contains one hundred and +twenty-five pictures; and, rich as it is in works that mark the +successive stages of development in Italian painting, it possesses +also specimens of its later and most perfect productions. Examples of +the pure Byzantine bring us to those of the Greco-Italian school, and +these to the early Italian, represented (in its Umbrian branch) by +Cimabue, by Giotto and his followers, the Gaddi, Cavallini, Giottino, +Orgagna, and others; while of the Sienese we have Duccio, Simone di +Martino, and Lorenzetti, with more of less note. Of the Ascetics we +have, among others, Fra Angelico, Castagno, and Giovanni di Paolo. The +Realists are ushered in by Masolino, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, and go +on in an unbroken series through Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and +Cosimo Roselli, to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Leonardo, Raffaello, and a +design of Michel Angelo, painted by one of his pupils. Nor does the +succession end here; Andrea del Sarto, R. Ghirlandajo, Vasari, +Bronzino, Pontormo, and others, follow. Of the Religionists, there are +Lorenzo di Credi, Fra Bartolommeo, Perugino, and their scholars. The +progress of landscape, history, and anatomical drawing may be traced +in Paolo Uccello, Dello Delli, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, the +Pollajuoli, and Luca Signorelli. Here also is Gentile da Fabriano. +Venice gives us G. Bellini, M. Basaiti, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese. +And of the later Sienese, there are Sodoma, Matteo da Siena, and +Beccafumi. The list includes, also, Domenichino, Sebastian del Piombo, +Guido, Salvator Rosa, Holbein, Rubens, and Lo Spagna. + +The names we have cited will be enough to show those familiar with the +subject the scope of the collection and its value as a consecutive +series, embracing a period which few galleries in any country cover so +completely, since few have been gathered on any historical plan. + +The chief question, of course, is as to the authenticity of the +pictures. This cannot be decided till they are exhibited and Mr. +Jarves's proofs are before the public. It is mainly to be decided on +internal evidence, and it is on such evidence that a great part of the +very early pictures in foreign collections have been labelled with the +names of particular artists. The weight of such evidence is to be +determined by the judgment of experts, and we are informed that Mr. +Jarves has a mass of testimony from those best qualified to decide in +such cases,--among it that of Sir Charles Eastlake, M. Rio, and the +directors of the two great public galleries of Florence. After all, +however, this appears to us a matter of secondary consequence. If the +pictures are genuine productions of the periods they are intended to +illustrate, if they are good specimens of their several schools of +Art, the special names of the artists who may have painted them are a +matter of less concern. The money-value of the collection might be +lessened without affecting its worth in other more considerable +respects, as an illustration of the rise and progress of the most +important school of modern Art. + +Every year it becomes more difficult to obtain pictures of the class +of which Mr. Jarves's collection is mainly composed. The directors of +European galleries have become alive to their value, and are sparing +no effort to fill the _lacuna_ left by the more strictly _virtuoso_ +taste of a former generation. As far as the general public is +concerned, such pictures must, no doubt, create the taste by which +they will be appreciated. The style of the more archaic ones among +them may be easily ridiculed, and the cry of Pre-Raphaelitism may be +turned against them; but we should not forget that these earlier +efforts, however they might fail in grace of treatment and ease of +expression, are sincere and genuine products of their time, and very +different in spirit and character from the productions of the modern +school, which aims to reproduce a phase of Art when the thought and +faith that animated it are gone past recall. + +Mr. Jarves is desirous that the gallery should remain in his native +city of Boston, and to that end is willing to part with it on very +generous terms. We cannot but hope that there will be taste and public +spirit enough to realize his design. By the side of the Museum of +Natural History under the charge of Agassiz, we should like to see one +of Art that would supply another great want in our culture. The Jarves +Collection gives the opportunity for a most successful beginning, and +we trust it will not be allowed to follow the Ninevite Marbles. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Rosa; or the Parisian Girl. From the French of Madame de Pressense. By +Mrs. J.C. Fletcher. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 371. 60 +cts. + +The Sunny South; or the Southerner at Home. Embracing Five Years' +Experience of a Northern Governess in the Land of the Sugar and the +Cotton. Edited by Professor J.H. Ingraham of Mississippi. +Philadelphia. George G. Evans. 12mo. pp. 526. $1.25. + +A Greek Grammar, for Schools and Colleges. By James Hadley, Professor +in Yale College. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 366. $1.25. + +Life of William T. Porter. By Francis Brinley. New York. D. Appleton & +Co. 12mo. pp. 273. $1.00. + +Virgil's Aeneid; with Explanatory Notes. By Henry S. 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