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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35,
+September, 1860, by Various
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2004  [eBook #11087]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, ISSUE
+35, SEPTEMBER, 1860***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. VI--SEPTEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE TREES.
+
+
+In our studies of Trees, we cannot fail to be impressed with their
+importance not only to the beauty of landscape, but also in the economy
+of life; and we are convinced that in no other part of the vegetable
+creation has Nature done so much to provide at once for the comfort, the
+sustenance, and the protection of her creatures. They afford the wild
+animals their shelter and their abode, and yield them the greater part
+of their subsistence. They are, indeed, so evidently indispensable to
+the wants of man and brute, that it would be idle to enlarge upon the
+subject, except in those details which are apt to be overlooked. In a
+state of Nature man makes direct use of their branches for weaving his
+tent, and he thatches it with their leaves. In their recesses he hunts
+the animals whose flesh and furs supply him with food and clothing, and
+from their wood he obtains the implements for capturing and subduing
+them. Man's earliest farinaceous food was likewise the product of trees;
+for in his nomadic condition he makes his bread from the acorn and the
+chestnut: he must become a tiller of the soil, before he can obtain the
+products of the cereal herbs. The groves were likewise the earliest
+temples for his worship, and their fruits his first offerings upon the
+divine altar.
+
+As man advances nearer to civilization, trees afford him the additional
+advantage which is derived from their timber. The first houses were
+constructed of wood, which enables him by its superior plastic
+nature, compared with stone, to progress more rapidly in his ideas of
+architecture. Wood facilitates his endeavors to instruct himself in
+art, by its adaptedness to a greater variety of purposes than any
+other substance. It is, therefore, one of the principal instruments of
+civilization which man has derived from the material world. Though the
+most remarkable works of the architect are constructed of stone, it
+was wood that afforded man that early practice and experience which
+initiated him into the laws of mechanics and the principles of art, and
+carried him along gradually to perfection.
+
+But as man is nomadic before he is agricultural, and a maker of tents
+and wigwams before he builds houses and temples,--in like manner he is
+an architect and an idolater before he becomes a student of wisdom; he
+is a sacrificer in temples and a priest at their altars, before he is a
+teacher of philosophy or an interpreter of Nature. After the attainment
+of science, a higher state of mental culture succeeds, causing the mind
+to see all Nature invested with beauty and fraught with imaginative
+charms, which add new wonders to our views of creation and new dignity
+to life. Man now learns to regard trees in other relations beside their
+capacity to supply his physical and mechanical wants. He looks upon them
+as the principal ornaments of the face of creation, and as forming the
+conservatories of Nature, in which she rears those minute wonders of
+her skill, the flowers and smaller plants that will flourish only under
+their protection, and those insect hosts that charm the student with
+their beauty and excite his wonder by their mysterious instincts.
+Science, too, has built an altar under the trees, and delivers thence
+new oracles of wisdom, teaching man how they are mysteriously wedded
+to the clouds, and are thus made the blessed instruments of their
+beneficence to the earth.
+
+Not without reason did the ancients place the Naiad and her fountain in
+the shady arbor of trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven
+into her fount and preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping
+shades she distributes the waters, which she has garnered from the
+skies, over the plain and the valley: and the husbandman, before he has
+learned the marvels of science, worships the beneficent Naiad, who draws
+the waters of her fountain from heaven, and from her sanctuary in the
+groves showers them upon the arid glebe and adds new verdure to the
+plain. After science has explained to us the law by which these supplies
+of moisture are furnished by the trees, we still worship the beneficent
+Naiad: we would not remove the drapery of foliage that protects her
+fountain, nor drive her into exile by the destruction of the trees,
+through whose leaves she holds mysterious commerce with the skies and
+saves our fields from drought.
+
+It is in these relations, leaving their uses in economy and the arts
+untouched, that I would now speak of trees. I would consider them as
+they appear to the poet and the painter, as they are connected with
+scenery, and with the romance and mythology of Nature, and as serving
+the purposes of religion and virtue, of freedom and happiness, of poetry
+and science, as well as those of mere taste and economy. I am persuaded
+that trees are closely connected with the fate of nations, that they are
+the props of industry and civilization, and that in all countries from
+which the forests have disappeared the people have sunk into indolence
+and servitude.
+
+Though we may not be close observers of Nature, we cannot fail to have
+remarked that there is an infinite variety in the forms of trees, as
+well as in their habits. By those who have observed them as landscape
+ornaments, trees have been classified according to their shape and
+manner of growth. They are round-headed or hemispherical, like the Oak
+and the Plane; pyramidal, like the Pine and the Fir; obeliscal, like the
+Arbor-Vitæ and Lombardy Poplar; drooping, like the White Elm and the
+Weeping Willow; and umbrella-shaped, like the Palm. These are the
+natural or normal varieties in the forms of trees. There are others
+which may be considered accidental: such are the tall and irregularly
+shaped trees which have been cramped by growing in a dense forest that
+does not permit the extension of their lateral branches; such also are
+the pollards which have been repeatedly cut down or dwarfed by the axe
+of the woodman.
+
+Of the round-headed trees, that extend their branches more or less at
+wide angles from their trunk, the Oak is the most conspicuous and the
+most celebrated. To the mind of an American, however, the Oak is far
+less familiar than the Elm, as a way-side tree; but in England, where
+many
+
+  "a cottage-chimney smokes
+  From betwixt two aged Oaks,"
+
+this tree, which formerly received divine honors in that country, is now
+hardly less sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants, on account of their
+familiarity with its shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its
+usefulness to the human family. The history of the British Isles is
+closely interwoven with circumstances connected with the Oak, and the
+poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a theme of inspiration.
+
+The Oak is remarkable for the wide spread of its lower branches and its
+broad extent of shade,--for its suggestiveness of power, and consequent
+expression of grandeur. It is allied with the romance of early history;
+it is celebrated by its connection with the religion and religious rites
+of the Druids,--with the customs of the Romans, who formed of its
+green leaves the civic crown for their heroes, and who planted it to
+overshadow the temple of Jupiter; and many ancient superstitions give
+its name a peculiar significance to the poet and the antiquary. From its
+timber marine architecture has derived the most important aid, and it
+has thereby become associated with the grandeur of commerce and the
+exploits of a gallant navy, and is regarded as the emblem of naval
+prowess. The Oak, therefore, to the majority of the human race, is,
+beyond all other trees, fraught with romantic interest, and invested
+with classic and historical dignity.
+
+The American continent contains a great many species of Oak in its
+indigenous forest. Of these the White Oak bears the most resemblance to
+the classical tree, in its general appearance, in the contorted growth
+of its branches, and in the edible quality of its fruit. But the Red
+Oak, the most northerly species, exceeds all others in size. No other
+attains so great a height, or spreads its branches so widely, or
+surpasses it in regularity of form. As we advance south, the White Oak
+is conspicuous until we arrive at North Carolina, where the forests and
+way-sides exhibit the beautiful Evergreen Oak, which, with its slender
+undivided leaves, the minute subdivisions of its branches, and its
+general comeliness of form, would be mistaken by a stranger for a
+Willow. A close inspection, however, would soon convince him that it has
+none of the fragility of the Willow. On the contrary, it is the most
+noted of all the genus for its hardness and durability, being the
+identical Live Oak which has supplied our navy with the most valuable
+of timber. At the South the Evergreen Oak is a common way-side tree,
+mingling its hues with the lighter green of the Cypress and the sombre
+verdure of the Magnolia.
+
+The Oak exceeds all other trees, not only in actual strength, but also
+in that outward appearance by which this quality is manifested. This
+expression is due to the general horizontal spread of its principal
+boughs, the peculiar angularity of the unions of its small branches, the
+want of flexibility in its spray, and its great size when compared with
+its height, all manifesting its power to resist the wind and the storm.
+Hence it is regarded as the monarch of trees, surpassing all in those
+qualities that indicate nobleness and capacity. It is the emblem of
+strength, dignity, and grandeur: the severest hurricane cannot overthrow
+it, and, by destroying some of its branches, leaves it only with
+more wonderful proofs of its resistance. Like the rock that rises in
+mid-ocean, it becomes in its old age a just symbol of fortitude, parting
+with its limbs one by one, as they are broken by the gale or withered by
+decay; but still retaining its many-centuried existence, when, like an
+old patriarch, it has seen all its early companions removed.
+
+Standard Oaks are comparatively rare in the New England States, and not
+many adorn our way-sides and inclosures, which are mostly shaded by
+Elms, Limes, Maples, and Ash-trees. The scarcity of Oaks in these places
+is attributable in some degree to the peculiar structure of their roots,
+which extend downwards to a great depth in the soil, causing them to be
+difficult of transplantation. It is owing in still greater measure to
+the value of Oak-wood for ship-timber,--especially as those full-grown
+trees which have sprung up by the road-sides, and the noble pasture
+Oaks, contain the greatest number of those joints which are in special
+demand for ship-building. Year after year, therefore, has witnessed the
+gradual disappearance of these venerable trees, which the public should
+have protected from the profane hands of the "timberer," by forcing him
+to procure his materials from the forest. The community needs to be
+taught that a standard tree of good size and well-developed proportions
+is of more value for its shade, and as an object in the landscape, than
+a whole acre of trees in the middle of a wood.
+
+One of the most majestic trees in the American forest is the Chestnut,
+remarkable, like the Oak, for its broad extent of shade. In some parts
+of the country it is one of the most common standards in the field and
+pasture, having been left unmolested on account of the value of its
+fruit and the comparative inferiority of its timber. The foliage of this
+tree is dense and flowing, and peculiar in its arrangement. The leaves
+are clustered in stars of from five to seven, on short branches that
+grow from one of greater length. Hence, at a little distance, the whole
+mass of foliage seems to consist of tufts, each containing a tassel of
+long pointed leaves, drooping divergently from a common centre. The
+flowers come out from the centre of these leaves in the same manner,
+and by their silvery green lustre give a pleasing variety to the darker
+verdure of the whole mass. "This is the tree," says Gilpin, "which
+graces the landscapes of Salvator Rosa. In the mountains of Calabria,
+where Salvator painted, the Chestnut flourished. There he studied it
+in all its forms, breaking and disposing of it in a thousand beautiful
+shapes, as the exigencies of his composition required."
+
+The Beech is one of the same class of trees, but does not equal the
+Chestnut in magnitude. It is distinguished by the beauty of its clean,
+smooth shaft, which is commonly ribbed or fluted in a perceptible
+degree; and in a wood, where there is an assemblage of these columns,
+rising without a branch to the height of thirty feet or more, they are
+singularly beautiful. A peculiarity often observed in the Beech is a
+sort of double head of foliage. This is produced by the habit of the
+tree of throwing out a whorl of imperfect branches just below the union
+of the main branches with the trunk. The latter, taking more of an
+upward direction, cause an observable space a little below the middle
+of the height of the tree. This double tier of branches and foliage has
+been noticed by painters in the European Beech. I have observed it in
+several instances in the American tree.
+
+Standard Beech-trees are not numerous in this part of the country;
+indeed, they are seldom seen except in a wood, or in clumps which have
+originated from the root of some tree that has perished. I think they
+appear to better advantage in groups and small assemblages than when
+single, as there is nothing greatly attractive in the form of a standard
+Beech; but there is a peculiar sweep of the lateral branches, when they
+are standing in a group, which the student of trees cannot fail to
+admire. They send out their branches more in right lines than most other
+trees, and, as their leaves and the extremities of their spray all have
+an upright tendency, they give a beautiful airy appearance to the edge
+of a wood. The foliage of other deciduous trees, even when the branches
+tend upward, is mostly of a drooping character. The Beech forms a
+pleasing exception to this habit, having leaves that point upward and
+outwardly, instead of hanging loosely. In most other trees the foliage
+is so heavy and flowing, that the courses of their branches are
+concealed under their drapery of leaves; but in the Beech all the
+lines produced by the branches and foliage are harmonious, and may be
+distinctly traced.
+
+By taking note of these peculiarities in their arborescent growth, one
+greatly magnifies his capacity for enjoying the beauties of trees.
+Without this observation, their general appearance forms the chief
+object of his attention: he observes them only as a person of taste who
+cannot distinguish tunes would listen to music. He feels the agreeable
+sensation which their forms and aspects produce; but, like one who
+thinks without adequate language for his thoughts, his ideas are vague
+and indefinite. The Beech is particularly worthy of study, as in many
+points it differs characteristically from most other trees. I am
+acquainted with no tree in the forest that equals it, when disrobed of
+its foliage, in the gracefulness of its spray. There is an airiness
+about its whole appearance, at all seasons, that gives an expression of
+cheerfulness to the scene it graces, whether it skirt the banks of a
+stream or spread out its courteous arms over a sunny knoll or little
+sequestered nook.
+
+There are some trees which are peculiarly American, being confined to
+the Western continent, and unknown in other parts of the world. Among
+these is the Hickory, a well-known and very common tree, celebrated
+rather for its usefulness than its beauty. The different trees of this
+family make an important feature in our landscape: they are not abundant
+in the forest, but they are conspicuous objects in the open plain, hill,
+and pasture. Great numbers of them have become standards; we see them
+following the lines of old stone walls that skirt the bounds and avenues
+of the farm, in company with the Ash and the Maple. In these situations,
+where they would not "cumber the ground," they have been allowed to
+grow, without exciting the jealousy of the proprietor of the land.
+Accident, under these circumstances, has reared many a beautiful tree,
+which would in any other place have been cut down as a trespasser. Thus
+Nature is always striving to clothe with beauty those scenes which man
+has despoiled; and while the farmer is hoeing and grubbing, and thinking
+only of his physical wants, unseen hands are draping all his fences with
+luxuriant vinery, and bordering his fields with trees that shall gladden
+the eyes of those who can understand their beauties.
+
+The Hickory is not a round-headed tree; it approaches a cylindrical
+form, somewhat flattened at the top, but seldom attaining any strict
+regularity of shape. It does not expand into a full and flowing head,
+but is often divided into distinct masses of foliage, separated by
+vacant spaces of considerable size, and presenting an appearance as if
+a portion of the tree had been artificially removed. These gaps do not
+extend all round the tree; they are irregularly disposed, some trees
+having several of them, others none or only one; and they seem to have
+been caused, when the tree was young, by the dwindling of some principal
+branch. The Hickory throws out its branches at first very obliquely from
+the shaft; afterwards the lower ones bend down as the tree increases in
+size, and acquire an irregular and contorted shape; for, notwithstanding
+their toughness, they bend easily to the weight of their fruit and
+foliage.
+
+This tree is celebrated in the United States for the toughness of its
+wood; and the term Hickory is used as emblematical of a sturdy and
+vigorous character. It possesses some of the ruggedness, without the
+breadth and majesty of the Oak, though it exceeds even this tree
+in braving the force of a tempest. It is one of our most common
+pasture-trees, and its deep-green foliage makes amends for the general
+want of comeliness in its outline.
+
+As we are journeying through the older settlements of New England,
+the melancholy forms of the ill-fated Plane-trees tower above the
+surrounding objects, and attract our attention not only by their
+magnitude, but also by the marks of decay which are stamped upon all.
+This appearance is chiefly remarkable in the early part of summer: for
+the trees are not dead; but their vitality is so far gone that they are
+tardy in putting out their leaves, and seldom before July are they fully
+clad in verdure. When they are not in leaf, we may observe an unnatural
+growth of slender twigs in tufts at the ends of their branches. This
+is caused by the failure of the tree in perfecting its wood before the
+growth of the branches is arrested by the autumnal frosts; and this
+accident has been repeated annually ever since the trees began to
+be affected with their malady. The Plane was formerly a very common
+way-side tree in New England, until the fatality occurred which has
+caused the greater number of them to perish. It is a fact worthy of
+notice, that all the trees of this species below the latitude of Long
+Island have escaped the malady.
+
+The Chenar-tree, or Oriental Plane, is celebrated in history, having had
+a place in all the public and private grounds of the Greeks and Romans,
+as well as of the Eastern nations. The American, or Western Plane,
+called in New England the Buttonwood, is not less remarkable for its
+size and grandeur. It is one of the loftiest trees, and its lateral
+branches, being of great length, give it extraordinary breadth. It also
+runs up to an unusual height, compared with other trees, before it forms
+a head, so that its lower branches are sometimes elevated above the
+roofs of the houses of common height Hence it would be a valuable tree
+for road-sides, if it were healthy, as it would allow the largest
+vehicles to pass freely under its boughs.
+
+A far more beautiful tree, gracing equally the forest and the way-side,
+is the Ash, charming our sight with the gracefulness of its proportions
+in winter, with its flowing drapery of verdure in summer, and its
+variety of glowing tints in autumn. The Ash has been styled in Europe
+"the painter's tree,"--a fact which is worthy of notice, inasmuch as
+those writers who have theorized concerning the nature of beauty have
+generally regarded trees of broken and irregular shapes, like the
+Hickory, as more picturesque than those of prim and symmetrical habit,
+like the Ash. The practice of the great masters in painting seems
+adverse to this idea, since they have introduced the Ash more frequently
+than other trees into their pictures; and it shows the futility of the
+attempt to draw a distinction between picturesque and beautiful
+trees. All trees, indeed, of every natural shape, may be considered
+picturesque, as, in one situation or another, every species may be
+introduced to heighten the character of a picture or a landscape.
+
+The Ash never fails to attract attention by the peculiar beauty of its
+outlines, the regular subdivision of its branches, its fair proportions
+and equal balance without any disagreeable formality. Nothing can exceed
+the gracefulness of its pinnate foliage, hanging loosely from its
+equally divergent spray, easy of motion, but not fluttering, and always
+harmonizing in its tints with the season of the year. Notwithstanding
+the different character, in regard to symmetry, of the Ash and the
+Hickory, the two trees are often mistaken for each other, and, when the
+latter is evenly formed, it is sometimes difficult at first sight to
+distinguish it. They differ, however, in all cases, in the opposite
+arrangement of the leaves and small branches of the Ash, and their
+alternate arrangement in the Hickory. One of these branches invariably
+becomes abortive, as the tree increases in size, so that their opposite
+character is apparent only in the spray.
+
+In wet places which have never been subjected to the plough, in grounds
+partly inundated a great portion of the year, luxuriating in company
+with the Northern Cypress, over an undergrowth of Dutch Myrtles and
+Button-bushes, we find the singular Tupelo-tree. This tree is the
+opposite of the Ash in all its characteristics. There is no regularity
+in any part of its growth, and no tree in the forest sports in such a
+variety of grotesque and fantastic shapes. Sometimes it spreads out its
+branches horizontally, forming a perfectly flat top, as if it had grown
+under a platform; again it forms an irregular pyramid, most commonly
+leaning from an upright position. It has usually no definable shape,
+often sending out one or two branches greatly beyond the rest, some
+directed obliquely downwards, others twisted and horizontal. This tree,
+if it had no other merit, would be prized for its eccentricities; but it
+is not without beauty. It possesses a fine glossy foliage, unrivalled in
+its verdure, and every branch is fully clothed with it; and, whatever
+may be the age of the tree, it never shows the marks of decrepitude.
+
+The pyramidal trees are included chiefly among the coniferous
+evergreens, embracing the Pine, the Fir, the Spruce, and the Cypress.
+Though many of the deciduous trees assume more or less of this outline,
+it is the normal and characteristic form of the Pines and their kindred
+species. It is a peculiarity of the pyramidal trees, with a few
+exceptions, to remain always disfigured, after the loss of an important
+branch, having no power to fill the vacant space by a new growth. Other
+trees readily fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of a branch, and
+may suffer considerable mutilation without losing their beauty, because
+an invariable proportion is not necessary to render them pleasing
+objects of sight. On account of the symmetry of their forms, the
+pyramidal trees are made ugly by the loss of a limb, as the porch of a
+temple would be ruined by the removal of one of its pillars. Hence we
+may understand the charm of that irregularity that prevails in the forms
+of vegetation. If we remove a branch from an Elm or an Oak, or even from
+an Ash, we destroy no positive symmetry; it is like removing a stone
+from a loose stone wall; we do but slightly modify its disproportions.
+
+The White Pine may be selected as the American representative of the
+pyramidal trees, being the most important as well as the most striking
+in its appearance. It is a Northern tree, not extending so far south as
+the region of the Cypress and Magnolia, and attaining perfection only on
+the northeastern part of the continent. In the New England States, it
+contributes more than any other species to the beauty of our landscapes,
+where it is commonly seen in scattered groups, but not often as a
+solitary standard. We see it in our journeys, projecting over eminences
+that are skirted by old roads, shading the traveller from the sun and
+protecting him from the wind. We have sat under its fragrant shade, in
+our pedestrian tours, when, weary with heat and exercise, we sought its
+gift of coolness, and blessed it as one of the benign deities of the
+forest. We are familiar with it in all pleasant and solitary places; and
+in our afternoon rambles we have listened, underneath its boughs, to the
+plaintive note of the Green Warbler, who selects it for his abode, and
+who has caught a melancholy tone from the winds that from immemorial
+time have tuned to soft music its long sibilant leaves.
+
+The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude
+and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds
+grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to
+the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting
+cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow
+ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts
+nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its
+terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements.
+Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of
+Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast,
+elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate
+Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of
+Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy
+of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm.
+
+Such are its picturesque aspects: but in a figurative light it may be
+regarded as a true symbol of benevolence. Under its outspread roof,
+thousands of otherwise unprotected animals, nestling in the bed of dry
+leaves which it has spread upon the ground, find shelter and repose. The
+squirrel subsists upon the kernels obtained from its cones; the rabbit
+browses upon the Trefoil and the spicy foliage of the Hypericum which
+are protected in its conservatory of shade; and the fawn reposes on its
+brown couch of leaves, unmolested by the outer tempest. From its green
+arbors the quails may be roused in midwinter, when they resort thither
+to find the still sound berries of the Mitchella and the Wintergreen.
+Nature, indeed, seems to have designed this tree to protect the animal
+creation, both in summer and winter, and I am persuaded that she has not
+conferred upon them a more beneficent gift.
+
+As an object of sight, the White Pine is free from some of the defects
+of the Fir and Spruce, having none of their stiffness of foliage and
+inflexibility of spray, that cause them to resemble artificial objects.
+It has the symmetry of the Fir, joined with a certain flowing grace that
+assimilates it to the deciduous trees. With sufficient amplitude to
+conceal a look of primness that often arises from symmetry, we observe a
+certain negligent flowing of its leafy robes that adds to its dignity a
+grace which is apparent to all. It seems to wear its honors like one who
+feels no constraint under their burden; and when smitten by a tempest,
+it bids no defiance to the gale, bending to its wrath, but securely
+resisting its power.
+
+Of the American coniferous trees, the Hemlock is of the next importance,
+being, perhaps, in its perfection, a more beautiful tree than the White
+Pine, or than any other known evergreen. It is far less formal in its
+shape than other trees of the same family. Its branches, being slender
+and flexible, do not project stiffly from the shaft; they bend slightly
+at their terminations, and are easily moved by the wind; and as they are
+very numerous, and covered with foliage, we behold in the tree a dense
+mass of glittering verdure, not to be seen in any other tree of the
+forest.
+
+The Hemlock is unknown as a shade-tree; it is seldom seen by the
+road-side, except on the edge of a wood, and not often in cultivated
+grounds. The want of success usually attending the transplantation of it
+from the woods has prevented the general adoption of it as an ornamental
+tree. The Hemlock, when transplanted from the wood, is almost sure to
+perish; for Nature will not allow it to be desecrated by any association
+with Art. She reserves it for her own demesnes; and if you would possess
+one, you must go to its native spot and plant your garden around it,
+and take heed, lest, by disturbing its roots, you offend the deity
+who protects it. Some noble Hemlocks are occasionally seen in rude
+situations, where the cultivator's art has not interrupted their
+spontaneous growth; and the poet and the naturalist are inspired with a
+more pleasing admiration of their beauty, because they have seen them
+only where the solitary birds sing their wild notes, and where the heart
+is unmolested by the crowding tumult of human settlements.
+
+The Pitch Pine has neither grace nor elegance, and though it is allied
+botanically to the pyramidal trees, it approaches the shape of the
+round-headed trees. There is a singular ruggedness about it; and when
+bristling all over with the stiff foliage that sometimes covers it from
+the extremities of the branches down almost to the roots, it cannot fail
+to attract observation. Trees of this species, for the most part too
+rough and homely to please the eye, are not generally valued as objects
+in the landscape; but there is a variety in their shape that makes
+amends for their want of comeliness, and gives them a marked importance.
+We do not in general sufficiently appreciate the value of homely objects
+among the scenes of Nature,--which are, indeed, the ground-work of all
+charming scenery, and set off to advantage the beauty of more comely
+things. They prepare us, by increasing our susceptibility, to feel more
+keenly the force of beauty in other objects. They give rest and relief
+to the eye, after it has experienced the stimulating effects of
+beautiful forms and colors, which would soon pall upon the sense; and
+they are interesting to the imagination, by leaving it free to dress the
+scene with the wreaths of fancy.
+
+It is from these reflections that I have been led to prize many a homely
+tree as possessing a high value, by exalting the impressions of beauty
+which we derive from other trees, and by relieving Nature of that
+monotony which would attend a scene of unexceptional beauty. This
+monotony is apparent in almost all dressed grounds of considerable
+extent. We soon become entirely weary of the ever-flowing lines of
+grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors
+introduced by art. On the same principle we may explain the difficulty
+of reading with attention a whole volume on one subject, written in
+verse. We are soon weary of luxuries; and when we have been strolling in
+grounds laid out with gaudy flower-beds, the tired eye, when we go out
+into the fields, rests with serene delight upon rough pastures bounded
+by stone walls, and hills clothed with lichens and covered with
+boulders.
+
+The homely Pitch Pine serves this important purpose of relief in the
+landscapes of Nature. Trees of this species are abundant in sandy
+levels, in company with the slender and graceful White Birch, "The Lady
+of the Woods," as the poet Coleridge called it. From these Pines proceed
+those delightful odors which are wafted to our windows by a mild south
+wind, not less perceptible in winter than in summer, and which are in a
+different manner as charming as a beautiful prospect.
+
+The Juniper, or Red Cedar, known in some places as the Savin, is another
+homely tree that gives character to New England scenery. It is one of
+the most frequent accompaniments of the bald hills near certain parts
+of our coast, giving them a peculiar aspect of desolation. This tree
+acquires larger dimensions and a fuller and fairer shape in the Middle
+and Southern States. There the Junipers are beautiful trees, having a
+finer verdure than they ever acquire at the North. But the Juniper, with
+all its imperfections, its rugged form, and its inferior verdure, is not
+to be contemned; and it possesses certain qualities and features which
+ought to be prized hardly less than beauty. Its sombre ferruginous green
+adds variety to our wood-scenery at all times, and by contrast serves to
+make the foliage of other trees the more brilliant and conspicuous.
+In the latter part of summer, when the woods have acquired a general
+uniformity of verdure, the Junipers enliven the face of Nature by
+blending their duller tints with the fading hues of the fully ripened
+foliage. Thus will an assemblage of brown and gray clouds soften and at
+the same time enliven the deep azure of the heavens.
+
+In this sketch, I have omitted to describe many important trees,
+especially those which have but little individuality of character,
+leaving them to be the subject of another essay concerning Trees in
+Assemblages. I have likewise said nothing here of those species which
+are commonly distinguished as flowering trees. But I must not omit,
+while speaking of the pyramidal trees, to say a word concerning the
+Larch, which has some striking points of form and habit. Like the
+Southern Cypress, it differs in its deciduous character from other
+coniferous trees: hence both are distinguished by the brilliancy of
+their verdure in the early part of summer, when the other evergreens are
+particularly sombre; but they are leafless in the winter. The Larch is
+beautifully pyramidal in its shape when young. In the vigor of its years
+it tends to uniformity, and to variety when it is old. Indeed, an aged
+Larch is often as rugged and fantastic as an old Oak. The American and
+European Larches differ only in the longer flowing foliage and the
+larger cones of the latter. Among the minor beauties of both species may
+be mentioned the bright crimson cones that appear in June and resemble
+clusters of fruit. The Larch is a Northern tree, being in its perfection
+in the latitude of Maine. It seems to delight in the coldest situations,
+and, like the Southern Cypress, is found chiefly in low swamps.
+
+There are not many trees that assume the shape of an obelisk, or a long
+spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of
+forms as well as hues, in the objects of her creation, has given us the
+figure of the obelisk in the Chinese Juniper, in the Balsam Fir, in the
+Arbor-Vitæ, and lastly in the Lombardy Poplar, which may be offered to
+exemplify this class of forms. The Lombardy Poplar is interesting to
+thousands who were familiar with it in their youth, as an ornament
+to road-sides and village inclosures. It was formerly a favorite
+shade-tree, and still retains its privileges in many old-fashioned
+places. A century ago great numbers of Poplars were planted on the
+village way-sides, in front of dwelling-houses, on the borders of public
+grounds, and particularly on the sides of lanes and avenues leading to
+houses situated at a short distance from the high-road. Hence a row
+of these trees becomes suggestive at once of the approach to some old
+mansion or country-seat, which has now, perhaps, been converted into a
+farm-house, having exchanged its proud honors of wealth for the more
+simple and delightful appurtenances of rustic independence.
+
+Some of these ancient rows of Poplars are occasionally seen in old
+fields, where almost all traces of the habitation which they were
+intended to grace are obliterated. There is a melancholy pleasure
+in surveying these humble ruins, whose history would illustrate the
+domestic habits of our ancestors. The cellar of the old house is now
+a part of the pasture-land, and its form can be traced by the simple
+swelling of the turf. Sumachs and Cornel-bushes have usurped the
+place of the exotic shrubbery in the old garden; and the only ancient
+companions of the Poplars, now remaining, are here and there a
+straggling Lilac or Currant-bush, a tuft of Houseleek, and perhaps,
+under the shelter of some dilapidated wall, the White Star of Bethlehem
+is seen meekly glowing in the rude society of the wild-flowers.
+
+The Lombardy Poplar, which was formerly a favorite way-side ornament,
+a sort of idol of the public, and, like many another idol, exalted to
+honors that exceeded its merits, fell suddenly into unpopularity and
+disgrace. After having been admired and valued as if its leaves were all
+emeralds and its buds apples of gold, it was spurned and ridiculed and
+everywhere cut down as a cumberer of the ground. The faults attributed
+to it did not belong to the tree, but were the effects of the climate
+into which it had been removed. It was brought from the sunny vales of
+Italy, where it had been delicately reared by the side of the Orange and
+the Myrtle, and transplanted into the cold climate of New England. The
+tender constitution of this tree could not endure our rude winters;
+and every spring witnessed the decay of a large portion of its small
+branches. Hence it became prematurely aged, and in its decline carried
+with it the marks of its infirmities.
+
+But, with all these imperfections, the Lombardy Poplar was more worthy
+of the honors it received from our predecessors than of its present
+disrepute. It is one of the fairest of trees, in the vigor of its health
+and the greenness of its youth. But nearly all the old Poplars are
+extirpated, and but few young trees are coming up to supply their
+places. While I am now writing, I see from my window the graceful spire
+of one solitary tree, towering above the surrounding objects in the
+landscape, and yielding to the view something of an indescribable charm.
+There it stands, the symbol of decayed reputation, in its old age still
+retaining the primness of its youth; neither drooping in its infirmities
+under the weight of their burden, nor losing in its desertedness the
+fine lustre of its foliage; and in its disgrace still bearing itself
+proudly, as if conscious that its former honors were deserved, and
+not forgetting that dignity which becomes one who has fallen without
+dishonor.
+
+There is no other tree that so pleasantly adorns the sides of narrow
+lanes and avenues, or so neatly accommodates itself to limited
+inclosures. Its foliage is dense and of the liveliest green, tremulous,
+and making delicate music to the light fingers of every breeze; its
+terebinthine odors scent the soft vernal wind that enters your open
+windows with the morning sunshine; its branches, always tending upward,
+closely gathered together, and slenderly formed, afford a harbor to the
+singing-birds, who revel among them as a favorite resort; and its long
+tapering spire, that points to heaven, gives an air of cheerfulness and
+religious tranquillity to village scenery.
+
+Of the drooping trees, the Weeping Willow is the most conspicuous
+example, unless we except the American Elm; but a remarkable difference
+may be observed in the drooping character of these two trees. In the Elm
+we perceive a general arching or curvature of all its branches, from
+their points of junction with the tree to their extremities; so that two
+rows of Elms, meeting over an avenue, would represent, more nearly than
+any other trees disposed in the same manner, the vault of a Gothic arch.
+A double row of Weeping Willows would make no such figure by the meeting
+of their branches. The Weeping Willow extends its long arms in lines
+more nearly straight, not originating, as in the Elm, for the most part,
+from one common centre of junction, but joining the shaft of the tree at
+different points;--hence the drooping character of this tree is observed
+only in its long, slender, and terminal spray.
+
+The Weeping Willow is one of the most poetical of trees, being
+consecrated to the Muse by the part which has been assigned it in many
+a scene of romance, and by its connection with events recorded in
+Holy Writ. It is invested with a poetical interest by its symbolical
+representation of sorrow in the pendulous character of its spray, by
+its fanciful uses as a garland for disappointed lovers, and by the
+employment of it in burying-grounds, and in pictures as drooping over
+graves. We remember it in sacred history by its association with the
+rivers of Babylon, with the tears of the Children of Israel, and with
+the forsaken harps of their sorrowing minstrels, who hung them upon its
+branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines,
+its light-green delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its gently
+waving spray, all in sweet accordance with its picturesque, poetic, and
+Scriptural associations.
+
+Hence the Weeping Willow never fails to give pleasure to the sight even
+of the most insensible observer. There are not many whose minds are so
+obtuse as to be blind to its peculiarly graceful attitude and motions,
+and every one is familiar with its history, as recorded in poetry and
+romance, all the incidents of which have served to elevate it above any
+association with fashion or vulgarity. When we see it waving its long
+branches neatly over some private inclosure, overshadowing the gravelled
+walk and the flower-garden,--or watching pensively over the graves of
+the dead, where the light hues of its foliage help to soften the glowing
+fancies which are apt to arise from our meditations among the tombs,--or
+on some wide common, giving solace to the passing traveller, and
+inviting the playful children to its shade,--or trailing its sweeping
+spray, like the tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery pond or gently
+flowing stream,--it is in all cases a delightful object, always
+picturesque, always soothing, inspiring, and sacred to memory, and
+serving, by its alliance with what is hallowed in literature, to bind us
+more closely to Nature.
+
+Above all the trees of the New World, the Elm deserves to be considered
+the sovereign tree of New England. It is abundant both in field and
+forest, and forms the most remarkable feature in our cleared and
+cultivated grounds. Though the Elm is found in almost all parts of the
+country, in no other is it so conspicuous as in the Northeastern States,
+where, from the earliest settlement of the country, it has been planted
+as a shade-tree, and has been valued as an ornament above the proudest
+importations from a foreign clime. It is the most remarkable of the
+drooping trees except the Willow, which it surpasses in stateliness and
+in the variety of its growth.
+
+When I look upon a noble Elm,--though I feel no disposition to contemn
+the studies of those who examine its flowers and fruit with the
+scrutinizing eye of science, or the calculations of those who consider
+only its practical use--it is to me an object of pleasing veneration. I
+look upon it as the embodiment of some benign intention of Providence,
+who has adapted it in numerous ways to the wants of his creatures. While
+admiring its grace and its majesty, I think of the great amount of human
+happiness and of comfort to the inferior animals of which it has been
+the blessed instrument. How many a happy assemblage of children and
+young persons has been, during the past century, repeatedly gathered
+under its shade, in the sultry noons of summer! How many a young
+May-queen has been crowned under its roof, when the greensward was just
+daisied with the early flowers of spring! And how many a weary traveller
+has rested from his journey in its benevolent shade, and from a state of
+weariness and vexation, when o'erspent by heat and length of way, has
+subsided into one of quiet thankfulness and content!
+
+Though the Elm has never been consecrated by the Muse, or dignified
+by making a figure in the paintings of the old masters, the native
+inhabitant of New England associates its varied forms with all that is
+delightful in the scenery of his own land or memorable in its history.
+He has beheld many a noble avenue formed of Elms, when standing in rows
+in the village, or by the rustic road-side. He has seen them extending
+their broad and benevolent arms as a protection over many a spacious old
+farm-house and many an humble cottage, and equally harmonizing with all.
+They meet his sight in the public grounds of the city, with their ample
+shade and flowing spray, inviting him to linger under their pleasant
+umbrage in summer; and in winter he has beheld them among the rude hills
+and mountains, like spectral figures keeping sentry among their passes,
+and, on the waking of the year, suddenly transformed into towers of
+luxuriant verdure and beauty. Every year of his life has he seen the
+beautiful Hang-Bird weave his pensile habitation upon the long and
+flexible branches of the Elm, secure from the reach of every living
+creature. From its vast dome of interwoven branches and foliage he has
+listened to the songs of the earliest and the latest birds; and under
+its shelter he has witnessed many a merry-making assemblage of children,
+employed in the sportive games of summer.
+
+To a native of New England, therefore, the Elm has a value more nearly
+approaching that of sacredness than any other tree. Setting aside the
+pleasure derived from it as an object of visual beauty, it is intimately
+associated with the familiar scenes of home and the events of his
+early life. In my own mind it is pleasingly allied with those old
+dwelling-houses which were built in the early part of the last century,
+and form one of the marked features of New England home architecture
+during that period. They are known by their broad and ample, but
+low-studded rooms, their numerous windows with small panes, their single
+chimney in the centre of the roof that sloped down to the lower story in
+the back part, and in their general unpretending appearance, reminding
+one vividly of that simplicity of life which characterized our people
+before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is delightful, by leaving
+the imagination free to dwell upon their pleasing suggestions. Not many
+of these charming old houses are now extant: but whenever we see one,
+we are almost sure to find it accompanied by its Elm, standing upon the
+green open space that slopes up to it in front, and waving its long
+branches in melancholy grandeur over the venerable habitation which it
+seems to have taken under its protection, while it droops with sorrow
+over the infirmities of its old companion of a century.
+
+The Elm is remarkable for the variety of forms which it assumes in
+different situations. Often it has a drooping spray only when it has
+attained a large size; but it almost invariably becomes subdivided
+into several equal branches, diverging from a common centre, at a
+considerable elevation from the ground. One of these forms is that of a
+vase: the base being represented by the roots of the tree that project
+above the soil and join the trunk,--the middle by the lower part of
+the principal branches, as they swell out with a graceful curve, then
+gradually diverge, until they bend downward and form the lip of the
+vase, by their circle of terminal branches. Another of its forms is that
+of a vast dome, as represented by those trees that send up a single
+shaft to the height of twenty feet or more, and then extend their
+branches at a wide divergency and to a great length. The Elms which are
+remarkable for their drooping character are usually of this shape.
+At other times the Elm assumes the shape of a plume, presenting a
+singularly fantastical appearance. It rises upwards, with an undivided
+shaft, to the height of fifty feet or more, without a limb, and bending
+over with a gradual curve from about the middle of its height to its
+summit, which is sometimes divided into two or three terminal branches.
+The whole is covered from its roots to its summit with a fringe
+of vine-like twigs, extremely slender, twisted and irregular, and
+resembling a parasitic growth. Sometimes it is subdivided at the usual
+height into three or four long branches, which are wreathed In the same
+manner, and form a compound plume.
+
+These fantastic forms are very beautiful, and do not impress one with
+the idea of monstrosity, as we are affected by the sight of a Weeping
+Ash. Though the Elm has many defects of foliage, and is destitute of
+those fine autumnal tints which are so remarkable in some other trees,
+it is still almost without a rival in the American forest. It presents a
+variety in its forms not to be seen in any other tree,--possessing the
+dignity of the Oak without its ruggedness, and uniting the grace of the
+slender Birch with the lofty grandeur of the Palm and the majesty of the
+Cedar of Lebanon.
+
+Of the parasol-trees the North furnishes no true examples, which are
+witnessed only in the Palms of the tropics. Not many of our inhabitants
+have seen these trees in their living beauty; but all have become so
+familiar with them, as they are represented in paintings and engravings,
+that they can easily appreciate their effect in the sunny landscapes of
+the South. There they may be seen bending over fields tapestried with
+Passion-Flowers and verdurous with Myrtles and Orange-trees, and
+presenting their long shafts to the tendrils of the Trumpet Honeysuckle
+and the palmate foliage of the Climbing Fern. But the slender Palms,
+when solitary, afford but little shade. It is when they are standing in
+groups, their lofty tops meeting and forming a uniform umbrage, that
+they afford any important protection from the heat of the sun.
+
+In pictures of tropical scenery we see these trees standing on the
+banks of a stream, or in the vicinity of the sea, near some rude hut
+constructed of Bamboo and thatched with the broad leaves of the Fan
+Palm. In some warm countries Nature affords the inhabitants an almost
+gratuitous subsistence from the fruit of the different Palms,--a
+plantation of Dates and Cocoa-nuts supplying the principal wants of the
+owner and his family, during the life of the trees. But the Palm is not
+suggestive of the arts, for the South is not the region of the highest
+civilization. Man's intelligence is greatest in those countries in which
+he is obliged to struggle with difficulties sufficient to require the
+constant exercise of the mind and body to overcome them. Science and Art
+have built their altars in the region of the Oak, and in valleys which
+are annually whitened with snow, where labor invigorates the frame, and
+where man's contention with the difficulties presented by the elements
+sharpens his ingenuity and strengthens all his facilities. Hence, while
+the Oak is the symbol of hospitality and of the arts to which it has
+given its aid, the Palm symbolizes the voluptuousness of a tropical
+clime and the indolence of its inhabitants.
+
+I have said that the North produces no parasol-trees; but it should be
+remarked that all kinds of trees occasionally approximate to this shape,
+when they have grown compactly in a forest. The general shape which they
+assume under these conditions is what I have termed accidental, because
+that shape cannot be natural which a growing body is forced to take
+when cramped in an unnatural or constrained position. Trees when thus
+situated become greatly elongated; their shafts are despoiled of the
+greater part of their lateral branches, and the tree has no expansion
+until it has made its way above the level of the wood. The trees that
+cannot reach this level will in a few years perish; and this is the
+fate of the greater number in the primitive forest. But after they have
+attained this level, they spread out suddenly into a head. Many such
+trees are seen in recent clearings; and when their termination is a
+regular hemisphere of branches and foliage, the tree exhibits a shape
+nearly approaching that of a parasol.
+
+The Elm, under these circumstances, often acquires a very beautiful
+shape. Unlike other trees that send up a single undivided shaft, the
+Elm, when growing in the forest as well as in the open plain, becomes
+subdivided into several slightly divergent branches, running up almost
+perpendicularly until they reach the level of the wood, when they
+suddenly spread themselves out, and the tree exhibits the parasol shape
+more nearly even than the Palm. When one of these forest Elms is left by
+the woodman, and is seen standing alone in the clearing, it presents
+to our sight one of the most graceful and beautiful of all arborescent
+forms.
+
+The rows of Willows, so frequent by the way-side where the road passes
+over a wet meadow, afford the most common examples of the pollard forms.
+Some of these willows, having escaped the periodical trimming of the
+woodcutter, have become noble standards, emulating the Oak in the sturdy
+grandeur of their giant arms extending over the road. Most of them,
+however, from the repeated cropping which they have suffered, exhibit a
+round head of long, slender branches, growing out of the extremity of
+the beheaded trunk.
+
+My remarks thus far relate to trees considered as individual objects;
+but I must not tire the patience of the reader by extending them
+farther, though there are many other relations in which they may be
+treated. In whatever light we regard them, they will be found to deserve
+attention as the fairest ornaments of Nature, and as objects that should
+be held sacred from their importance to our welfare and happiness. The
+more we study them, the more desirous are we of their preservation, and
+the more convinced of the necessity of using some active means to
+effect this purpose. He takes but a narrow view of their importance who
+considers only their value in the economy of animal and vegetable life.
+The painter has always made them a particular branch of his study; and
+the poet understands their advantage in increasing the effect of his
+descriptions, and believes them to be the blessed gifts of Providence to
+render the earth a beautiful abode and sanctify it to our affections.
+The heavenly bodies affect the soul with a deeper sense of creative
+power; but trees, like flowers, serve to draw us more closely to the
+bosom of Nature, by exemplifying the beauties of her handiwork, and the
+wonders of that Wisdom that operates unseen, and becomes, in our search
+for it, a source of perpetual delight.
+
+
+
+
+VICTOR AND JACQUELINE.
+
+[Concluded.]
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+The three days passed away. And every hour's progress was marked as it
+passed over the citizens of Meaux. Leclerc, and the doctrines for which
+he suffered, filled the people's thought; he was their theme of speech.
+Wonder softened into pity; unbelief was goaded by his stripes to
+cruelty; faith became transfigured, while he, followed by the hooting
+crowd, endured the penalty of faith. Some men looked on with awe that
+would become adoring; some with surprise that would take refuge in study
+and conviction. There were tears as well as exultation, solemn joy as
+well as execration, in his train. The mother of Leclerc followed
+him with her undaunted testimony, "Blessed be Jesus Christ and His
+Witnesses!"
+
+By day, in the field, Jacqueline Gabrie thought over the reports she
+heard through the harvesters, of the city's feeling, of its purpose, of
+its judgment; by night she prayed and hoped, with the mother of Leclerc;
+and wondrous was the growth her faith had in those days.
+
+On the evening of the third day, Jacqueline and Elsie walked into Meaux
+together. This was not invariably their habit. Elsie had avoided too
+frequent conversation with her friend of late. She knew their paths were
+separate, and was never so persuaded of the fact as this night, when, of
+her own will, she sought to walk with Jacqueline. The sad face of her
+friend troubled her; it moved her conscience that she did not deeply
+share in her anxiety. When they came from Domrémy, she had relied on
+Jacqueline: there was safety in her counsel,--there was wisdom in it:
+but now, either?
+
+"It made me scream outright, when I saw the play," said she; "but it is
+worse to see your face nowadays,--it is more terrible, Jacqueline."
+
+Jacqueline made no reply to this,--and Elsie regarded the silence as
+sufficient provocation.
+
+"You seem to think I have no feeling," said she. "I am as sorry about
+the poor fellows as you can be. But I cannot look as if I thought the
+day of judgment close at hand, when I don't, Jacqueline."
+
+"Very well, Elsie. I am not complaining of your looks."
+
+"But you are,--or you might as well."
+
+"Let not that trouble you, Elsie. Your face is smooth, at least; and
+your voice does not sound like the voice of one who is in grief.
+Rejoice,--for, as you say, you have a right to yourself, with which I
+am not to interfere. We are old friends,--we came away from Lorraine
+together. Do not forget that. I never will forget it."
+
+"But you are done with me. You say nothing to me. I might as well be
+dead, for all you care."
+
+"Let us not talk of such things in this manner," said Jacqueline,
+mildly. But the dignity of her rebuke was felt, for Elsie said,--
+
+"But I seem to have lost you,--and now we are alone together, I may say
+it. Yes, I have lost you, Jacqueline!"
+
+"This is not the first time we have been alone together in these
+dreadful three days."
+
+"But now I cannot help speaking."
+
+"You could help it before. Why, Elsie? You had not made up your mind.
+But now you have, or you would not speak, and insist on speaking. What
+have you to say, then?"
+
+"Jacqueline! Are you Jacqueline?"
+
+"Am I not?"
+
+"You seem not to be."
+
+"How is it, Elsie?"
+
+"You are silent and stern, and I think you are very unhappy,
+Jacqueline."
+
+"I do not know,--not unhappy, I think. Perhaps I am silent,--I have been
+so busy. But for all it is so dreadful--no! not unhappy, Elsie."
+
+"Thinking of Leclerc all the while?"
+
+"Of him? Oh, no! I have not been thinking of him,--not constantly. Jesus
+Christ will take care of him. His mother is quiet, thinking that. I,
+at least, can be as strong as she. I'm not thinking of the shame and
+cruelty,--but of what that can be worth which is so much to him, that
+he counts this punishment, as they call it, as nothing, as hardly pain,
+certainly not disgrace. The Truth, Elsie!--if I have not as much to say,
+it is because I have been trying to find the Truth."
+
+"But if you have found it, then I hope I never shall,--if it is the
+Truth that makes you so gloomy. I thought it was this business in
+Meaux."
+
+"Gloomy? when it may be I have found, or _shall_ find"--
+
+Here Jacqueline hesitated,--looked at Elsie. Grave enough was that look
+to expel every frivolous feeling from the heart of Elsie,--at least,
+so long as she remained under its influence. It was something to trust
+another as Jacqueline intended now to trust her friend. It was a
+touching sight to see her seeking her old confidence, and appearing
+to rely on it, while she knew how frail the reed was. But this girl,
+frivolous as was her spirit, this girl had come with her from the
+distant native village; their childhood's recollections were the same.
+And Jacqueline determined now to trust her. For in times of blasting
+heat the shadow even of the gourd is not to be despised.
+
+"You know what I have looked for so long, Elsie," she said, "you ought
+to rejoice with me. I need work for that no longer."
+
+"What is that, Jacqueline?"
+
+Even this question, betraying no such apprehension as Jacqueline's words
+seemed to intimate, did not disturb the girl. She was in the mood when,
+notwithstanding her show of dependence, she was really in no such
+necessity. Never was she stronger than now when she put off all show
+of strength. Elsie stood before her in place of the opposing world. To
+Elsie's question she replied as readily as though she anticipated the
+word, and had no expectation of better recollection,--not to speak of
+better apprehension.
+
+"To bring him out of suffering he has never been made to endure, as
+surely as God lives. As if the Almighty judged men so! I shall send back
+no more money to Father La Croix. It is not his prayer, nor my earnings,
+that will have to do with the eternity of John Gabrie.--Do you hear me,
+Elsie?"
+
+"I seem to, Jacqueline."
+
+"Have I any cause for wretched looks, then? I am in sight of better
+fortune than I ever hoped for in this world."
+
+"Then don't look so fearful. It is enough to scare one. You are not a
+girl to choose to be a fright,--unless this dreadful city has changed
+you altogether from what you were. You would frighten the Domrémy
+children with such a face as that; they used not to fear Jacqueline."
+
+"I shall soon be sailing on a smoother sea. As it is, do not speak of my
+looks. That is too foolish."
+
+"But, oh, I feel as if I must hold you,--hold you!--you are leaving
+me!"
+
+"Come on, Elsie!" exclaimed Jacqueline, as though she almost hoped this
+of her dear companion.
+
+"But where?" asked Elsie, not so tenderly.
+
+"Where God leads. I cannot tell."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"You would not think the Truth worth buying at the price of your life?"
+
+"My life?"
+
+"Or such a price as he pays who--has been branded to-day?"
+
+"It was not the truth to your mother,--or to mine. It was not the truth
+to any one we ever knew, till we came here to Meaux."
+
+"It is true to my heart, Elsie. It is true to my conscience. I know that
+I can live for it. And it may be"--
+
+"Hush!--do not! Oh, I wish that I could get you back to Domrémy! What is
+going to come of this? Jacqueline, let us go home. Come, let us start
+to-night. We shall have the moon all night to walk by. There is nothing
+in Meaux for us. Oh, if we had never come away! It would have been
+better for you to work there for--what you wanted,--for what you came
+here to do."
+
+"No, let God's Truth triumph! What am I? Less than that rush! But if His
+breath is upon me, I will be moved by it,--I am not a stone."
+
+Then they walked on in silence. Elsie had used her utmost of persuasion,
+but Jacqueline not her utmost of resistance. Her companion knew this,
+felt her weakness in such a contest, and was silent.
+
+On to town they went together. They walked together through the streets,
+passing constantly knots of people who stood about the corners and among
+the shops, discussing what had taken place that day. They crossed the
+square where the noonday sun had shone on crowds of people, men and
+women, gathered from the four quarters of the town and the neighboring
+country, assembled to witness the branding of a heretic. They entered
+their court-yard together,--ascended the stairway leading to their
+lodging. But they were two,--not one.
+
+Elsie's chief desire had been to get Jacqueline safely into the house
+ere she could find opportunity for expression of what was passing in her
+mind. Her fear was even greater than her curiosity. She had no desire to
+learn, under these present circumstances, the arguments and incidents
+which the knots of men and women were discussing with so much vehemence
+as they passed by. She could guess enough to satisfy her. So she had
+hurried along, betraying more eagerness than was common with her to get
+out of the street. Not often was she so overcome of weariness,--not
+often so annoyed by heat and dust. Jacqueline, without remonstrance,
+followed her. But they were two,--not one.
+
+Once safe in their upper room, Elsie appeared to be, after all, not so
+devoid of interest in what was passing in the street as her hurried
+walk would seem to betoken. She had not quite yet lost her taste for
+excitement and display. For immediately she seated herself by the
+window, and was all eye and ear to what went on outside.
+
+Jacqueline's demonstrations also were quite other than might have been
+anticipated. Each step she took in her chamber gave an indication that
+she had a purpose,--and that she would perform it.
+
+She removed from her dress the dust and stain of toil, arranged her
+hair, made herself clean and decent, to meet the sober gaze of others.
+Then she placed upon the table the remains of their breakfast,--but she
+ate nothing.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+It was nearly dark when Jacqueline said to Elsie,--
+
+"I am now going to see John and his mother. I must see with my own eyes,
+and hear with my own ears. I may be able to help them,--and I know they
+will be able to help me. John's word will be worth hearing,--and I want
+to hear it. He must have learned in these days more than we shall ever
+be able to learn for ourselves. Will you go with me?"
+
+"No," cried Elsie,--as though she feared she might against her will
+be taken into such company. Then, not for her own sake, but for
+Jacqueline's, she added, almost as if she hoped that she might prove
+successful in persuasion, "I remember my father and mother. What they
+taught me I believe. And that I shall live by. I shall never be wiser
+than they were. And I know I never can be happier. They were good and
+honest. Jacqueline, we shall never be as happy again as we were in
+Domrémy, when the pastor blessed us, and we hunted flowers for the
+altar,--never!--never!" And Elsie Méril, overcome by her recollections
+and her presentiments, burst into tears.
+
+"It was the happiness of ignorance," said Jacqueline, after a solemn
+silence full of hurried thought. "No,--I, for one, shall never be as
+happy as I was then. But my joy will be full of peace and bliss. It will
+be full of satisfaction,--very different, but such as belongs to me,
+such as I must not do without. God led us from Domrémy, and with me
+shall He do as seemeth good to Him. We were children then, Elsie; but
+now may we be children no longer!"
+
+"I will be faithful to my mother. Go, Jacqueline,--let me alone."
+
+Elsie said this with so much spirit that Jacqueline answered quickly,
+and yet very kindly,--
+
+"I did not mean to trouble you, dear,--but--no matter now."
+
+No sooner had Jacqueline left the house than Elsie went down to a church
+near by, where she confessed herself to the priest, and received such
+goodly counsel as was calculated to fortify her against Jacqueline in
+the future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jacqueline went to the house of the wool-comber, as of late had been her
+nightly custom,--but not, as heretofore, to lighten the loneliness
+and anxiety of the mother of Leclerc. Already she had said to the old
+woman,--
+
+"I need not work now for my father's redemption. Then I will work for
+you, if your son is disabled. Let us believe that God brought me here
+for this. I am strong. You can lean on me. Try it."
+
+Now she went to make repetition of the promise to Leclerc, if,
+perchance, he had come back to his mother sick and sore and helpless.
+For this reason, when she entered the humble home of the martyr, his
+eyes fell on her, and he saw her as she had been an angel; how serene
+was her countenance; and her courage was manifestly such as no mortal
+fear, no human affliction, could dismay.
+
+Already in that room faithful friends had gathered, to congratulate the
+living man, and to refresh their strength from the abounding richness of
+his.
+
+Martial Mazurier, the noted preacher, was there, and Victor Le Roy;
+besides these, others, unknown by name or presence to Jacqueline.
+
+Among them was the wool-comber,--wounded with many stripes, branded,
+a heretic! But a man still, it appeared,--a living man,--brave as any
+hero, determined as a saint,--ready to proclaim now the love of God, and
+from the couch where he was lying to testify to Jesus and his Truth.
+
+It was a goodly sight to see the tenderness of these men here gathered;
+how they were forgetful of all inequalities of station, such as
+worldlings live by,--meeting on a new ground, and greeting one another
+in a new spirit.
+
+They had come to learn of John. A halo surrounded him; he was
+transfigured; and through that cloud of glory they would fain penetrate.
+Perchance his eyes, as Stephen's, had seen heaven open, when men had
+tried their torments. At least, they had witnessed, when they followed
+the crowd, that his face, in contrast with theirs who tormented, shone,
+as it had been the face of an angel. They had witnessed his testimony
+given in the heroic endurance of physical pain. There was more to be
+learned than the crowd were fit to hear or _could_ hear. Broken strains
+of the Lord's song they heard him singing through the torture. Now they
+had come longing for the full burden of that divinest melody.
+
+Jacqueline entered the room quietly, scarcely observed. She sat down by
+the door, and it chanced to be near the mother of Leclerc, near Victor
+Le Roy.
+
+To their conversation she listened as one who listens for his life,--to
+the reading of the Scripture,--to the singing of the psalm,--that grand
+old version,--
+
+  "Out of the depths I cry to thee,
+  Lord God! Oh, hear my prayer!
+  Incline a gracious ear to me,
+  And bid me not despair.
+  If thou rememberest each misdeed,
+  If each should have its rightful meed,
+  Lord, who shall stand before thee?
+
+  "Lord, through thy love alone we gain
+  The pardon of our sin:
+  The strictest life is but in vain,
+  Our works can nothing win,
+  That man should boast himself of aught,
+  But own in fear thy grace hath wrought
+  What in him seemeth righteous.
+
+  "Wherefore my hope is in the Lord,
+  My works I count but dust;
+  I build not there, but on his word,
+  And in his goodness trust.
+  Up to his care myself I yield;
+  He is my tower, my rook, my shield,
+  And for his help I tarry."
+
+To the praying of the broken voice of John Leclerc she listened. In his
+prayer she joined. To the eloquence of Mazurier, whose utterances she
+laid up in her heart,--to the fervor of Le Roy, which left her eyes not
+dry, her soul not calm, but strong in its commotion, grasping fast the
+eternal truths which he, too, would proclaim, she listened.
+
+She was not only now among them, she was of them,--of them forevermore.
+Though she should never again look on those faces, nor listen to those
+voices, of them, of all they represented, was she forevermore. Their God
+was hers,--their faith was hers; their danger would she share,--their
+work would aid.
+
+Their talk was of the Truth, and of the future of the Truth. Well they
+understood that the spirit roused among the people would not be quieted
+again,--that what of ferocity in the nature of the bigot and the
+powerful had been appeased had but for the moment been satisfied. There
+would be unremitting watch for victims; everywhere the net for the
+unwary and the fearless would be laid. Blood-thirstiness and lust and
+covetousness would make grand their disguises,--broad would their
+phylacteries be made,--shining with sacred gems, their breast-plates.
+
+Of course it was of the great God's honor these men would be jealous.
+This heresy must needs be uprooted, or no knowing where would be the end
+of the wild growth. And, indeed, there was no disputing the fact that
+there was danger in open acceptance of such doctrines as defied the
+authority of priestcraft,--ay, danger to falsehood, and death to
+falsehood!
+
+Fanaticism, cowardice, cruelty, the spirit of persecution, the spirit
+of authority aroused, ignorance and vanity and foolishness would make
+themselves companions, no doubt. Should Truth succumb to these? Should
+Love retreat before the fierce onset of Hate? These brave men said not
+so. And they looked above them and all human aid for succor,--Jacqueline
+with them.
+
+When Mazurier and Victor Le Roy went away, they left Jacqueline with
+the wool-comber's mother, but they did not pass by her without notice.
+Martial lingered for a moment, looking down on the young girl.
+
+"She is one of us," said the old woman.
+
+Then the preacher laid his hand upon her head, and blessed her.
+
+"Continue in prayer, and listen to the testimony of the Holy Ghost,"
+said he. "Then shall you surely come deep into the blessed knowledge and
+the dear love of Jesus Christ."
+
+When he had passed on, Victor paused in turn.
+
+"It is good to be here, Jacqueline," said he. '"This is the house of
+God; this is the gate of heaven."
+
+And he also went forth, whither Mazurier had gone.
+
+Then beside the bed of the poor wool-comber women like angels
+ministered, binding up his wounds, and soothing him with voices soft as
+ever spoke to man. And from the peasant whose toil was in harvest-fields
+and vineyards came offers of assistance which the poor can best give the
+poor.
+
+But the wool-comber did not need the hard-earned pence of Jacqueline.
+When she said, "Let me serve you now, as a daughter and a sister, you
+two,"--he made no mistake in regard to her words and offer. But he had
+no need of just such service as she stood prepared to render. In his
+toil he had looked forward to the seasons of adversity,--had provided
+for a dark day's disablement; and he was able now to smile upon his
+mother and on Jacqueline, and to say,--
+
+"I will, indeed, be a brother to you, and my mother will love you as if
+you were her child. But we shall not take the bread from your mouth to
+prove it. Our daughter and our sister in the Lord, we thank you and love
+you, Jacqueline. I know what you have been doing since I went away.
+The Lord love you, Jacqueline! You will no longer be a stranger and
+friendless in Meaux, while John Leclerc and his mother are alive,--nay,
+as long as a true man or woman lives in Meaux. Fear not."
+
+"I will not fear," said Jacqueline.
+
+And she sat by the side of the mother of Leclerc, and thought of her
+own mother in the heavens, and was tranquil, and prepared, she said to
+herself, to walk, if indeed she must, through the valley of the shadow
+of death, and would still fear no evil.
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+Strengthened and inspired by the scenes of the last three days, Martial
+Mazurier began to preach with an enthusiasm, bravery, and eloquence
+unknown before to his hearers. He threw himself into the work of
+preaching, the new revelation of the ancient eternal Truth, with
+an ardor that defied authority, that scorned danger, and with a
+recklessness that had its own reward.
+
+Victor Le Roy was his ardent admirer, his constant follower, his
+loving friend, his servant. Day by day this youth was studying with
+indefatigable zeal the truths and doctrines adopted by his teacher.
+Enchanted by the wise man's eloquence, already a convert to the faith
+he magnified, he was prepared to follow wherever the preacher led. The
+fascination of danger he felt, and was allured by. Frowning faces had
+for him no terrors. He could defy evil.
+
+Jacqueline and he might be called most friendly students. Often in
+the cool of the day the young man walked out from Meaux along the
+country-roads, and his face was always toward the setting sun, whence
+towards the east Jacqueline at that hour would be coming. The girls were
+living in the region of the vineyards now, and among the vines they
+worked.
+
+It began to be remarked by some of their companions how much Jacqueline
+Gabrie and the young student from the city walked together. But the
+subject of their discourse, as they rested under the trees that fringed
+the river, was not within the range of common speculation; far enough
+removed from the ordinary use to which the peasants put their thought
+was the thinking of Le Roy and Jacqueline.
+
+Often Victor went, carefully and with a student's precision, over the
+grounds of Martial's arguments, for the satisfaction of Jacqueline.
+Much pride as well as joy had he in the service; for he reverenced his
+teacher, and feared nothing so much, in these repetitions, as that this
+listener, this animated, thinking, feeling Jacqueline, should lose
+anything by his transmission of the preacher's arguments and eloquence.
+
+And sometimes, on those special occasions which were now constantly
+occurring, she walked with him to the town, and hearkened for herself in
+the assemblages of those who were now one in the faith.
+
+Elsie looked on and wondered, but did not jest with Jacqueline, as girls
+are wont to jest with one another on such points as seemed involved in
+this friendship between youth and youth, between man and woman.
+
+Towards the conclusion of the girls' appointed labor in the vineyard, a
+week passed in which Victor Le Roy had not once come out from Meaux in
+the direction of the setting sun. He knew the time when the peasants'
+labor in the vineyard would be done; Jacqueline had told him; and with
+wonder, and with trouble, she lived through the days that brought no
+word from him.
+
+At work early and late, Jacqueline had no opportunity of discovering
+what was going on in Meaux. But it chanced, on the last day of the last
+week in the vineyard, tidings reached her: Martial Mazurier had been
+arrested, and would be tried, the rumor said, as John Leclerc had been
+tried; and sentence would be pronounced, doubtless, said conjecture,
+severe in proportion to the influence the man had acquired, to the
+position he held.
+
+Hearing this, oppressed, troubled, yet not doubting, Jacqueline
+determined that she would go to Meaux that evening, and so ascertain the
+truth. She said nothing to Elsie of her purpose. She was careful in all
+things to avoid that which might involve her companion in peril in an
+unknown future; but at nightfall she had made herself ready to set
+out for Meaux, when her purpose was changed in the first steps by the
+appearing of Victor Le Roy.
+
+He had come to Jacqueline,--had but one purpose in his coming; yet it
+was she who must say,--
+
+"Is it true, Victor, that Martial Mazurier is in prison?"
+
+His answer surprised her.
+
+"No, it is not true."
+
+But his countenance did not answer the glad expression of her face with
+an equal smile. His gravity almost communicated itself to her. Yet this
+rebound from her recent dismay surely might demand an opportunity.
+
+"I believe you," said she. "But I was coming to see if it could be true.
+It was hard to believe, and yet it has cost me a great deal to persuade
+myself against belief, Victor."
+
+"It will cost you still more, Jacqueline. Martial Mazurier has
+recanted."
+
+"He has been in prison, then?"
+
+"He has retracted, and is free again,--has denied himself. No more
+glorious words from him, Jacqueline, such as we have heard! He has sold
+himself to the Devil, you see."
+
+"Mazurier?"
+
+"Mazurier has thought raiment better than life. _He_ has believed a
+man's life to consist in the abundance of the things he possesseth,"
+said the youth, bitterly. He continued, looking steadfastly at
+Jacqueline,--"Probably I must give up the Truth also. My uncle is dead:
+must I not secure my possessions?--for I am no longer a poor man; I
+cannot afford to let my life fall into the hands of those wolves."
+
+"Mazurier retracted? I cannot believe it, Victor Le Roy!"
+
+"Believe, then, that yesterday the man was in prison, and to-day he is
+at large. Yes, he says that he can serve Jesus Christ more favorably,
+more successfully, by complying with the will of the bishop and the
+priests. You see the force of his argument. If he should be silenced, or
+imprisoned long, or his life should be cut off, he would then be able
+to preach no more at all in any way. He only does not believe that
+whosoever will save his life, in opposition to the law of the
+everlasting gospel, must lose it."
+
+"Oh, do you remember what he said to John,--what he prayed in that room?
+Oh, Victor, what does it mean?"
+
+"It means what cannot be spoken,--what I dare not say or think."
+
+"Not that we are wrong, mistaken, Victor?"
+
+"No, Jacqueline, never! it can never mean that! Whatever we may do with
+the Truth, we cannot make it false. We may act like cowards, unworthy,
+ungrateful, ignorant; but the Truth will remain, Jacqueline."
+
+"Victor, you could not desert it."
+
+"How can I tell, Jacqueline? The last time I saw Martial Mazurier, he
+would have said nobler and more loving words than I can command. But
+with my own eyes I saw him walking at liberty in streets where liberty
+for him to walk could be bought only at an infamous price."
+
+"Is there such danger for all men who believe with John Leclerc, and
+with--with you, Victor?"
+
+"Yes, there is danger, such danger."
+
+"Then you must go away. You must not stay in Meaux," she said, quickly,
+in a low, determined voice.
+
+"Jacqueline, I must remain in Meaux," he answered, as quickly, with
+flushed face and flashing eyes. The dignity of conscious integrity, and
+the "fear of fear," a beholder who could discern the tokens might have
+perceived in him.
+
+"Oh, then, who can tell? Did he not pray that he might not be led into
+temptation?"
+
+"Yes," Victor replied, more troubled than scornful,--"yes, and allowed
+himself to be led at last."
+
+"But if you should go away"----
+
+"Would not that be flying from danger?" he asked, proudly.
+
+"Nay, might it not be doing with your might what you found to do, that
+you might not be led into temptation?"
+
+"And you are afraid, that, if I stay here, I shall yield to them."
+
+"You say you are not certain, Victor. You repeat Mazurier's words."
+
+"Yet shall I remain. No, I will never run away."
+
+The pride of the young fellow, and the consternation occasioned by the
+recreancy of his superior, his belief in the doctrines he had confessed
+with Mazurier, and the time-serving of the latter, had evidently thrown
+asunder the guards of his peace, and produced a sad state of confusion.
+
+"It were better to run away," said Jacqueline, not pausing to choose the
+word,--"far better than to stay and defy the Devil, and then find that
+you could not resist him, Victor. Oh, if we could go, as Elsie said,
+back to Domrémy,--anywhere away from this cruel Meaux!"
+
+"Have you, then, gained nothing, Jacqueline?"
+
+"Everything. But to lose it,--oh, I cannot afford that!"
+
+"Let us stand together, then. Promise me, Jacqueline," he exclaimed,
+eagerly, as though he felt himself among defences here, with her.
+
+"What shall I promise, Victor?" she asked, with the voice and the look
+of one who is ready for any deed of daring, for any work of love.
+
+"I, too, have preached this word."
+
+Her only comment was, "I know you preached it well."
+
+"What has befallen others may befall me."
+
+"Well."
+
+So strongly, so confidently did she speak this word, that the young man
+went on, manifestly influenced by it, hesitating no more in his speech.
+
+"May befall me," he repeated.
+
+"'Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,'"
+she answered, with lofty voice, repeating the divine word. "What is our
+life, that we should hold it at the expense of his Truth? Mazurier was
+wrong. He can never atone for the wrong he has done."
+
+"I believe it!" exclaimed Victor, with a brightening countenance. The
+clouds of doubt rose from his face and floated away, as we see the mists
+ascending from the heights, when we are so happy as to live in the wild
+hill-country. "You prize Truth more than life. Stand with me in this,
+Jacqueline. Speak of this Truth as it has come to me. You are all that
+I have left. I have lost Mazurier. Jacqueline, you are a woman, but you
+never,--yes! yes! though I dare not say as much of myself, I dare say
+it of you,--you never could have bought your liberty at such a price as
+Martial has paid. I know not how, even with the opportunity, he will
+ever gain the courage to speak of these things again,--those great
+mysteries which are hidden from the eyes of the covetous and worldly and
+unbelieving. Promise, stand with me, Jacqueline, and I will rely on you.
+Forsake me not."
+
+"Victor, has He not said, who can best say it, 'I will never leave you
+nor forsake you'?"
+
+"But, Jacqueline, I love you."
+
+Having said these words, the face of the young man emerged wholly from
+the eclipse of the former shadow.
+
+"What is this?" said the brave peasant from Domrémy, manifestly doubting
+whether she had heard aright; and her clear pure eyes were gazing full
+on Victor Le Roy, actually looking for an explanation of his words.
+
+"I love you, Jacqueline," he repeated. "And I do not involve you in
+danger, oh, my friend! Only let me have it to believe that my life is
+dear to Jacqueline, and I shall not be afraid then to lose it, if that
+testimony be required of me. Shall we not stand side by side, soldiers
+of Christ, stronger in each other than in all the world beside? Shall it
+not be so, Jacqueline? True heart, answer me! And if you will not love
+me, at least say, say you are my friend, you trust me. I will hold your
+safety sacred."
+
+"I am your friend, Victor."
+
+"Say my wife, Jacqueline. I honored you, that you came from Domrémy.
+You are my very dream of Joan,--as brave and as true as beautiful.
+Jacqueline, it is not all for the Truth's sake, but for my love's sake.
+Is not our work one, moreover? Are we not one in heart and purpose,
+Jacqueline? You are alone; let me protect you."
+
+He needed no other answer than he had while his eyes constantly sought
+hers. Her calm look, the dignity and strength of her composure, assured
+him of all he longed to learn,--assured him that their hearts, even as
+their purposes and faith, were one."
+
+"But speak one word," he urged.
+
+The word she spoke was, "I can be true to you, Victor."
+
+Won hardly by a word: too easily, you think? She loved the youth, my
+friends, and she loved the Truth for which he dared not say that he
+could sacrifice himself.
+
+"We are one, then," said Victor Le Roy. "It concerned me above all
+things to prove that, Jacqueline. So you shall have no more to do with
+these harvest-fields and vineyards henceforth, except to eat of the
+fruits, if God will. You have borne all the burden and heat of labor you
+shall ever bear. I can say that, with God's blessing. We shall sit under
+our own vine. Death in one direction has prepared for life in another.
+I inherit what my uncle can make use of no longer. We shall look out
+on our own fields, our harvests; for I think this city will keep us no
+longer than may he needful. We will go away into Picardy, and I will
+show you where our Joan was a prisoner; and we will go back to Domrémy,
+and walk in the places she loved, and pray God to bless us by that
+fountain, and in the grave-yard where your father and mother sleep. Oh,
+Jacqueline, is it not all blessed and all fair?"
+
+She could hardly comprehend all the brightness of this vision which
+Victor Le Roy would fain bring before her. The paths he pointed out to
+her were new and strange; but she could trust him, could believe that
+together they might walk without stumbling.
+
+She had nothing to say of her unfitness, her unworthiness, to occupy the
+place to which he pointed. Not a doubt, not a fear, had she to express.
+He loved her, and that she knew; and she had no thought of depreciating
+his choice, its excellency or its wisdom. Whatever excess of wonder she
+may have felt was not communicated. How know I that _she_ marvelled at
+her lover's choice, though all the world might marvel?
+
+Then remembering Mazurier, and thinking of her strength of faith, and
+her high-heartedness, he was eager that Jacqueline should appoint their
+marriage-day. And more than he, perhaps, supposed was betrayed by this
+haste. He made his words profoundly good. Strong woman that she was, he
+wanted her strength joined to his. He was secretly disquieted, secretly
+afraid to trust himself, since this defection of Martial Mazurier.
+
+What did hinder them? They might be married on Sunday, if she would:
+they might go down together to the estate, which he must immediately
+visit.
+
+Through the hurry of thought, and the agitation of heart, and the rush
+of seeming impossibilities, he brought out at length in triumph her
+consent.
+
+She did consent. It should all be as he wished. And so they parted
+outside that town of Meaux on the fair summer evening.--plighted
+lovers,--hopeful man and woman. For them the evening sky was lovely with
+the day's last light; for them the serene stars of night arose.
+
+So they parted under the open sky: he going forward to the city,
+strengthened and refreshed in faith and holy courage; she, adorned with
+holy hopes which never until now had found place among her visions.
+Neither was she prepared for them; until he brought them to a heart
+which, indeed, could never be dismayed by the approach and claim of
+love.
+
+Love was no strange guest. Fresh and fair as Zephyrus, he came from the
+forest depths, and she welcomed him,--no stranger,--though the breath
+that bore him was all heavenly, and his aspiration was remote from
+earthly sources. Yes, she so imagined.
+
+She went back to the cottage where she and Elsie lodged now, to tell
+Elsie what had happened,--to thankfulness,--to gazing forward Into a
+new world,--to aspiration, expectation, joy, humility,--to wonder, and
+to praise,--to all that my best reader will perceive must be true of
+Jacqueline on this great evening of her life.
+
+
+X.
+
+
+That same night Victor Le Roy was arrested on charge of
+heresy,--arrested and imprisoned. Watchmen were on the look-out when the
+lover walked forward with triumphant steps to Meaux.
+
+"This fellow also was among the wool-comber's disciples," said they; and
+their successful dealing with Mazurier encouraged the authorities to
+hope that soon all this evil would be overcome,--trampled in the dust:
+this impudent insurrection of thought should certainly be stifled; youth
+and age, high station, low, should be taught alike of Rome.
+
+Tidings reached Martial Mazurier next day of what had befallen Victor Le
+Roy, and he went instantly to visit him in prison. It was an interview
+which the tender-hearted officials would have invited, had he not
+forestalled them by inviting himself to the duty. Mazurier had something
+to do in the matter of reconciling his conscience to the part he had
+taken, in his recent opportunity to prove himself equally a hero with
+Leclerc. He had recanted, done evil, in short, that good might come; and
+was not content with having done this thing: how should he be? Now that
+his follower was in the same position, he had but one wish,--that he
+should follow his example. He did not, perhaps, entirely ascertain his
+motive in this; but it is hardly to be supposed that Mazurier was so
+persuaded of the justice of his course that he desired to have it
+imitated by another under the same circumstances.
+
+No! he was forever disgraced in his own eyes, when he remembered the
+valiant John Leclerc; and it was not to be permitted that Victor Le Roy
+should follow the example of the wool-comber in preference to that
+he had given,--that politic, wise, blood-sparing, flesh--loving,
+truth-depreciating, God-defrauding example.
+
+Accordingly he lost no time in seeking Victor in his cell. It was the
+very cell in which he himself had lately been imprisoned. Within those
+narrow walls he had meditated, prayed, and made his choice. There he had
+stood face to face with fate, with God, with Jesus, and had decided--not
+in favor of the flogging, and the branding, and the glorious infamy.
+There, in spite of eloquence and fervor and devotion, in spite of all
+his past vows and his hopes, he had decided to take the place and part
+of a timeserver;--for he feared disgrace and pain, and the hissing
+and scoff and persecution, more than he feared the blasting anger of
+insulted and forsaken Truth.
+
+He found Victor within his cell, his bright face not overcast with
+gloom, his eyes not betraying doubts, neither disappointed, astonished,
+nor in deep dejection. The mood he deemed unfavorable for his special
+word,--poor, deceived, self-deceiving Mazurier!
+
+He was not merely surprised at these indications,--he was at a loss. A
+little trepidation, doubt, suspicion would have better suited him. Alas!
+and was _his_ hour the extremity of another's weakness, not in the
+elevation of another's spiritual strength? Once when he preached the
+Truth as moved by the Holy Ghost, it was not to the prudence or the
+worldly wisdom of his hearers he appealed, but to the higher feelings
+and the noblest powers of men. Then he called on them to praise God by
+their faith in all that added to His glory and dominion. But now his
+eloquence was otherwise directed,--not full of the old fire and
+enthusiasm,--not trustful in God, but dependent on prudence, as though
+all help were in man. He had to draw from his own experience now,
+things new and old,--and was not, by confession of the result of such
+experience, humiliated!
+
+"You are under a mistake," was his argument. "You have not gone deep
+into these matters; you have made acquaintance only with the agitated
+surface of them." And he proceeded to make good all this assertion, it
+was so readily proven! _He_ also had been beguiled,--ah, had he not? He
+had been beguiled by the rude eloquence, the insensibility to pain, the
+pride of opposition, the pride of poverty, the pride of a rude nature,
+exhibited by John Leclerc.
+
+He acknowledged freely, with a fatal candor, that, until he came to
+consider these things in their true light, when shut away from all
+outward influences, until compelled to quiet meditation beyond the reach
+and influence of mere enthusiasm, he had believed with Leclerc, even as
+Victor was believing now. He could have gone on, who might tell to what
+fanatical length? had it not been for that fortunate arrest which made a
+sane man of him!
+
+Leclerc was not quite in the wrong,--not absolutely,--but neither was
+he, as Mazurier had once believed, gloriously in the right. It was
+clearly apparent to him, that Victor Le Roy, having now also like
+opportunity for calm reflection, would come to like conclusions.
+
+With such confident prophecy, Mazurier left the young man. His visit was
+brief and hurried;--no duty that could be waived should call him away
+from his friend at such a time; but he would return; they would speak of
+this again; and he kissed Victor, and blessed him, and went out to bid
+the authorities delay yet before the lad was brought to trial, for he
+was confident, that, if left to reflection, he would come to his senses,
+and choose wisely--between God and Mammon? Mazurier expressed it in
+another way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the street, Elsie Méril heard of Victor's arrest, and she brought the
+news to Jacqueline. They had returned to Meaux, to their old lodging,
+and a day had passed, during which, moment by moment, his arrival was
+anticipated. Elsie went out to buy a gift for Jacqueline, a bit of fine
+apparelling which she had coveted from the moment she knew Jacqueline
+should be a bride. She stole away on her errand without remark, and
+came back with the gift,--but also with that which made it valueless,
+unmentionable, though it was a costly offering, purchased with the wages
+of more than a week's labor in the fields.
+
+It was almost dark when she returned to Jacqueline. Her friend was
+sitting by the window,--waiting,--not for her; and when she went in to
+her, it was silently, with no mention of her errand or her love-gift.
+Quietly she sat down, thankful that the night was falling, waiting for
+its darkness before she should speak words which would make the darkness
+to be felt.
+
+"He does not come," said Jacqueline, at length.
+
+"Did you think it was he, when I came up the stairs?" inquired Elsie,
+tenderly.
+
+"Oh, no! I can tell your step from all the rest."
+
+"His, too, I think."
+
+"Yes, and his, too. My best friends. Strange, if I could not!"
+
+"Oh, I'm glad you said that, Jacqueline!"
+
+"My best friends," repeated Jacqueline,--not merely to please Elsie.
+Love had opened wide her heart,--and Elsie, weak and foolish though
+she might be,--Elsie, her old companion, her playmate, her
+fellow-laborer,--Elsie, who should be to her a sister always, and share
+in her good-fortune,--Elsie had honorable place there.
+
+"Could anything have happened, Jacqueline?" said Elsie, trembling: her
+tremulous voice betrayed it.
+
+"Oh, I think not," was the answer.
+
+"But he is so fearless,--he might have fallen into--into trouble."
+
+"What have you heard, Elsie?"
+
+This question was quietly asked, but it struck to the heart of the
+questioned girl. Jacqueline suspected!--and yet Jacqueline asked so
+calmly! Jacqueline could hear it,--and yet how could this be declared?
+
+Her hesitation quickened what was hardly suspicion into a conviction.
+
+"What have you heard?" Jacqueline again questioned,--not so calmly as
+before; and yet it was quite calmly, even to the alarmed ear of Elsie
+Méril.
+
+"They have arrested Victor, Jacqueline."
+
+"For heresy?"
+
+"I heard it in the street."
+
+Jacqueline arose,--she crossed the chamber,--her hand was on the latch.
+Instantly Elsie stood beside her.
+
+"What will you do? I must go with you, Jacqueline."
+
+"Where will you go?" said Jacqueline.
+
+"With you. Wait,--what is it you will do? Or,--no matter, go on, I will
+follow you,--and take the danger with you."
+
+"Is there danger? For him there is! and there might be for you,--but
+none for me. Stay, Elsie. Where shall I go, in truth?"
+
+Yet she opened the door, and began to descend the stairs even while she
+spoke; and Elsie followed her.
+
+First to the house of the wool-comber. John was not at home,--and his
+mother could tell them nothing, had heard nothing of the arrest of
+Victor. Then to the place which Victor had pointed out to her as the
+home of Mazurier. Mazurier likewise they failed to find. Where, then,
+was the prison of Le Roy's captivity? That no man could tell them; so
+they came home to their lodging at length in the dark night, there to
+wait through endless-seeming hours for morning.
+
+On the Sunday they had chosen for their wedding-day Mazurier brought
+word of Victor to Jacqueline,--was really a messenger, as he announced
+himself, when she opened for him the door of her room in the fourth
+story of the great lodging-house. He had come on that day with a
+message; but it was not in all things--in little beside the love it was
+meant to prove--the message Victor had desired to convey. In want of
+more faithful, more trustworthy messenger, Le Roy sent word by this man
+of his arrest,--and bade Jacqueline pray for him, and come to him, if
+that were possible. He desired, he said, to serve his Master,--and, of
+all things, sought the Truth.
+
+To go to the prisoner, Mazurier assured Jacqueline, was impossible, but
+she might send a message; indeed, he was here to serve his dear friends.
+Ah, poor girl, did she trust the man by whom she sent into a prison
+words like these?--
+
+"Hold fast to the faith that is in you, Victor. Let nothing persuade you
+that you have been mistaken. We asked for light,--it was given us,--let
+us walk in it; and no matter where it leads,--since the light is from
+heaven. Do not think of me,--nor of yourself,--but only of Jesus Christ,
+who said, 'Whosoever would save his life shall lose it.'"
+
+Mazurier took this message. What did he do with it? He tossed it to the
+winds.
+
+A week after, Le Roy was brought to trial,--and recanted; and so
+recanting, was acquitted and set at liberty.
+
+Mazurier supposed that he meant all kindly in the exertion he made to
+save his friend. He would never have ceased from self-reproach, had he
+conveyed the words of Jacqueline to Victor,--for the effect of those
+words he could clearly foresee.
+
+And so far from attempting to bring about an interview between the pair,
+he would have striven to prevent it, had he seen a probability that it
+would be allowed. He set little value on such words as Jacqueline spoke,
+when her conscience and her love rose up against each other. The
+words she had committed to him he could account for by no supposition
+acceptable and reasonable to him. There was something about the girl he
+did not understand; she was no fit guide for a man who had need of clear
+judgment, when such a decision was to be made as the court demanded of
+Le Roy.
+
+Elsie Méril, between hope and fear, was dumb in these days; but her
+presence and her tenderness, though not heroic in action nor wise in
+utterance, had a value of which neither she nor Jacqueline was fully
+aware.
+
+When Jacqueline learned the issue of the trial, and that Victor had
+falsified his faith, her first impulse was to fly, that she might never
+see his face again. For, the instant she heard his choice, her heart
+told her what she had been hoping during these days of suspense. She had
+tried to see Martial Mazurier, but without success, since he conveyed,
+or promised to convey, her message to the prisoner. Of purpose he had
+avoided her. He guessed what strength she would by this time have
+attained, and he was determined to save both to each other, though it
+might be against their will.
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Victor Le Roy's first endeavor, on being liberated, was--of course to
+find Jacqueline? Not so. That was far from his first design. His impulse
+was to avoid the girl he had dared to love. Mazurier had, indeed,
+conveyed to his mind an impression that would have satisfied him, if
+anything of this character could do so. But this was impossible. The
+secret of his disquiet was far too profound for such easy removal.
+
+He had not in himself the witness that he had fulfilled the will of God.
+He was disquieted, humiliated, wretched. He could not think of Leclerc,
+nor upon his protestations, except with shame and remorse,--remorse,
+already. In his heart, in spite of the impression Mazurier had contrived
+to convey, he believed not that Jacqueline would bless him to such
+work as he could henceforth perform, no longer a free man,--no longer
+possessed of liberty of speech and thought.
+
+He had no sooner renounced his liberty than he became persuaded, by an
+overwhelming reasoning, as he had never been convinced before, of
+the pricelessness of that he had sacrificed. When he went from the
+court-room, from the presence of his judges, he was not a free man,
+though the dignitaries called him so. Martial Mazurier walked arm in arm
+with him, but the world was a den of horrors, a blackened and accursed
+world, to the young man who came from prison, free to use his
+freedom--as the priests directed!
+
+He went home from the prison with Mazurier. The world had conquered.
+Love had conquered,--Love, that in the conquest felt itself disgraced.
+He had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old
+pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his
+dungeon had looked so fair!--but now it seemed so worthless! This
+prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,--oh, the
+beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young
+Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir of liberty and
+life!
+
+Yes,--he went home with Mazurier. Where else should he go?
+Congratulations attended him. He was compelled to receive them with a
+countenance not too sombre, and a grace not all thankless, or--or--they
+would say it was of cowardice he had saved his precious body from the
+sentence of the judges, and given his precious LIFE up to the sentence
+of the JUDGE.
+
+Yes,--Martial took him home. There they might talk at leisure of those
+things,--and ask a blessing on the testimony of Jesus, made and kept by
+them!
+
+Victor Le Roy was too proud to complain now. He assented to all the
+preacher's sophistry. He allowed himself to be cheered. But this was
+no such evening as had been spent in the room of the wool-comber, when
+Leclerc's voice, strong, even through his weakness, called on God,
+and blessed and praised Him, and the spirit conquered the flesh
+gloriously,--the old mother of Leclerc sharing his joy, as she had also
+shared his anguish. Here was no Jacqueline to say to Victor, "Thou hast
+done well! 'Glory be to Jesus Christ, and His witnesses!'"
+
+Mazurier thanked God for the deliverance of His servant! He dedicated
+himself and Victor anew to the service of Truth, which they had shrunk
+from defending! And his eloquence and fervor seemed to stamp the words
+with sincerity. He seemed not in the least to suspect or fear himself.
+
+With Victor Le Roy such self-deception, such sophistry, was simply
+impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not of purpose did he meet Jacqueline that night. She had heard that Le
+Roy was at liberty, and alone now she applied at the door of Martial
+Mazurier for admittance, but in vain. The master had signified that his
+evening was not to be interrupted. Therefore she returned, from waiting
+near his door, to the street where she and Elsie lived.
+
+Should her woman's pride have led her to her lofty lodging, and kept her
+there without a sign, till Victor himself came seeking her? She knew
+nothing of such pride,--but much of love; and her love took her back to
+the post where she had waited many an hour since that disastrous arrest:
+she would wait there till morning, if she must,--at least, till one
+should enter, or come forth, who might tell her of Victor Le Roy.
+
+The light in the preacher's study she could see from the door-step in a
+court-yard where she waited. Should Mazurier come with Victor, she would
+let them pass; but if Victor came alone, she had a right to speak.
+
+It was after midnight when the student came down from the preacher's
+study. She heard his voice when the door opened,--by the street-lamp
+saw his face. And she recognized also the voice of Mazurier, who, till
+the last moment of separation, seemed endeavoring to dissuade his friend
+from leaving him that night.
+
+He heard footsteps following him, as he passed along the
+pavement,--observed that they gained on him. And could it be any other
+than Jacqueline who touched his arm, and whispered, "Victor"?
+
+His fast-beating heart told him it was she. He took her hand, and
+drew it within his arm, and looked upon her face,--the face of his
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Now where?" said he. "It is late. It is after midnight. Why are you
+alone in the street?"
+
+"Waiting for you, Victor. I heard you were at liberty, and I supposed
+you were with him. I was safe."
+
+"Yes,--for you fear nothing. That is the only reason. You knew I was
+with the preacher, Jacqueline. Why? Because--because I _am_ with him,
+of course."
+
+"Yes," she said. "I heard it was so, Victor."
+
+"Strange!--strange!--is it not? A prison is a better place to learn the
+truth than the pure air of liberty, it seems," said he, bitterly.
+
+"What is that?" she asked. She seemed not to understand his meaning.
+
+"Nothing. I am acquitted of heresy, you know. It seems, what we talked
+so bravely meant--nothing. Oh, I am safe, now!"
+
+"It was to preach none the less,--to hold the truth none the less. But
+if he lost his life, there was an end of all; or if he lost his
+liberty, it was as bad. But he would keep both, and serve God so," said
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Yes," cried Victor, "precisely what he said. I have said the same, you
+think?"
+
+"If you are quite clear that Leclerc and the rest of us are all wrong,
+Victor."
+
+"Jacqueline!"
+
+"What is it, Victor?"
+
+"'The rest of us,' you say. What would _you_ have done in my place?"
+
+"God knows. I pretend not to know anything more."
+
+"But 'the rest of us,' you said. You think that you at least are with
+Leclerc?"
+
+"That was the truth you taught me, Victor. But--I have not yet been
+tried."
+
+"That is safe to say. What makes you speak so prudently, Jacqueline? Why
+do you not declare, 'Though all men deny Thee, yet will I never deny
+Thee'? Ah, you have not been tried! You are not yet in danger of the
+judgment, Jacqueline!"
+
+"Do not speak so; you frighten me; it is not like you. How can I tell?
+I do not know but in this retirement, in this thought you have been
+compelled to, you have obtained more light than any one can have until
+he comes to just such a place."
+
+"Ah, Jacqueline, why not say to me what you are thinking? Have you lost
+your courage? Say, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.'"
+
+"No,--oh, no! How could I say it, my poor Victor? How do you know?"
+
+"Surely you cannot know, as you say. But from where you stand, that is
+what you are thinking. Jacqueline, confess! If you should speak your
+mind, it would be, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, poor
+coward!' Oh, Jacqueline, Mazurier may deceive himself! I speak not for
+him; but what will you do with your poor Victor, my poor Jacqueline?"
+
+She did not linger in the answer,--she did not sob or tremble,--he was
+by her side.
+
+"Love him to the end. As He, when He loved His own."
+
+"Your own, poor girl? No, no!"
+
+"You gave yourself to me," she answered straightway, with resolute
+firmness clinging to the all she had.
+
+"I was a man then," he answered. "But I will never give a liar and a
+coward to Jacqueline Gabrie. Everything but myself, Jacqueline! Take
+the old words, and the old memory. But for this outcast, him you shall
+forget. My God! thou hast not brought this brave girl from Domrémy, and
+lighted her heart with a coal from Thine altar, that she should turn
+from Thee to me! If you love a liar and a coward, Jacqueline, you cannot
+help yourself,--he will make you one, too. And what I loved you for was
+your truth and purity and courage. I have given you a treasure which was
+greater than I could keep.--Where is it that you live now, Jacqueline? I
+am not yet such a poltroon that I am afraid to conduct you. I think that
+I should have the courage to protect you to-night, if you were in any
+immediate danger. Come, lead the way."
+
+"No," said Jacqueline. "I am not going home. I could not sleep; and
+a roof over my head--any save God's heaven--would suffocate me, I
+believe."
+
+"Go, then, as you will. But where?"
+
+Jacqueline did not answer, but walked quietly on; and so they passed
+beyond the city-borders to the river-bank,--far away into the country,
+through the fields, under the light of stars and of the waning moon.
+
+"If I had been true!" said Victor,--"if I had not listened to him! But
+him I will not blame. For why should I blame him? Am I an idiot? And his
+influence could not have prevailed, had I not so chosen, when I stood
+before my judges and they questioned me. No,--I acquit Mazurier. Perhaps
+what I have denied never appeared to him so glorious as it did once to
+me; and so he was guiltless at least of knowing what it was I did. But I
+knew. And I could not have been deceived for a moment. No,--I think it
+impossible that for a moment I should have been deceived. They would
+have made a notable example of me, Jacqueline. I am rich,--I am a
+student.--Oh, yes! Jesus Christ may die for me, and I accept the
+benefit; but when it comes to suffering for His sake,--you could not
+have expected that of such a poltroon, Jacqueline! We may look for it in
+brave men like Leclerc, whose very living depends on their ability to
+earn their bread,--to earn it by daily sweat; but men who need not
+toil, who have leisure and education,--of course you would not expect
+such testimony to the truth of Jesus from them! Bishop Briconnet
+recants,--and Martial Mazurier; and Victor Le Roy is no braver man, no
+truer man than these!"
+
+With bitter shame and self-scorning he spoke.--Poor Jacqueline had not
+a word to say. She sat beside him. She would help him bear his cross.
+Heavy-laden as he, she awaited the future, saying, in the silence of her
+spirit's dismal solitude, "Oh, teach us! Oh, help us!" But she called
+not on any name; her prayer went out in search of a God whom in that
+hour she knew not. The dark cloud and shadow of Satan that overshadowed
+him was also upon her.
+
+"Mazurier is coming in the morning to take me with him, Jacqueline,"
+said Victor. "We are to make a journey."
+
+"What is it, Victor?" she asked, quietly.
+
+There was nothing left for her but patience,--that she clearly
+saw,--nothing but patience, and quiet enduring of the will of God.
+
+"He is afraid of me,--or of himself,--or of both, I believe. He thinks
+a change of scene would be good for both of us, poor lepers that we
+are."
+
+"I must go with you, Victor Le Roy," said the resolute Jacqueline.
+
+"Wherefore?" asked he.
+
+"Because, when you were strong and happy, that was your desire, Victor;
+and now that you are sick and sorrowing, I will not give you to another:
+no! not to Mazurier, nor to any one that breathes, except myself, to
+whom you belong."
+
+"I must stay here in Meaux, then?"
+
+"That depends upon yourself, Victor."
+
+"We were to have been married. We were going to look after our estate,
+now that the hard summer and the hard years of work are ended."
+
+"Yes, Victor, it was so."
+
+"But I will not wrong you. You were to be the wife of Victor Le Roy.
+You are his widow, Jacqueline. For you do not think that he lives any
+longer?"
+
+"He lives, and he is free! If he has sinned, like Peter even, he weeps
+bitterly."
+
+"Like Peter? Peter denied his Lord. But he did weep, as you
+say,--bitterly. Peter confessed again."
+
+"And none served the Master with truer heart or greater courage
+afterward. Victor, you remember."
+
+"Even so,--oh, Jacqueline!"
+
+"Victor! Victor! it was only Judas who hanged himself."
+
+"Come, Jacqueline!"
+
+She arose and went with him. At dawn they were married. Love did lead
+and save them.
+
+I see two youthful students studying one page. I see two loving spirits
+walking through thick darkness. Along the horizon flicker the promises
+of day. They say, "O Holy Ghost, hast thou forsaken thine own temples?"
+Aloud they cry to God.
+
+I see them wandering among Domrémy woods and meadows,--around the castle
+of Picardy,--talking of Joan. I see them resting by the graves they find
+in two ancient villages. I see them walk in sunny places; they are not
+called to toil; they may gather all the blossoms that delight their
+eyes. Their love grows beyond childhood,--does not die before it comes
+to love's best estate. Happy bride and bridegroom! But I see them as
+through a cloud whose fair hues are transient.
+
+From the meadow-lands and the vineyards and the dark forests of the
+mountains, from study and from rest, I see them move with solemn faces
+and calm steps. Brave lights are in their eyes, and flowers that are
+immortal they carry in their hands. No distillation can exhaust the
+fragrance of those blooms.
+
+What dost thou here, Victor? What dost thou here, Jacqueline?
+
+This is the place of prisons. Here they light again, as they have often
+lighted, torch and fagot;--life must pay the cost! Angry crowds and
+hooting multitudes love this dreary square. Oh, Jacqueline and Victor,
+what is this I behold?
+
+They come together from their prison, hand in hand. "The testimony
+of Jesus!" Stand back, Mazurier! Retire, Briconnet! Here is not your
+place,--this is not your hour! Yet here incendiaries fire the temples
+of the Holy Ghost!
+
+The judges do not now congratulate. Jacqueline waits not now at midnight
+for the coming of Le Roy. Bride and bridegroom, there they stand; they
+face the world to give their testimony.
+
+And a woman's voice, almost I deem the voice of Elsie Méril, echoes the
+mother's cry that followed John Leclerc when he fought the beasts at
+Meaux,--
+
+"Blessed be Jesus Christ, and His witnesses."
+
+So of the Truth were they borne up that day in a blazing chariot to meet
+their Lord in the air, to be forever with their Lord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ON A MAGNOLIA-FLOWER.
+
+
+  Memorial of my former days,
+  Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,
+  And on thy pallid beauty gaze,
+  I feel not far from death!
+
+  So much hath happened! and so much
+  The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!
+  Thy fragrance moves me with a touch
+  As from a hand divine:
+
+  So many dead! so many wed!
+  Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,
+  I pressed a gentle hand and said,
+  A word no more for me!
+
+  Lady, who sendest from the South
+  This frail, pale token of the past,
+  I press the petals to my mouth,
+  And sigh--as 'twere my last.
+
+  Oh, love, we live, but many fell!
+  The world's a wreck, but we survive!--
+  Say, rather, still on earth we dwell,
+  But gray at thirty-five!
+
+
+
+
+SOME NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+In 1849, the discovery by Mr. Payne Collier of a copy of the Works
+of Shakspeare, known as the folio of 1632, with manuscript notes and
+emendations of the same or nearly the same date, created a great and
+general interest in the world of letters.
+
+The marginal notes were said to be in a handwriting not much later
+than the period when the volume came from the press; and Shakspearian
+scholars and students of Shakspeare, and the far more numerous class,
+lovers of Shakspeare, learned and unlearned, received with respectful
+eagerness a version of his text claiming a date so near to the lifetime
+of the master that it was impossible to resist the impression that the
+alterations came to the world with only less weight of authority than if
+they had been undoubtedly his own.
+
+The general satisfaction of the literary world in the treasure-trove was
+but little alloyed by the occasional cautiously expressed doubts of
+some caviller at the authenticity of the newly discovered "curiosity of
+literature"; the daily newspapers made room in their crowded columns for
+extracts from the volume; the weekly journals put forth more elaborate
+articles on its history and contents; and the monthly and quarterly
+reviews bestowed their longer and more careful criticism upon the new
+readings of that text, to elucidate which has been the devout industry
+of some of England's ripest scholars and profoundest thinkers; while
+the actors, not to be behindhand in a study especially concerning their
+vocation, adopted with more enthusiasm than discrimination some of the
+new readings, and showed a laudable acquaintance with the improved
+version, by exchanging undoubtedly the better for the worse, upon the
+authority of Mr. Collier's folio, soon after the publication of which
+I had the ill-fortune to hear a popular actress destroy the effect
+and meaning of one of the most powerful passages in "Macbeth" by
+substituting the new for the old reading of the line,--
+
+  "What beast was it, then,
+  That made you break this enterprise to me?"
+
+The cutting antithesis of "What _beast_" in retort to her husband's
+assertion, "I dare do all that may become a _man_," was tamely rendered
+by the lady, in obedience to Mr. Collier's folio, "What _boast_ was
+it, then,"--a change that any one possessed of poetical or dramatic
+perception would have submitted to upon nothing short of the positive
+demonstration of the author's having so written the passage.
+
+Opinions were, indeed, divided as to the intrinsic merit of the
+emendations or alterations. Some of the new readings were undoubted
+improvements, some were unimportant, and others again were beyond all
+controversy inferior to the established text of the passages; and it
+seemed not a little difficult to reconcile the critical acumen and
+poetical insight of many of the corrections with the feebleness and
+prosaic triviality of others.
+
+Again, it was observed by those conversant with the earlier editions,
+especially with the little read or valued Oxford edition, that a vast
+number of the passages given as emendations in Mr. Collier's folio were
+precisely the same in Hanmer's text. Indeed, it seems not a little
+remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it
+worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the
+better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely
+printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed,
+these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but
+little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir
+Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have
+forestalled the _fiat_ of Mr. Collier's folio in so many instances. On
+the other hand, it may have been judged by others besides a learned
+editor of Shakspeare from whom I once heard the remark, that the fact of
+the so-called new readings being many of them in Rowe and Hanmer, and
+therefore well known to the subsequent editors of Shakspeare, who
+nevertheless did not adopt them, proved that in their opinion they were
+of little value and less authority. But, says Mr. Collier, inasmuch as
+they are in the folio of 1632, which I now give to the world, they are
+of authority paramount to any other suggestion or correction that has
+hitherto been made on the text of Shakspeare.
+
+Thus stood the question in 1853. How stands it in 1860? After a slow,
+but gradual process of growth and extension of doubt and questionings,
+more or less calculated to throw discredit on the authority of the
+marginal notes in the folio,--the volume being subjected to the careful
+and competent examination of certain officers of the library of the
+British Museum,--the result seems to threaten a considerable reduction
+in the supposed value of the authority which the public was called upon
+to esteem so highly.
+
+The ink in which the annotations are made has been subjected to chemical
+analysis, and betrays, under the characters traced in it, others made in
+pencil, which are pronounced by some persons of a more modern date than
+the letters which have been traced over them.
+
+Here at present the matter rests. Much angry debate has ensued between
+the various gentlemen interested in the controversy,--Mr. Collier not
+hesitating to suggest that pencil-marks in imitation of his handwriting
+had been inserted in the volume, and a fly-leaf abstracted from it,
+while in the custody of Messrs. Hamilton and Madden of the British
+Museum; while the replies of these gentlemen would go towards
+establishing that the corrections are forgeries, and insinuating that
+they are forgeries for which Mr. Collier is himself responsible.
+
+While the question of the antiquity and authority of these marginal
+notes remains thus undecided, it may not be amiss to apply to them the
+mere test of common sense in order to determine upon their intrinsic
+value, to the adequate estimate of which all thoughtful readers of
+Shakspeare must be to a certain degree competent.
+
+The curious point, of whose they are, may test the science of
+decipherers of palimpsest manuscripts; the more weighty one, of what
+they are worth, remains, as it was from the first, a matter on which
+every student of Shakspeare may arrive at some conclusion for himself.
+And, indeed, to this ground of judgment Mr. Collier himself appeals, in
+his preface to the "Notes and Emendations," in no less emphatic terms
+than the following:--"As Shakspeare was especially the poet of common
+life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense; and to the
+verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more material
+alterations recommended on the authority before me."
+
+I take "The Tempest," the first play in Mr. Collier's volume of "Notes
+and Emendations," and, while bestowing my principal attention on the
+inherent worth of the several new readings, shall point out where
+they tally exactly with the text of the Oxford edition, because that
+circumstance has excited little attention in the midst of the other
+various elements of interest in the controversy, and also because I have
+it in my power to give from a copy of that edition in my possession some
+passages corrected by John and Charles Kemble, who brought to the study
+of the text considerable knowledge of it and no inconsiderable ability
+for poetical and dramatic criticism.
+
+In the first scene of the first act of "The Tempest" Mr. Collier gives
+the line,--
+
+  "Good Boatswain, have care,"--
+
+adding, "It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is
+_have a care_, and _a_ is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio,
+1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all
+events, that the actor so delivered it."
+
+In the copy of Hanmer in my possession the _a_ is also inserted in the
+margin, upon the authority of one of the eminent actors above mentioned.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+  "The sky. it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
+  But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
+  Dashes the fire out."
+
+The manuscript corrector of the folio, 1632, has substituted _heat_
+for "cheek," which appears to me an alteration of no value whatever.
+Shakspeare was more likely to have written _cheek_ than _heat_; for
+elsewhere he uses the expression, "Heaven's face," "the welkin's face,"
+and, though irregular, the expression is poetical.
+
+At Miranda's exclamation,--
+
+  "A brave vessel,
+  Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
+  Dash'd all to pieces,"--
+
+Mr. Collier does Theobald the justice to observe, that he, as well as
+the corrector of the folio, 1632, adds the necessary letter _s_ to the
+word "creature," making the plural substantive agree with her other
+exclamation of, "Poor souls, they perished!"
+
+Where Mr. Collier, upon the authority of his folio, substitutes
+_pre_vision for "provision" in the lines of Prospero,--
+
+  "The direful spectacle of the wreck . . .
+  I have with such provision in mine art
+  So safely ordered," etc.,--
+
+I do not agree to the value of the change. It is very true that
+_pre_vision means the foresight that his art gave him, but _pro_vision
+implies the exercise of that foresight or _pre_vision; it is therefore
+better, because more comprehensive.
+
+Mr. Collier's folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens's
+reading of the passage,--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
+  A princess; no worse issued,"--
+
+the following:--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan,--thou his only heir
+  And princess no worse issued."
+
+Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the
+passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan,--thou, his only heir
+  A princess--no worse issued."
+
+In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears
+to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading,
+which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely
+perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.
+
+  "He being thus _lorded_,
+  Not only with what my revenue yielded,
+  But what my power might else exact,--like one
+  Who having _unto truth_ by telling of it
+  Made such a sinner of his memory
+  To credit his own lie,--he did believe
+  He was indeed the Duke."
+
+The folio says,--
+
+"He being thus _loaded_."
+
+And to this change I object: the meaning was obvious before; "lorded"
+stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though
+the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word
+_loaded_. But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does
+immense service to the text, in reading
+
+  "Like one
+  Who having _to untruth_ by telling of it
+  Made such a sinner of his memory
+  To credit his own lie,--he did believe
+  He was indeed the Duke."
+
+This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.
+
+Of the passage,--
+
+  "Whereon,
+  A treacherous army levied, one midnight
+  Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
+  The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness
+  The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
+  Me and thy crying self,"--
+
+Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word "purpose," in the fourth
+line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio
+obviates by substituting the word _practice_ in the first line. I think
+this a manifest improvement, though not an important one.
+
+Mr. Collier gives Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to _boat_,
+and "have quit it" to _had quit it_, in the lines,--
+
+  "Where they prepar'd
+  A rotten carcase of a _butt_ not rigg'd,
+  Nor tackle, sail, nor mast,--the very rats
+  Instinctively _have quit it_."
+
+Adding, that in both changes he is supported by the corrector of the
+folio, 1632. Hanmer gives the passage exactly as the latter, and as Rowe
+does.
+
+We now come to the stage-directions in the folio, to which Mr. Collier
+gives, I think, a most exaggerated value. He says, that, where Prospero
+says,--
+
+  "Lend thy hand
+  And pluck my magic garment from me,--so
+  Lie there, my art,"--
+
+the words, "Lay it down," are written over against the passage. Now this
+really seems a very unnecessary direction, inasmuch as the text very
+clearly indicates that Prospero lays down as well as plucks off his
+"magic garment,"--unless we are to suppose Miranda holding it over her
+arm till he resumes it. But still less do I agree with Mr. Collier in
+thinking the direction, "Put on robe again," at the passage beginning,
+"Now I arise," any extraordinary accession to the business, as it is
+technically called, of the scene: for I do not think that his resuming
+his magical robe was in any way necessary to account for the slumber
+which overcomes Miranda, "in spite of her interest in her father's
+story," and which Mr. Collier says the commentators have endeavored to
+account for in various ways; but putting "_because_ of her interest in
+her father's story," instead of "_in spite_ of," I feel none of the
+difficulty which beset the commentators, and which Mr. Collier conjures
+by the stage-direction which makes Prospero resume his magic robe at
+a certain moment in order to put his daughter to sleep. Worthy Dr.
+Johnson, who was not among the puzzled commentators on this occasion,
+suggests, very agreeably to common sense, that "Experience proves that
+any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber." But Mr.
+Collier says, the Doctor gives this very reasonable explanation of
+Miranda's sleep only because he was not acquainted with the folio
+stage-direction about Prospero's coat, and knew no better. Now we are
+acquainted with this important addition to the text, and yet know no
+better than to agree with Doctor Johnson, that Miranda's slumbers were
+perfectly to be accounted for without the coat. Mr. Collier does not
+seem to know that a deeper and heavier desire to sleep follows upon the
+overstrained exercise of excited attention than on the weariness of a
+dull and uninteresting appeal to it.
+
+But let us consider Shakspeare's text, rather than the corrector's
+additions, for a moment. Within reach of the wild wind and spray of
+the tempest, though sheltered from their fury, Miranda had watched the
+sinking ship struggling with the mad elements, and heard when "rose from
+sea to sky the wild farewell." Amazement and pity had thrown her into a
+paroxysm of grief, which is hardly allayed by her father's assurance,
+that "there's no harm done." After this terrible excitement follows the
+solemn exordium to her father's story,--
+
+  "The hour's now come;
+  The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
+  Obey and be attentive."
+
+The effort she calls upon her memory to make to recover the traces
+of her earliest impressions of life,--the strangeness of the events
+unfolded to her,--the duration of the recital itself, which is
+considerable,--and, above all, the poignant personal interest of
+its details, are quite sufficient to account for the sudden utter
+prostration of her overstrained faculties and feelings, and the profound
+sleep that falls on the young girl. Perhaps Shakspeare knew this, though
+his commentators, old and new, seem not to have done so; and without a
+professed faith, such as some of us moderns indulge in, in the mysteries
+of magnetism, perhaps he believed enough in the magnetic force of the
+superior physical as well as mental power of Prospero's nature over
+the nervous, sensitive, irritable female organization of his child to
+account for the "I know thou canst not choose" with which he concludes
+his observation on her drowsiness, and his desire that she will not
+resist it. The magic gown may, indeed, have been powerful,--but hardly
+more so, we think, than the nervous exhaustion which, combined with
+the authoritative will and eyes of her lord and father, bowed down the
+child's drooping eyelids in profoundest sleep.
+
+The strangest of all Mr. Collier's comments upon this passage, however,
+is that where he represents Miranda as, up to a certain point of her
+father's story, remaining "standing eagerly listening by his side." This
+is not only gratuitous, but absolutely contrary to Shakspeare's text,--a
+greater authority, I presume, than even that of the annotated folio.
+Prospero's words to his daughter, when first he begins the recital of
+their sea-sorrow, are,--
+
+  "Sit down!
+  For thou must now know further."
+
+Does Mr. Collier's folio reject this reading of the first line? or does
+he suppose that Miranda remained standing, in spite of her father's
+command? Moreover, when he interrupts his story with the words, "Now I
+arise," he adds, to his daughter, "Sit still," which clearly indicates
+both that she was seated and that she was about to rise (naturally
+enough) when her father did. We say, "Sit _down_," to a person who is
+standing; and, "Sit _still_," to a person seated who is about to rise;
+and in all these minute particulars, the simple text of Shakspeare, if
+attentively followed, gives every necessary indication of his intention
+with regard to the attitudes and movements of the persons on the stage
+in this scene; and the highly commended stage-directions of the folio
+are here, therefore, perfectly superfluous.
+
+The next alteration in the received text is a decided improvement. In
+speaking of the royal fleet dispersed by the tempest, Ariel says,--
+
+  "They all have met again,
+  And are upon the Mediterranean _flote_
+  Bound sadly home for Naples";--
+
+for which Mr. Collier's folio substitutes,--
+
+  "They all have met again,
+  And all upon the Mediterranean _float_,
+  Bound sadly back to Naples."
+
+Mr. Collier notices, that the improvement of giving the lines,
+
+  "Which any print of goodness will not take,"
+
+to Prospero, instead of Miranda, dates as far back as Dryden and
+Davenant's alteration of "The Tempest," from which he says Theobald and
+others copied it.
+
+The corrected folio gives its authority to the lines of the song,--
+
+  "Foot it featly here and there,
+  And, sweet sprites, the burden bear,"--
+
+which stands so in Hanmer, and, indeed is the usually received
+arrangement of the song.
+
+This is the last corrected passage in the first act, in the course of
+which Mr. Collier gives us no fewer than sixteen, altered, emended, and
+commented upon in his folio. Many of the emendations are to be found
+_verbatim_ in the Oxford and subsequent editions, and three only appear
+to us to be of any special value, tried by the standard of common sense,
+to which we agreed, on Mr. Collier's invitation, to refer them.
+
+The line in Prospero's threat to Caliban,--
+
+  "I'll rack thee with old cramps,
+  Fill all thy bones with _aches_, make thee roar,"--
+
+occasioned one of Mr. John Kemble's characteristic differences with the
+public, who objected, perhaps not without reason, to hearing the word
+"aches" pronounced as a dissyllable, although the line imperatively
+demands it; and Shakspeare shows that the word was not unusually so
+pronounced, as he introduces it with the same quantity in the prose
+dialogue of "Much Ado about Nothing," and makes it the vehicle of a pun
+which certainly argues that it was familiar to the public ear as _ache_
+and not _ake_. When Hero asks Beatrice, who complains that she is sick,
+what she is sick for,--a hawk, a hound, or a husband,--Beatrice replies,
+that she is sick for--or of--that which begins them all, an _ache_,--an
+_H_. Indeed, much later than Shakspeare's day the word was so
+pronounced; for Dean Swift, in the "City Shower," has the line,--
+
+  "Old _aches_ throb, your hollow tooth will
+  rage."
+
+The opening of this play is connected with my earliest recollections. In
+looking down the "dark backward and abysm of time," to the period when
+I was but six years old, my memory conjures up a vision of a stately
+drawing-room on the ground-floor of a house, doubtless long since swept
+from the face of the earth by the encroaching tide of new houses
+and streets that has submerged every trace of suburban beauty,
+picturesqueness, or rural privacy in the neighborhood of London,
+converting it all by a hideous process of assimilation into more London,
+till London seems almost more than England can carry.
+
+But in those years, "long enough ago," to which I refer,--somewhere
+between Lea and Blackheath, stood in the midst of well-kept grounds a
+goodly mansion, which held this pleasant room. It was always light and
+cheerful and warm, for the three windows down to the broad gravel-walk
+before it faced south; and though the lawn was darkened just in front of
+them by two magnificent yew-trees, the atmosphere of the room itself,
+in its silent, sunny loftiness, was at once gay and solemn to my small
+imagination and senses,--much as the interior of Saint Peter's of Rome
+has been since to them. Wonderful, large, tall jars of precious old
+china stood in each window, and my nose was just on a level with the
+wide necks, whence issued the mellowest smell of fragrant _pot-pourri_.
+Into this room, with its great crimson curtains and deep crimson carpet,
+in which my feet seemed to me buried, as in woodland moss, I used to be
+brought for recompense of having been "very good," and there I used to
+find a lovely-looking lady, who was to me the fitting divinity of this
+shrine of pleasant awfulness. She bore a sweet Italian diminutive for
+her Christian name, added to one of the noblest old ducal names of
+Venice, which was that of her family.
+
+I have since known that she was attached to the person of, and warmly
+personally attached to, the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick, Princess
+of Wales,--then only unfortunate; so that I can now guess at the drift
+of much sad and passionate talk with indignant lips and tearful eyes, of
+which the meaning was then of course incomprehensible to me, but which I
+can now partly interpret by the subsequent history of that ill-used and
+ill-conducted lady.
+
+The face of my friend with the great Venetian name was like one of
+Giorgione's pictures,--of that soft and mellow colorlessness that
+recalls the poet's line,--
+
+  "E smarrisce 'l bel volto in quel colore
+  Che non è pallidezza, ma candore,"--
+
+or the Englishman's version of the same thought,--
+
+  "Her face,--oh, call it fair, not pale!"
+
+It seemed to me, as I remember it, cream-colored; and her eyes, like
+clear water over brown rocks, where the sun is shining. But though the
+fair visage was like one of the great Venetian master's portraits, her
+voice was purely English, low, distinct, full, and soft,--and in this
+enchanting voice she used to tell me the story of the one large picture
+which adorned the room.
+
+Over and over again, at my importunate beseeching, she told
+it,--sometimes standing before it, while I held her hand and listened
+with upturned face, and eyes rounding with big tears of wonder and pity,
+to a tale which shook my small soul with a sadness and strangeness
+far surpassing the interest of my beloved tragedy, "The Babes in the
+Wood,"--though at this period of my existence it has happened to me to
+interrupt with frantic cries of distress, and utterly refuse to hear,
+the end of that lamentable ballad.
+
+But the picture.--In the midst of a stormy sea, on which night seemed
+fast settling down, a helmless, mastless, sailless bark lay weltering
+giddily, and in it sat a man in the full flower of vigorous manhood.
+His attitude was one of miserable dejection, and, oh, how I did long to
+remove the hand with which his eyes were covered, to see what manner of
+look in them answered to the bitter sorrow which the speechless lips
+expressed! His other hand rested on the fair curls of a girl-baby of
+three years old, who clung to his knee, and, with wide, wondering blue
+eyes and laughing lips, looked up into the half-hidden face of her
+father.--"And that," said the sweet voice at my side, "was the good Duke
+of Milan, Prospero,--and that was his little child, Miranda."
+
+There was something about the face and figure of the Prospero that
+suggested to me those of my father; and this, perhaps, added to the
+poignancy with which the representation of his distress affected my
+childish imagination. But the impression made by the picture, the story,
+and the place where I heard the one and saw the other, is among the most
+vivid that my memory retains. And never, even now, do I turn the magic
+page that holds that marvellous history, without again seeing the lovely
+lady, the picture full of sad dismay, and my own six-year-old self
+listening to that earliest Shakspearian lore that my mind and heart ever
+received. I suppose this is partly the secret of my love for this,
+above all other of the poet's plays;--it was my first possession in the
+kingdom of unbounded delight which he has since bestowed upon me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE GREAT ARM-CHAIR.
+
+
+Shall I not to-day, Estelle, give you the history of this great
+arm-chair, the only historical piece of furniture in our house? The
+heavy oak frame was carved by an imprisoned poet. They took away his
+pen, and in larger lines he carved this chair. Heavily moulded Sphinxes
+form its arms; the strong legs and feet of some wild beast its support;
+the crest, a winged figure with bandaged eyes,--a Fate or Fortune
+we might call it,--that mild look not to be resisted in its gentle
+strength. But blind Fortune could not so master him: his prison made for
+him only a secure room, in which to study, to work out, the mysteries.
+
+The rich covering was wrought long years ago, in some ancient convent,
+by a saintly nun. Holy, pious tears dropped on it as she wrought. She
+pricked out brave bright flowers with her needle, though her own life
+was pale and sad. I cover this sacred work with housewifely care; but it
+makes our rest there more hallowed.
+
+This old chair we call our dreaming-chair,--to borrow a name, our
+Sleepy-Hollow. It is so simple and grand in workmanship, it should be
+the seat of honor in a king's palace; and yet it is in place in our
+small parlor. Perhaps some day I may tell you of the ancient dames and
+knights who once possessed it; but they have long since slept their last
+sleep,--no summer-afternoon's nap, but a sleep so long to last, now
+their long day's work is done.
+
+Not quite finished is the old man's work who this afternoon sat in the
+chair and quietly dreamed back his youth. I saw the hardened, withered
+face soften, as the bright light of childhood played around it; the
+meagre, hard old man forgot for a little the sharp want that pinched
+him; when he waked, he still babbled of green fields.
+
+"Did Robinson Crusoe ever come back to his father and mother?" he says
+to me. "Poor boy! poor boy! I went to sea when I was young. Father and
+mother didn't like it. Came back after a four-years' voyage, and off
+again, soon as the ship had unloaded, on another trip up the Channel:
+took all my money to fit out. Might have had the Custom-House, if there
+had been anybody to speak for me; would have done my work well, and
+maybe had kept it thirty or forty years. Should be glad to creep into a
+hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me. Wish old Uncle Jack was good for
+somethin' besides work, work,--nothin' but hard work! Wish he could talk
+and say somethin'.
+
+"Now that was good, sensible poetry you were reading, wasn't it? Good
+stuff? Couldn't hear a word of it: poor old fellow can't hear much now.
+Wish my father had lived longer; he would have told me things; he used
+to be different to me. I could have been a sight of comfort to him in
+mathematics." (His father died when the son was fifty years old; the
+thirty years he had lived since seemed a long life to the old man.)
+"Mayn't I look at the poetry?"
+
+I found the place for him,--"New England."
+
+"Yes, the farmer takes lots of comfort, walking on the road, foddering
+cattle, cutting wood."
+
+Uncle Jack believes heartily in New England corn, and in the planting
+and hoeing of Indian corn he takes great delight: not to corn-laws, but
+to Indian corn, the talk always drifts.
+
+"I hear you are going to plant a couple of acres of corn, Sir. Glad of
+it. This is an excellent dish of tea, Marm. This bread tastes like my
+mother's bread; baked in a bake-kettle. These mangoes are nice,--such as
+we used to have."
+
+Turning to Aunt Sarah, he says,--
+
+"Did you ever notice a difference in eggs, Marm?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt thinks there is a difference between fresh and stale eggs."
+
+"But I mean, Marm, that some are thin-shelled, some rough, some
+round, some peaked: a hen lays 'em just so all her life. Ever see a
+difference?"
+
+It is an open question.
+
+Then turning to the master of the house,--
+
+"Do you like choc'late, Sir? Well, how you going to fix it when you
+haven't got any milk? Well, you just beat up an egg, and pour on the
+choc'late, boiling hot, stirring all the time, and you won't want any
+milk, Sir. That was what kept me alive aboard the Ranger."
+
+Now comes the story of the Ranger. He was getting in years, he said, and
+wanted a home for his old age; so he built him a boat. He put a little
+open stove in it, because an open fire felt kind o' comfortable to his
+toes. He named it the Ranger; because when he was a little boy he took a
+long walk to the beach with his father, the little Iulus following with
+unequal steps, and they saw a shipwrecked vessel, named the Ranger, and
+he liked the name. He kept that name in his heart many years. When at
+last, by dint of much saving and scraping together, much hoeing of
+Indian corn, the old stocking-foot was at last filled, all the little
+odd bits, poured out and counted up, came to enough to speak to the
+ship-builder. Oh, the model! how the old man's brain worked over that!
+Then the timber,--each was a chosen piece; oak, apple, cherry, pine,
+each tree sent a stick. The home was builded, was launched, was
+christened: The Ranger. Alas, it was an ill-omened name to him! Brave
+and young was he in heart, and loved right well his tossing, rolling
+home; and many a hard gale did he ride out in her alone, old as he was.
+
+Too old was he to be trusted on the treacherous deep; and friends (?)
+advised and counselled, and the home of his old age was sold. (He never
+got the pay!) Now, with restless, wandering feet, he makes long tramps,
+trying to collect old debts. Kind-hearted old man that he is, thinking
+always he is hard on 'em when he gets a promise to pay! A wife has been
+sick; perhaps he had better not ask for it now. His ox has died; maybe
+he had better wait. Fumbling over old papers in his pocket-book,
+muttering something about a pension: he was on the list, but was never
+called out, or somebody took his place.
+
+Poor old Uncle Jack, with his dream of a pension, his dream of an
+office, his dream of a home in a boat! With him "many a dream has gone
+down the stream."
+
+May some friendly hand at last close his eyes to that last long sleep,
+when his turn comes to heave down!
+
+He is always finding Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He
+picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always
+dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats
+me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought
+it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had
+read in the newspaper, he stops suddenly and says, "Believe I won't tell
+you, dear!" "Did you hear the newspipe has broke?" when the Atlantic
+Telegraph Cable parted. He had plans for shoving off the Leviathan when
+it stuck.
+
+Shall I not tell you he brings me a little bunch of eels of his own
+spearing? that you must be careful at table he has enough to eat, he
+takes such small pieces? that he is altogether a sparse man? has rows of
+pins on his sleeve that he picks up?--an old-fashioned man, whose type
+is fast fading out from these "fast," "steep" times. He tells a story of
+a stream of black flies which came so thick and so fast pouring on, he
+looked as long as he darst to. Yet he can tell a good, big story yet,
+and when somebody was talking of turtles of good size, jumped up
+suddenly, "Did you ever see a terrapin, Sir?" and then walked round the
+long dining-table to tell how big he was and how high he stood on his
+feet. "When I was in the West Indies, Sir----Wish I could creep into a
+good English hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me!"
+
+Do you remember, Estelle, the story we read together once, out of the
+"Casket" or "Gem," one of those old annuals, where a certain princess
+was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones,
+once distinguished by their wonderful beauty? Her task was to discover
+each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and
+folly had heaped upon it; in each old, yellow, wrinkled hag to find
+the charm which had once adorned her: as she found the grace, it was
+transferred to her own youthful person. Slowly and patiently she unwound
+those wrapped-up mummies, and disclosed the gems hidden in those
+burial-clothes; and returned to her father's court enriched with all
+those long-buried graces, now revived to their former youthful beauty,
+and with the added charm which wisdom and patience give.
+
+My task is not so difficult,--as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs.
+We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that,
+checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city. We will
+read the story "that youth and observation copied there." Many sit in my
+chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have
+ploughed still deeper furrows.
+
+It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements,--this battle
+to keep the wolf Want outside the door,--the patient, laborious building
+up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of
+toil,--the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun,
+or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands. Is the face too thin and
+hard, the lips compressed? Would you turn away from so much patient
+endurance of a hard lot? Turn again, and read the story the clear eye
+tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the
+thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter
+has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the
+burden of life is lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those
+homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story
+of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor
+who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of
+a faithful life.
+
+Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the
+night,--says, "Other people can't find enough to do; for his part, he
+should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,--all worn out, used up.
+Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country
+round. Well, when you've got that, got the best of him,--likes variety
+too well,--goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship. Now,
+if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that's something. Don't
+believe 'Siah ever does it. So many notions in's head bothers him."
+(Uncle Jack is quite right; 'tis not economical to have notions;
+besides, they are revolutionary, they subvert the order of things.) "Got
+a cunning little heifer used to have some manners. Lost some of our
+lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose
+some lambs at times."--To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by
+Perkins's.
+
+"Had the rheumatism this winter,--guess Jack Frost pinched him."--Ah!
+dear old man, an older than Jack Frost has got hold of your aged limbs!
+Harder pinches old Time gives than any mortal man!
+
+"Used to get a little bird, Harris and me, and roast it, and mother
+would give us a little apple-sauce in a clam-shell, and we would go off
+back the island and eat it. Harris was sent to school up to Perkins's;
+couldn't stay; run away, and _borrowed_ a boat, and came home again;
+afraid of his father, and hid in the barn. Dug a well in the hay,
+and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in
+scooped-out water-melon rinds."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SONG OF FATIMA.
+
+
+  On, sad are they who know not love,
+  But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
+  Drift down a moonless sea, and pass
+  The silver coasts of fairy isles!
+
+  And sadder they whose longing lips
+  Kiss empty air, and never touch
+  The dear warm mouth of those they love,
+  Waiting, wasting, suffering much!
+
+  But clear as amber, sweet as musk,
+  Is life to those whose lives unite:
+  They walk in Allah's smile by day,
+  And nestle in his heart by night!
+
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.
+
+
+There is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so
+little from instinct as History. It seems the great resource of baffled
+ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men
+with pecuniary means and without professional obligations. Sympathy
+with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write
+criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and
+usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of
+fiction: but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not
+remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or
+dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire
+to be occupied eligibly, turn to History as the most available
+vantage-ground, busy themselves with wars and councils that happened
+ages ago,--with kings and soldiers, institutions and adventures,
+politics and dynasties, so far removed from the associations and
+interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition
+could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily
+assumed. It is this objective method and motive that chiefly accounts
+for the numberless inert and the few vital histories. Like any
+intellectual task assumed without special fitness therefor or motive
+thereto,--without a comprehensive grasp of mind that impels to
+historic exploration,--without a patriotic zeal that warms to national
+heroism,--without, especially, a love of some principle, a conviction
+of some truth, an admiration of some national development, irresistibly
+urging the cultivated and ardent mind to seek for the facts, to
+celebrate the persons, to evolve the truth involved in and manifest
+through public events,--the annals recorded are but dry chronology,--a
+monotonous, more or less authentic, perhaps quite respectable, but far
+from a very important or peculiarly interesting work. Thousands of
+such cumber the shelves of libraries and fill the pages of
+catalogues,--dusted once a year, perhaps, to verify a date, to
+authenticate the details of a treaty, or fix the statistics of a war,
+but never read consecutively and with zest, because there was no genuine
+relation between the writer and his book. He undertook the latter in
+the spirit of a mechanical job; industry and learning may be embodied
+therein, but no moral life, no human charm; yet the work is cited with
+respect, the author enrolled with honor;--whereas, had he sought
+in poetry or philosophy, in a novel or a drama, thus to occupy and
+celebrate himself with literature, the failure would have been signal,
+the attempt ignominious. There is, indeed, no safer investment for
+middling literary abilities than History; for, if it fail to yield any
+large harvest of renown, it is comparatively secure from the assaults
+of ridicule, such as make pretension in other spheres of writing
+conspicuous.
+
+Even in what are considered the successful exemplars in this department
+of literature, the errors incident to artificiality, the conventional
+forms of writing, are patent. Only in passages do we recognize that
+beauty or truth, that reality and genuineness, which so often wholly
+pervade a poem, a story, a memoir, or even a disquisition: at some
+point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes
+apparent;--ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere
+manifest themselves. It has been said that the chief element of Hume's
+mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts
+about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to
+his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of
+touching "situations," he displayed his own strength of intellect; but,
+with all this, did not write complete and authentic history. And when
+analyzed, what was the _animus_ of Gibbon's elaborate chronicle? He
+"spent his time, his life, his energy," says a severe, but just critic,
+"in putting a polished gloss on human tumult, a sneering gloss on human
+piety." And who has not felt, in following Macaulay's animated periods
+and thorough exposition and illustration of some event, trait, or
+economy,--in itself of little importance and limited value,--how much
+better it would have been to reserve his brilliant descriptive and keen
+analytical powers for the grand episodes, the prolific crises, and the
+leading characters of history, instead of indiscriminately devoting them
+to a consecutive account of national incidents and persons, both great
+and small, illustrious and insignificant?
+
+A popular British author of our own day, in order to demonstrate the
+law of compensation, as regards the literary vocation, cites its
+inexpensiveness,--arguing, that, whereas the artist must invest capital,
+however small, in colors, marble, canvas, and studio-hire, and the
+professional man occupy a costly locality, the author needs but a quire
+of foolscap and a pen and ink to set up in trade. While there is literal
+truth in this comparison, the fact is not applicable to historical
+writing, except in a very limited degree. The preparation of the most
+successful works in this department, in modern times, has been attended
+with an outlay impossible to the poor scholar. It has involved the
+examination and reproduction of voluminous manuscript authorities,
+distant travel, the purchase of rare books and family papers, and
+sometimes years of busy reference, observation, and study, lucrative
+only in prospect. The same amount of culture and facile vigor of
+composition which less prosperous authors expend on a masterly review
+would suffice to make them famous historians, if blessed with the
+pecuniary means to seek foreign sources of information, or gather about
+them scattered and rare materials wherewith to weave a chronicle of the
+past. Hence, not only has History become the chosen field of writers
+with no special gift for more individually inspired kinds of literature,
+but of the educated sons of fortune. Accordingly, it is curious to
+remark the contrast between the lives of historians and those of
+poets; and in the average circumstances of the former there is some
+justification for the title of an aristocratic guild in letters.
+Compare Cowper's humble home at Olney with Gibbon's elegant library at
+Lausanne,--the social environment of Hallam, Grote, or Macaulay with
+the rustic isolation of Wordsworth, the economies of Shelley, or the
+life-struggle of Jerrold. Of course, there can thence be inferred no
+general rule; and the very differences in temperament between inventive
+and reproductive writers suggest a consequent diversity of habits; but
+the very idea of historical composition, on an extensive scale and as a
+permanent occupation, implies the leisure which competency alone yields,
+the means indispensable for gradual literary achievement, and more or
+less of the luxury and social position which, when education obtains,
+usually attend upon these advantages.
+
+It results from these considerations that there is no sphere of
+literature which is so often the refuge of wealthy scholars, idle men of
+taste, baffled politicians of independent means, ambitious and well-read
+but not specially gifted citizens who have inherited comfortable
+estates. It is so dignified an employment, that it gratifies pride,--so
+possible without trenchant opinions, that it does not alarm the
+conservative,--so thoroughly respectable, safe, and capable of being
+made illustrious, so comparatively easy to the fluent but unoriginal
+mind, and practicable to follow, when methodically carried out, in
+a stated, regular manner, that we can scarcely be astonished at
+the alacrity with which such voluntary tasks are undertaken or the
+steadiness with which they are followed; at the same time, it may be
+because so few are able to command the means and opportunity, that
+historical writing is so highly estimated. As a test of intellectual
+power, a gauge of individual sentiment, an evidence of original genius,
+it is immeasurably inferior to dramatic, philosophical, or any of the
+more personal forms of literature, when inspired by deep convictions,
+original ideas, or creative imagination. It requires more knowledge
+than reflection, more patience than earnestness, more judgment than
+sentiment; and those who have raised it to a vital significance and
+profound beauty and interest have done so by virtue of endowments which,
+otherwise directed, would have placed them high and firm on the roll of
+genius: for it is possible to write history without this transcendent
+gift,--possible to write it respectably without the slightest grandeur
+or grace of mind,--by virtue of command of words, industry, care, and
+good sense. We cannot imagine Shakspeare tracing out his conception
+of Hamlet, or giving language to Lear or Miranda, without a soulful
+experience as far above mere intellectual assiduity as humanity is above
+mechanism; we cannot think of Milton elaborating his sublime epic,
+without, in fancy, taking in the studious years, the Italian nights
+of music, starlight, and high converse, the beautiful youth, the
+self-sacrificing prime, the blind old age, the religious patriotism,
+the pious loyalty, the learning and love, and the isolated meditation,
+cheered by grand symphonies and hoarded wisdom, through and by which,
+concentrated into melodious expression, the life of a noble mind thus
+majestically expressed itself: but we can easily fancy cold and cultured
+Gibbon returning from the Continent, full of classic lore, disgusted
+with his failure in public life, not sympathetic enough to enjoy
+heartily a career either of pleasure or of society, and so, in his
+dreams of scholarship, seizing upon the idea of a long, laborious,
+erudite, and elegant task; and we can also well imagine Hume, with his
+love of speculation, turning gratefully to the records of the past for
+subjects of reflection, analysis, and inference. In these and other
+notable instances, we feel it is more an accident than an inspiration,
+more from circumstances than from innate and absolute endowment and
+impulse, that the historic Muse is wooed.
+
+Within a brief period the grave has closed over one of the most
+irreproachable and assiduous of American writers of History,--whose
+career signally illustrates the blessing of such a resource to
+unoccupied and cultivated leisure, and at the same time the fortuitous
+circumstances which often originate and prolong this kind of literary
+labor. In a letter to a friend abroad, written by Prescott soon after
+he found himself thus congenially occupied, the case is most frankly
+stated. "Ennui crept over me, when I found myself a perfectly idle man,
+with nothing to do, and, what made it worse, with eyes so debilitated
+that I had no power of doing anything with them. However, 'necessity is
+the mother of invention,' and I resolved to turn author in spite of my
+eyes; and it is a great satisfaction to me to think that the volumes I
+have put together for my own amusement should have afforded some to my
+countrymen, and, above all, to my friends."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Letter of W. H. Prescott to Miss Preble, dated Boston,
+February 28, 1845. _Memoir of Harriet Preble_, by Professor R.H. LEE, p.
+285-6.]
+
+This modest and candid estimate of his vocation indicates how much more
+a thing of volition and opportunity, and how much less a work of special
+endowment and intuitive recognition is the literature of History than
+that of Poetry, Psychology, or Philosophy, notwithstanding all these may
+be fused therein. "Whatever may be the use of this sort of composition
+in itself and abstractedly," observes a judicious critic,[B] "it is
+certainly of great use relatively and to literary men. Consider the
+position of a man of that species. He sits beside a library-fire, with
+nice white paper, a good pen, a capital style, every means of saying
+everything, but nothing to say. What, again, if something would happen,
+and then one could describe it? Something has happened, and that
+something is History." To feel fully the difference between a formal,
+mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or
+artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle
+of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact,
+conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of
+which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by
+Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other
+bards and novelists. While the attempt, by intensity of description and
+brilliant generalities, to impart to veritable history the charm we
+accept in the historical romance, has caused many an old-school reader
+to place Macaulay's fascinating volumes, called "The History of
+England," on the same shelf with works of fiction,--Aytoun, Hugh
+Miller, and William Penn's champions have given special meaning to
+this principle or prejudice, whichever it may be, by challenging the
+delightful author to the test of fact.
+
+[Footnote B: Bagehot.]
+
+In statesmen, or those who have excelled in political writing, the
+ambition to write history, the desire to illustrate and record national
+events, is not only a natural, but an auspicious feeling; and so it is
+in educated poets in whom the sentiment of patriotism or the narrative
+art gives scope and glow to such an enterprise. That Fox and Bacon,
+Milton and Swift, Mackintosh, Schiller, and Lamartine, should have
+partially adventured in this field seems but a legitimate result of
+their endowments and experience, however fragmentary or inadequate may
+have been some of the fruits of their historic studies.
+
+When an enlightened and executive or speculative man is an obvious part
+of the history of his own times, his chronicle must have a certain
+significance and value. Raleigh, when he wrote the "History of the
+World" in prison, gave hints by which subsequent and less obsolete
+annalists have wisely profited. The scholar and the patriot coalesced in
+the mind of Camden, prompting him to rescue and conserve the materials
+of English history and note the fading traditions,--a purely antiquarian
+service, which only those can appreciate who seek authentic data of
+the far past. Such as cavil at the legal tone and crude arrangement
+of Clarendon are none the less his debtors for specific memoirs, the
+personal element of history; and while Burnet has been vigorously
+repudiated by standard historians, he continues, and justly, to be a
+prolific authority. It is conceded by all candid explorers, that, as far
+as it goes, the account of England by Rapin is the best. Franklin's
+old friend Ralph was commended and quoted by Fox. As the enterprise of
+historical writers enlarged and their style became elaborate, these and
+such as these lost in popularity what they gained in usefulness. The
+charm of rhetorical elegance and broad generalizations gradually usurped
+the place of simple narrative and detailed statement. In the very design
+of Gibbon there is a certain poetical attraction; his work may aptly
+be described as panoramic, unrolling a vast picture or succession of
+pictures, too vague in outline and too monotonous in color for minute
+impressions, yet, on this account, the more remarkable for general
+effect. What Europe was in the Middle Ages we find more specifically in
+Hallam; the Moors in Spain have been more vividly painted by subsequent
+writers, whose aim was less comprehensive: but how the imperial sway of
+Rome subsided into the Christian era, how a republican episode gleamed
+athwart her waning power in the casual triumph of Rienzi, the
+later emperors, and what occurred in their reign in Jerusalem and
+Constantinople, pass emphatically before us in the stately pages which
+once charmed readers of English as the model of historic eloquence, and
+now excite the admiration of scholars as a monument of erudition and
+elaborate but artificial writing. There was a new attraction in the
+pleasing style of Robertson and the characterization of Hume; the
+winsome language of the one and the transparent diction of the other
+made historical reading not so much a task to cumber the memory as a
+pastime to entertain the mind; in the one chronicle we followed events
+gracefully unfolded, and in the other discussed persons with acuteness;
+yet, when to either was subsequently applied the test of absolute
+accuracy and sound deduction, large allowances were demanded for
+inadequate research on the part of Robertson and partial inferences on
+that of Hume. The theories of the latter indicate why and how, with
+all his intellectual abilities, the sympathies of his readers were
+inevitably limited; in his view of humanity we find the true cause
+of all his deficiencies as an historian: "Human life," he somewhere
+remarks, "is more governed by fortune than by reason, is to be regarded
+more as a dull pastime than a serious occupation, and is more influenced
+by particular humor than by general principles." Yet, in a philosophical
+retrospect of English historians, we can trace a progressive development
+from the purely antiquarian researches of Camden to the personal memoirs
+of Clarendon and Burnet; thence to the comprehensive erudition and
+majestic narrative of Gibbon; onward to the reasoning, lucid record of
+Hume and the fascinating narrative of Robertson;--all of which qualities
+of industry, characterization, broad knowledge, taste, emphasis,
+and reflection blend, culminate, and intensify along the copious,
+rhetorical, and vivid page of Macaulay.
+
+The Italian historians prolong, in style at least, the method of their
+classic predecessors: _"La Storia del Guicciardini è considerata come
+opera classica,"_--we are told by one of the critics of that nation; who
+adds, "His descriptions are always accurate, clear, and expressed with
+eloquence; the causes of events and their consequences are enumerated
+with rare acuteness; and his personages are delineated in their true
+characters, the historian descending into the deepest penetralia of
+their hearts: but the most eminent merit of this History consists in the
+moral and political considerations with which it abounds; it is like
+Tacitus." In like manner, Machiavelli is compared to Thucydides; while
+Varchi's long periods, adulation of the Medici, and municipal details
+are condemned by the same authority: yet one familiar with modern
+literature in this department will, despite this general commendation of
+native critics, be apt to ascribe the conservative charm of the Italian
+historians to their style rather than their method or matter.
+
+It is remarkable how late the French writers won laurels in the field
+of historical composition, and how long France, with all her national
+vanity, has lacked a complete and classical chronicle,--brilliant and
+invaluable fragments whereof abound. According to the most esteemed
+French critics, until this century the nation actually knew nothing
+of its own history; and it is characteristic of their speculative
+and methodical mind and taste, that History became popular and
+philosophical, a novelty and a reform, simultaneously. Guizot, Thierry,
+Sismondi, and others, created a new era in this branch of letters;
+Thiers and Michelet enlarged its sphere and increased its charms; and
+yet, while the graphic simplicity of Froissart, the critical insight and
+ingenious generalizations of Guizot, and the poetical glow and richness
+of Michelet have made the history of France both highly suggestive as
+regards the development of civilization, and picturesque and dramatic as
+a narrative, the greatest allowance for brilliant theorizing, political
+sympathies, and an errant fancy are indispensable in order to attain to
+a clear view of genuine facts and absolute principles. It has been said
+that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these
+dominate in the minds of French philosophical annalists; while the more
+sympathetic class are fond of rhetorical display and fanciful episodes.
+A recent critic, after bestowing merited encomiums on Michelet, gives
+the following instance of his absurd generalizations, which occur in the
+midst of grave historical statements and descriptions: "Wool and flesh
+are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere
+becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a
+victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding
+and a pastoral people,--a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their
+freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: _their greatest man,
+Shakspeare, was originally a butcher_."
+
+Less prominent and more recent names on the roll of historic literature
+are as distinctly associated with special excellences and defects. Thus,
+Grote keeps attention more by the intelligence of his comments than by
+the flow of his narration; he is far more political than picturesque;
+and while he gives a masterly analysis of the Athenian system of
+government, so as to place it in a new light even to the scholar's
+apprehension, he discusses the arts and the literature so inspiring
+to most cultivated minds, when describing Greece, with comparative
+indifference. Those who would examine English annals unbiased by
+Protestant zeal, and realize how the events and characters look to a
+Roman Catholic vision, may gather from Lingard some views which may
+not disadvantageously modify their interpretation of familiar men and
+occurrences. Two English writers have hastily compiled her annals
+during certain epochs; but while they are equally chargeable with
+superficiality, the manner in which the work is done is by no means
+similar. Smollet's continuation of Hume was confessedly a bookseller's
+job: four octavo volumes in only ten times the number of months, even in
+our days of locomotive celerity, would be thought rather a suspicious
+piece of literary handiwork; and besides the indecent haste, so
+incompatible with thoroughness, the misrepresentations of Smollet are
+patent. Goldsmith, as unambitious in research as he was genial in
+expression, made so agreeable a story, that, with all its imperfection,
+his sketch still finds readers; while the rarely quoted work of Henry
+most conveniently enumerates, at the end of each reign, details
+economical and social which identify and illustrate both period and
+progress in Anglo-Saxon civilization. As a copious and consecutive
+record of the salient incidents in modern Continental history,--so
+needful now for reference, and the diverse phases of which are so widely
+chronicled in the memoirs, the journals, the diplomatic correspondence,
+and what may be called the incidental history of the period,--the plan
+of Alison's work might have achieved a triumph of industry and skill,
+valuable as well as interesting to general readers and professional
+writers: but the political opinions, with the partial feelings they
+engender, continually distort the view and influence the estimate of
+this positive yet pleasant historian; while his almost wilful blunders,
+like the errors of Lord Mahon in regard to the American War, have
+been repeatedly demonstrated. Mackintosh philosophized about events,
+measures, and men, better than he described either. Sharon Turner nobly
+illustrates the value of intrepid research and patient collation.
+Mitford represents the aristocratic as Grote the democratic element in
+Grecian history. Tytler wrote of the past in the life of nations with
+the exclusive reliance on written proof that a conveyancer places upon
+title-deeds, and beside the glowing and harmonious pictures of later
+annalists such writing now appears obsolete. Napier describes battles
+scientifically, and Carlyle revolutions melodramatically,--each with
+original power, in their respective methods,--while Miss Strickland
+brings to the record of queenly sorrows and duties a woman's sympathetic
+prepossessions.
+
+Since those quaintly simple and emphatic statements which, under the
+name of Froissart's Chronicles, seem to perpetuate the instinctive
+notion of History, as an honest and earnest, but unadorned and
+unelaborate narrative of military and political facts,--not only has
+there been a continual refinement of style and enlargement of scope and
+art, but a greater complexity and subdivision in the historian's labors.
+Abstract political ideas, purely intellectual phenomena, have found
+their annalists, as well as executive enterprise; events have been
+analyzed, as well as described,--characters discussed, as well as
+pictured,--the elements of society laid bare with as much zeal and
+scrutiny as its development has been traced and delineated. European
+historical students read anew the records of the past by the light
+of philosophy; more subtile divisions than the geographer indicates
+organize the record; events are narrated with reference to a dominant
+idea; governments are chronicled through their ultimate results, and
+not exclusively with regard to their locality; rulers are considered
+in groups; a faith is made the nucleus of an historical development,
+instead of a nation. Thus, we have Ranke's "Popes" and D'Aubigne's
+"Reformation," Hallam's "Middle Ages" and "English Constitution"; De
+Quincey treats of "The Caesars"; Vico demonstrates that History is a
+science with positive laws; Gervinus illustrates it as a development of
+certain inevitably progressive ideas; Niebuhr interprets it by fresh
+tests and ordeals; Dr. Arnold teaches it by an original method; Humboldt
+points out its naturalistic tendencies and origin; Herder and Hegel, De
+Tocqueville and Guizot, the eminent writers on Civilization, on Art, on
+Education, Political Economy, Literature, and Natural History, more
+and more exhibit the facts of humanity and of time under such new
+combinations, by so many parallel truths and principles, that it is
+difficult to conceive that History, as now understood by the educated
+and the reflective, is the same thing once crudely embodied in a ballad
+or mystically conserved by an inscription. To multiply relations is the
+destiny of our age, and to converge all that is discovered through the
+laws of Science upon the records and relics of the past is a process now
+habitual and pervasive.
+
+And yet how little positive satisfaction does the lover of truth, the
+aspirant for what is authentic and significant, find in current and even
+popular histories! Certain general notions of the character of nations
+we, indeed, distinctly and correctly attain: that Chinese civilization
+is stationary, the French instinctively a military race, the Swiss
+mercenary, and adventurous in engineering and religious reform,--that
+modern German literature was as sudden as simultaneous in its
+development,--that Holland redeemed her foundations from the sea,--that
+Italy owes to art, and England to manufactures, her growth and grandeur.
+These and such as these are problems which the history of the respective
+countries, however inadequately told, reveals with authenticity; but
+when we go beyond and below the patent facts of local civilization, to
+the analysis of character, and, through it, of destiny, few and far
+between are the satisfactory records whence we can draw legitimate
+materials for inference and conjecture. The most attractive method
+is apt to be that upon which least reliance can be placed. We seldom
+consult Sir Walter's essays at serious history, while the novels he
+created out of historic material are as familiar as they are endeared;
+but their imaginative charm is in the inverse ratio of their
+authenticity. With every new candidate for public favor in this sphere
+of literature, there arises a "mooted question" whereon the historian
+and his readers are irreconcilably divided. The character of Penn, of
+Marlborough, and of the facts of the Massacre at Glencoe are still
+vehemently discussed, whenever Macaulay's popular History is referred
+to. Froude advances a new and plausible theory of the character of Henry
+VIII.; few of Bancroft's American readers accept his estimate of John
+Jay, Sam Adams, or Dr. Johnson, or of the political character of the
+Virginia Colonists; and Palfrey and Arnold interpret quite diversely
+the influence and career of Roger Williams. Nor are such discrepancies
+surprising, when we remember how the history which transpires now and
+here fails of harmonious report. Every battle, diplomatic arrangement,
+political event, nay, each personal occurrence, which forms the staple
+of to-day's journalism and talk, is regarded from so many different
+points of view, and stated under so many modifying influences, that only
+judicial minds have a prospect of reaching the exact truth. Hence the
+true way to profit by History is eclectic.
+
+Let the erudition of the German, the genial animation of the French,
+the Saxon good sense, the Italian grace be enjoyed, and whatsoever of
+glamour or of inadequacy these charms hide be duly estimated; reflection
+and sympathy will often separate the gold of truth from the alloy of
+prejudice or fantasy. Above all, let this eclectic test be applied
+beyond nominal history,--to the geological data on the ancient
+rock,--the handwriting of the ages upon race, costume, language,--the
+incidental, but genuine history innate in all true literature, vivid
+elements whereof live in passages of Milton's controversial writings, in
+Petrarch's sonnets, De Foe's fictions, our Revolutionary correspondence,
+South's sermons, Swift's diaries, Burke's speeches, French memoirs,
+Walpole's letters, in the poems, plays, and epistles of the past, and
+every fact and person which society and life offer to our cognizance or
+sympathy.
+
+"When we are much attached to our ideas, we endeavor to attach
+everything to them," says Madame de Staël. "The secret of writing well,"
+observes a Scotch professor, "is to write from a full mind." These
+two maxims seem to us to illustrate the whole subject of historical
+composition; an earnest votary thereof will instinctively find material
+in every interest and influence that sways events or moulds character,
+and from the assimilation of all these will educe a vital and harmonious
+picture and philosophy. There is an historical as well as a judicial or
+poetic type of mind; and to such there is no object too trifling, no
+fact too remote, not directly or indirectly to minister to the unwritten
+history which vaguely shapes itself to his intelligence. In his reading
+and travel it is by no means to the ostensible monuments and trophies of
+the past that his observation and inquiry are confined: the Letters of
+Madame de Sévigné give him authentic hints for the social tendencies
+of France and their influence upon politics, as the blood-stains at
+Holyrood identify the place of Rizzio's murder; the "Edinburgh
+Review" reveals the spirit of the Reform movement as clearly as the
+Parliamentary records its letter; the South-Sea House and the Temple are
+as suggestive as Whitehall and the Abbey,--for trade and jurisprudence,
+in the retrospect, are as much a part of the by-gone life and present
+character of a nation, as the fate and the fame of her dead kings; and a
+Spanish ballad is as valuable an illustration as a Madrid state-paper;
+while the life of Harry Vane vindicates the Puritan nature as clearly
+as the letter of a Venetian ambassador exhibits the domestic life of a
+Pope.
+
+The redeeming influence of strong personal sympathy and earnest
+conviction, both in the choice of a subject and the method of its
+treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own.
+The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical
+scholars were at once enlisted by Motley's "Rise and Fall of the Dutch
+Republic." That work differs from and is superior to any American
+historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a
+certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an
+absolute relation between the author's mind and heart and his subject.
+Accordingly his record not only seizes upon the attention, but wins the
+sympathy of the reader, who recognizes a vital and genuine spirit in the
+work, which gives it unity, completeness, and a living style, whereby
+its incidents, characters, and philosophy are unfolded, not only with
+art, but with nature, and so made real, attractive, and significant.
+That we are right in ascribing these merits to the affinity between the
+author and his work is amply evidenced by his own confession in a letter
+called forth by the death of Prescott, in which he says,--
+
+"It seems to me but as yesterday, though it must be now twelve years
+ago, that I was talking with our ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my
+intention of writing a history upon a subject to which I have since that
+time been devoting myself. I had then made already some general studies
+in reference to it, without being in the least aware that Prescott had
+the intention of writing the history of Philip II. Stackpole had heard
+the fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the
+work, although 'Peru' had not yet been published. I felt, naturally,
+much disappointed. I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to myself
+of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before the public,
+with a work not at all similar in plan to 'Philip II.,' but which must,
+of necessity, traverse a portion of the same ground. My first thought
+was, inevitably as it were, only of myself. It seemed to me that I had
+nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to
+renounce authorship. _For I had not first made up my mind to write a
+history, and then cast about to take up a subject. My subject had taken
+up me, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for
+me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of,--even if
+it were destined to fall dead from the press,--and I had no inclination
+or interest to write any other_."
+
+The same inspiration is partially obvious in those portions of every
+history which come home to the writer's experience: as, for instance,
+some of the military episodes in Colletta's "History of Naples," he
+having been a soldier,--and the descriptive phases of Parkman's "History
+of Pontiac," the author having been a Prairie traveller, and familiar
+with the woods and the bivouac. In like manner, it is the idiosyncrasy
+of historians which gives original value to their labors: Botta's
+knowledge of American localities and civilization was meagre, but his
+sympathy with the patriots of the Revolution was strong, and this gave
+warmth and effect to his "Guerra Americana"; Niebuhr was specially
+gifted to develop what has been called the law of investigation, and
+hence he penetrates the Roman life, and lays bare much of its unapparent
+meaning and spirit. So apt and patient are the Germans in research, that
+they have been justly said to "quarry" out the past; while so native are
+rhetoric, theorizing, and fancifulness to the French, that they make
+history, as they do life and government, theatrical and picturesque,
+rather than gravely real and practically suggestive.
+
+A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research
+expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental
+and extraneous. The collation of archives, official correspondence, and
+state-papers is now but the rough basis of research; memoirs are equally
+consulted,--localities minutely examined,--the art and literature of a
+given era analyzed,--the geography, climate, and ethnology of the scene
+made to illustrate the life and polity,--social phases, educational
+facts estimated as not less valuable than statistics of armies and
+judicial enactments. Michelet has some charming rural pictures and
+female portraits in his History of France; Macaulay thinks no custom
+or economy of a reign insignificant in the great historical aggregate.
+Topography, botany, artistic knowledge are not less parts of the
+chronicler's equipment than philology, rhetoric, and philosophy; a
+newspaper is not beneath nor a traveller's gossip beyond his scope;
+architecture reveals somewhat which diplomacy conceals; an inscription
+is not more historical than the average temperature or the staple
+productions. Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever
+accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought
+into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book
+of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill
+yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary
+edicts, or the royal signatures; the popular poem, the social favorite,
+the _cause célèbre_, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau, doctor and lady
+_à la mode_ do, say, and are, then and there, must coalesce with
+the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,--or these last are but
+technical landmarks, instead of human interests.
+
+Even our most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only
+through association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman
+dominion is deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive
+ranges of a theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region
+far distant from the Imperial centre,--as at Nismes or Chester! How
+complete becomes the idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the
+ramparts of a castle, in the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic
+chapel, or amid the obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What
+a distinct and memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or
+Apollo, a Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays
+on the French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts
+recorded in the Travels of Arthur Young. The equivocal action of
+Massena, when he commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in
+the recently published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his
+deficiency of muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's
+"Conquest of Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited
+that country. Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he
+said, "It is a peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance
+of the Seven Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last
+biographer, when he defines it as the "consummation politically and the
+attenuation spiritually of the movement begun in Europe by the Lutheran
+Reformation."
+
+Indeed, so intimate is the connection between private life and public
+events, between political and social phenomena, that the historical mind
+finds material in all literature, and the very attempt to keep to a high
+strain and to bend facts to theory limits the authenticity of professed
+annalists. What Macaulay says of an eminent party-leader is modified to
+those who have studied the character through his memoirs or writings.
+The charming narrative of Robertson, the characterization of Hume, the
+stately periods of Gibbon, fail to win implicit confidence, when the
+scene, the age, or the personages described are known to the reader
+through original authorities. When Bancroft declares a treaty of
+Colonial governors against Indian ravages the germ of democratic
+government, we know that it is his attachment to a theory, and not the
+actual circumstances, which leads to such an inference; for the very
+authority he cites merely indicates a defensive alliance among rulers,
+not a coalition of the ruled. And so when to an account of the Battle
+of Lexington he appends a rhetorical argument connecting that event, so
+meagre and simple in itself and so wonderful in its consequences, with
+the progress of truth and humanity in political science and reformed
+religion, we feel that the reasoning is forced and irrelevant,--more an
+experiment in fine writing than an evolution of absolute truth.
+
+Thus continually is the independent reader of history taught
+eclecticism: he makes allowance for the want of careful research in this
+writer, for the love of effect in that,--for the skepticism of one,
+and the credulity of another,--for enthusiasm here, and fastidiousness
+there,--and especially for the greater or less attachment to certain
+opinions, and the absence or presence of strong convictions and genuine
+sympathies. Hence, to read history aright, we must read human nature as
+well; we must bring the light of philosophy and of faith, the calmness
+of judgment and the insight of love, to the record; collateral
+revelations drawn from our own experience, modified acceptance of both
+statement and inference, superiority to the blandishments of style,
+are as needful for the right interpretation of a chronicle as of a
+scientific problem. Thus history is perpetually rewritten; fresh
+knowledge opens new vistas in the past as well as the future; the
+discovery of to-day may rectify, in important respects, the statement
+which has been unchallenged for centuries; one new truth leavens a
+thousand old formulas; and nothing is more gradual than the elucidation
+of historical events and characters. Even our own brief annals suggest
+how large must be the historian's faith in time: only within a year or
+two has it been possible to demonstrate the justice of Washington's
+estimate of Lee, and how completely the sagacious provision of Schuyler
+secured the capture of Burgoyne. Since the American Revolution, one of
+these men has been as much overrated as the other has failed of
+just appreciation--because the documentary wisdom requisite for an
+enlightened judgment has not until now been patent.[C]
+
+[Footnote C: See Lossing's _Life and Correspondence of General
+Schuyler_, and Professor Moore's paper on Charles Lee.]
+
+With the imposing array of professed histories and historians in view,
+it is curious to revert to the actual sources of our own historic
+ideas,--those which are definite and pervasive. The vast number of
+intelligent readers, who have made no special study of this kind
+of literature, probably derive their most distinct and attractive
+impressions of the past from poetry, travel, and the choicest works of
+the novelist; local association and imaginative sympathy, rather than
+formal chronicles, have enlightened and inspired them in regard to
+Antiquity and the great events and characters of modern Europe. This
+fact alone suggests how inadequate for popular effect have been the
+average labors of historians; and so fixed is the opinion among scholars
+that it is impossible for the annalist to be profound and interesting,
+authentic and animated, at the same time, that a large class of the
+learned repudiate as spurious the renown of Macaulay,--although his
+research and his minuteness cannot be questioned, and only in a few
+instances has his accuracy been successfully impugned. They distrust him
+chiefly because he is agreeable, doubt his correctness for the reason
+that his style fascinates, and deem admiration for him inconsistent with
+their own self-respect, because he is such a favorite as no historian
+ever was before, and his account of a parliament, a coinage, or a feud
+as winsome as a portraiture of a woman. In one of his critical essays,
+Macaulay himself gives a partial explanation of this protest of the
+minority in his own case. "People," he remarks, "are very loath to admit
+that the same man can unite very different kinds of excellence. It is
+soothing to envy to believe that what is splendid cannot be solid and
+what is clear cannot be profound." And it has been most justly said of
+his own method of writing history, "He must make _everything_ clear and
+bright, and bring it into the range of his analysis; his exaggeration
+chiefly applies to individual characters, not to general facts"; and the
+reason given for the decided preference manifested for his vivid record
+is not less true than philosophical,--"We learn so much from him
+_enjoyably_." It is precisely the lack of this pleasurable trait which
+makes the greater part of the annals of the past a dead letter to the
+world, and wins to romance, ballad, epic, fiction, relic, and poetry the
+keen attention which facts coldly "set in a note-book" never enlisted.
+How many of us unconsciously have adopted the portraits of the early
+English kings as Shakspeare drew them! To what a host of living souls is
+the history of Scotland what the author of "Waverley" makes it! Charles
+I. haunts the fancy, not as drawn by Hume, but as painted by Vandyck.
+The institutions of the Middle Ages are realized to every reflective
+tourist through the architecture of Florence more than by the municipal
+details of Hallam. Pyramids, obelisks, mummies have brought home
+Egyptian civilization; the "old masters," that of Europe in the
+fifteenth century; the ruins of the Colosseum, Roman art and barbarism,
+as they never were by Livy or Gibbon. Lady Russell's letters tell us of
+the Civil War in England,--Saint Mark's, at Venice, of Byzantine taste
+and Oriental commerce,--the Escurial and the Alhambra, Versailles, a
+castle on the Rhine, and a "modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac,"
+of their respective eras and their characteristics, social, political,
+religious,--more than the most elaborate register, muster-roll, or
+judicial calendar. For around and within these memorials lingers the
+life of Humanity; they speak to the eye as well as to memory,--to the
+heart as well as the intelligence; they draw us by human associations
+to the otherwise but technical statement; they lure us to repeople
+solitudes and reanimate shadows; and having become intimate with the
+scenes, the effigies, the monuments of the Past, we have, as it were, a
+vantage-ground of actual experience an impulse from personal observation
+and, perhaps, a sympathy born of local inspiration, whereby the phantoms
+of departed ages are once more clothed with flesh, and their sorrows and
+triumphs are renewed in the soul of enlightened contemplation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MY NEIGHBOR, THE PROPHET.
+
+
+The point of commencement for a story is altogether arbitrary. Some
+writers stick to Nature and go back to the Creation; others take a few
+dozen of the grandfatherly old centuries for granted; others seize Time
+by the forelock and bounce into the middle of a narrative; but, as I
+said before, the beginning is a mere matter of taste and convenience.
+I choose to open my tale with the day on which I took possession of my
+newly purchased country-house.
+
+It was a pretty little cottage, wooden, old-fashioned, a story and a
+half high, with a long veranda, a shady door-yard, and a sunny garden. I
+bought it as it was, furniture included, of a gentleman who was about
+to remove southward on account of his wife's health, or, to speak
+more exactly, on account of her want of it. I laugh here to think
+how surprised you will be when you learn that these matters have no
+connection with my story. All the important events which I propose
+to relate might have happened had this gentleman never sold nor I
+purchased; and, as a proof of it, I can adduce the fact that they
+actually did occur some years before we enjoyed the honor of each
+other's acquaintance. But I could not resist the temptation of the
+episode. I am as delighted at getting into my first house as was my
+little son when he poked his chubby legs into his first trousers.
+
+"Who is my nearest neighbor?" I asked of the former proprietor, when he
+made his parting call.
+
+"What, the occupant of the new house just below you? I can tell you very
+little of him. I haven't made his acquaintance, and don't know his name.
+We call him the Mormon."
+
+"Mercy on us! You don't mean to hint at anything in the way of polygamy,
+I hope. He doesn't keep an omnibus with seats for twenty, does he?"
+
+"No, not so bad as that. In fact, I don't know much about him. I thought
+you were aware of his--his style of living," stammered my friend. "Oh,
+I dare say he is respectable enough. But then we noticed three or four
+women about the house, and only one man; and so we clapped the title of
+Mormon on him. Nicknaming is funny work, you know,--a short and easy way
+to be witty. I believe, however, that he does pretend to be a prophet."
+
+"The Pilgrim Fathers protect us! Why, he may attempt to proselytize us
+by force. He may declare a religious war against us. It would be no
+joke, if he should invade us with the sword in one hand, and the Koran,
+or whatever he may call his revelation, in the other."
+
+"Oh, don't be alarmed. He is quite harmless, and even unobtrusive. A
+sad-faced, pale, feeble-looking, white-bearded old man. He won't attack
+you, or probably even speak to you. I will tell you all I know of
+him. The house was built under his direction about six months ago.
+I understand that the women own it, and that they are not relatives
+according to the flesh, but simply sisters in faith. They have some
+queer sort of religion which I am shamefully ignorant of. At all events,
+they believe this old gentleman to be a prophet, and consider it a duty
+or a pleasure to support him. That is the extent of my knowledge. I hope
+it doesn't disgust you with your neighborhood?"
+
+"By no means. May you find as pleasant a one, wherever you settle!"
+
+"Thank you. Well, it is nearly train-time, and I suppose I must leave
+you and my old place. I wish you every happiness in it."
+
+And so the old proprietor sighingly departed, leaving the new one
+smiling on the doorstep. I was just thinking how nicely the world is
+arranged, so that one man's trouble may turn out another man's blessing,
+(the illness in this gentleman's family, for instance, being the cause
+of my getting a neat country-house cheap,) when my attention was
+arrested by the appearance of a thin, feeble-looking, white-bearded old
+man, who passed down the street with head bent and hands joined behind
+him. I stared at him till he got by; then I ran down to the gate and
+looked after him earnestly; and at last I darted forward, hatless, in
+eager pursuit. He heard my approaching steps, and put his snowy beard
+against his right shoulder in the act of taking a glance rearward. I now
+recognized the profile positively, and began conversation.
+
+"Is it possible? My dear Doctor Potter, how are you? Don't you know me?
+Your old friend Elderkin."
+
+"Sir? Elderkin? Oh!--ah!--yes! How do you do, Mr. Elderkin?" he
+stammered, seeming very awkward, and hardly responding at all to my
+vigorous hand-shaking.
+
+"I am delighted to see you again," I continued. "I have had no news of
+you these five years. Do you live in this neighborhood?"
+
+"I--I reside in the next house, Sir," he replied, not looking me in the
+face, but glancing around uneasily, as if he wanted to run away.
+
+"What! are you the prophet?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.
+
+"I am, Mr. Elderkin," he said, blushing until I thought his white hair
+would turn crimson.
+
+We stared at each other in silence for ten seconds, each wishing himself
+or his interlocutor at the antipodes.
+
+"I congratulate you on your gift," I remarked, as soon as I could speak.
+"I will see you again soon, and have a talk on the subject. We have
+discussed similar matters before. Good day, Doctor."
+
+"Good day, Mr. Elderkin," he replied, drawing himself up with a poor
+pretence at self-respect.
+
+He was greatly changed. Heterodoxy had not been so fattening to him as
+Orthodoxy. When I knew him, six years before, as pastor of a flourishing
+church, Doctor of Divinity, and staunch Calvinist, he had a plump and
+rosy face, a portly form, and vigorous carriage. He was a great favorite
+with the ladies, as clergymen are apt to be, and consequently never
+lacked for delicate and appetizing sustenance. He was esteemed,
+self-respectful, and happy; and all these things tend to good health and
+good looks. I propose to make myself famous as the Gibbon of the decline
+and fall of this reverend gentleman, once so honorably established on
+the everlasting hills of Orthodoxy, and now so overthrown and trampled
+under foot by the Alaric of Spiritualism. I do not expect, indeed, that
+anybody will take warning by my friend's sad history; nor do I insist
+that people in general would find it advantageous to learn much wisdom
+from the experience of others; for it is very clear, that, if we
+attempted only what our neighbors or our fathers had succeeded in doing,
+we should kill all chance of variety or improvement. It would be a
+stupidly wise world; there would be no sins, and, very possibly, no
+virtues; instead of "Everything happens," it would be "Nothing happens."
+Believing and hoping, therefore, that Dr. Potter's calamities will not
+be the smallest check upon any person who shall feel disposed to follow
+in his footsteps, I present the story to the public, not at all as a
+lesson, but merely as an item of curious information.
+
+Oddly enough, it was on that day of delusions, the first of April, that
+I stumbled into the Doctor's revival of the age of miracles. I had been
+engaged for three months on a geological survey in a Western Territory,
+during which time I had received very brief and vague news from the
+little city which was then my place of abode, and had not even had
+a hint of the signs and wonders which there awaited my astonished
+observation. Reaching home, I made it my first business to call on my
+reverend friend; for the Doctor, it must be known, was one of my most
+valued intimates, had baptized me, had counselled me, had travelled with
+me in foreign lands; we had many interests, many sympathies in common,
+and no differences except with regard to the extent of the Flood, the
+date of the Creation, and other matters of small personal importance.
+I found him in his study, surrounded by those seven hundred and odd
+volumes, the learning and excellent spirit of which gave to his sermons
+such a body of venerable divinity, such a bouquet of savory eloquence.
+He was walking to and fro rapidly, studying a slip of manuscript with an
+air of serious ecstasy. He did not look up until I had seized his hand,
+and even then he stared at me as a man might be supposed to stare who
+had been passing a fortnight with angels or other spiritual existences
+and unexpectedly found himself among natural and reasonable beings
+again.
+
+"Ah, my dear Elderkin," he said at last, "I am glad to see you. How are
+you, and how have you been? Excuse me for not recognizing you at once. I
+had just lost myself in the consideration of a mystery which I believe
+to be of the sublimest importance. Oh, my dear friend, I hope you will
+be brought to attend to these things! They are above and beyond all your
+geologies; they preceded and will outlive them."
+
+"Indeed!" I replied. "Nothing in the way of chaos, I hope?"
+
+"Look here at this sheet of foolscap," he exclaimed, waving it
+excitedly. "Do you remember the belief which I have often expressed to
+you,--the belief that the dispensation of miracles has never yet ceased
+from earth,--that we have still a right to expect signs, wonders,
+instantaneous healings, and unknown tongues,--and that, but for our
+wretched incredulity, these things would constantly happen among us? You
+have disputed it and ridiculed it, but here I hold a proof of its truth.
+A month ago this blessing was vouchsafed to me. It was at one of our
+Wednesday-evening exercises. I had just been speaking of supernatural
+gifts, and of the duty which we lie under of expecting and demanding
+them. The moment I sat down, a stranger (a gentleman whom I had
+previously noticed at church) rose up with a strangely beaming look and
+broke out in a discourse of sounds that were wholly unintelligible. You
+need not smile. It was a true language, I am confident; it flowed forth
+with a moving warmth and fluency; and the gestures which accompanied it
+were earnest and most expressive."
+
+"That was fortunate," said I; "otherwise you must have been very little
+edified. But isn't it rather odd that the man should use earthly
+gestures with an unearthly language?"
+
+The Doctor shook his head reprovingly, and continued,--
+
+"Deacon Jones, the editor of the 'Patriot,' is a phonographer. He took
+down the close of the stranger's address, and next day brought it to me
+written out in the ordinary alphabet. Let me read it to you. As you are
+acquainted with several modern languages, perhaps you can give me a key
+to an interpretation."
+
+"I don't profess to know the modern languages of the other world," said
+I. "However, let us hear it."
+
+"Isse ta sopon otatirem isais ka rabatar itos ma deok," began the
+Doctor, with a gravity which almost made me think him stark mad. "De
+noton irbila orgonos ban orgonos amartalannen fi dunial maran ta
+calderak isais deluden homox berbussen carantar. Falla esoro anglas
+emoden ebuntar ta diliglas martix yehudas sathan val caraman
+mendelsonnen lamata yendos nix poliglor opos discobul vanitarok ken
+laros ma dasta finomallo in salubren to mallomas. Isse on esto opos fi
+sathan."
+
+And so he read on through more than a page and a half of closely written
+manuscript, his eyes flashing brighter at each line, and his right hand
+gesturing as impressively as if he understood every syllable.
+
+"Bless you, it's nothing new," said I. "There's an institution at
+Hartford where they cure people of talking that identical language."
+
+"Just what I expected you to say," he replied, flushing up. "I know
+you,--you scientific men,--you materialists. When you can't explain a
+phenomenon, you call it nonsense, instead of throwing yourselves with
+childlike faith into the arms of the supernatural. That is the sum and
+finality of your so-called science. But, come, be rational now. Don't
+you catch a single glimpse or suspicion of meaning in these remarkable
+words?"
+
+"I am thankful to say that I don't," declared I. "If ever I go mad, I
+may change my mind."
+
+"Well now, I _do_" he asseverated loudly. "There are words here that I
+believe I understand, and I am not ashamed to own it. Why, look at it,
+yourself," he added, pleadingly. "That word _sathan_, twice repeated,
+can it be anything else than _Satan_? _Yehudas_, what is that but
+_Jews?_ And then _homox_, how very near to the Latin _homo!_ I think,
+too, that I have even got a notion of some of the grammatical forms of
+the language. That termination of _en_, as in _deluden, salubren,_ seems
+to me the sign of the present tense of the plural form of the verb. That
+other termination of _tar_, as in _ebuntar, carantar_, I suppose to be
+the sign of the infinitive. Depend upon it that this language is one
+of absolute regularity, undeformed by the results of human folly and
+sorrow, and as perfect as a crystal."
+
+"But not as clear," I observed,--"at least, not to our apprehension.
+Well, how was this extraordinary revelation received by the audience?"
+
+"In dumb silence," said the Doctor. "Faith was at too low an ebb among
+us to reach and encircle the amazing fact. I had to call out the
+astonished brethren by name; and even then they responded briefly and
+falteringly. But the leaven worked. I went round the next day and
+talked to all my leading men. I found faith sprouting like a grain
+of mustard-seed. I found my people waking up to the great idea of a
+continuous, deathless, present miracle-demonstration. And these dim
+suspicions, these far-off longings and fearful hopes, were, indeed,
+precursors of such a movement of spirits, such a shower of supernatural
+mercies, as the world has not perhaps seen for centuries. Yes, there
+have been wonders wrought among us, and there are, I am persuaded,
+greater wonders still to come. What do you think must be my feelings
+when I see my worthiest parishioners rise in public and break out with
+unknown tongues?"
+
+"I should suppose you would rather see them break out with the
+small-pox," I answered.
+
+"Ah, Professor! wait, wait, and soon you will not laugh," said the
+Doctor, solemnly.
+
+"Perhaps not. I am a sincere friend of yours, and a tolerably
+good-hearted sort of man, I hope. I shall probably feel more like
+crying. But the world may laugh long and loud, Doctor. All who hate the
+true revelation may laugh to see it mocked and caricatured by those who
+profess and mean to honor it. Just consider, while it is yet time to
+mend matters, how imprudent you are. Why, what do you know of the man
+who has been your Columbus in this sea of wonders? Are you sure that he
+is not a sharper, or an impostor, or a lunatic?"
+
+"Impossible! He brought letters to three of our most respectable
+families. His name is Riley, John M. Riley, of New York; and he is
+son of the wealthy old merchant, James M. Riley, who has been such a
+generous donor to all good works. As for his being a lunatic, you shall
+hear his conversation."
+
+"I should be a very poor judge of it, if he always speaks in his unknown
+tongues."
+
+"English! English! he talks English as good as your own. A more
+gentlemanly person, a more intelligent mind, a meeker and more believing
+spirit, I have not met this many a day. He is still here, and he is my
+right hand in the work. I shall soon have the pleasure of making you
+acquainted with him."
+
+"Thank you; I shall be delighted," said I. "Only be good enough to hint
+to him that I like to understand what is said to me. If he comes at me
+with unknown tongues, I shall wish him in unknown parts. I can't stand
+mysteries. I am a geologist, and believe that there are rocks all the
+way down, and that we had much better stand on them than wriggle in mere
+chaotic space. Good morning, Doctor. I shall come again soon; I shall
+keep a lookout on you."
+
+"Good morning," he replied, kindly. "I hope to see you in a better frame
+before many days."
+
+I hurried back to my hotel, and questioned the landlord about this
+revival of the age of miracles. He gave me a long account of the affair,
+and then every neighbor who strolled in gave me another, until by
+dinner-time I had heard wonders and absurdities enough to make a new
+"Book of Mormon." The lunacies of this Riley had entered into Dr. Potter
+and his parishioners, like the legion of devils into the herd of swine,
+and driven them headlong into a sea of folly. There had been more
+tongues spoken during the past month in this little Yankee city than
+would have sufficed for our whole stellar system. Blockheads who were
+not troubled with an idea once a fortnight, and who could neither write
+nor speak their mother English decently, had undertaken to expound
+things which never happened in dialects which nobody understood. People
+who hitherto had been chiefly remarkable for their ignorance of the
+past and the slowness of their comprehension of the present fell to
+foretelling the future, with a glibness which made Isaiah and Ezekiel
+appear like minor prophets, and a destructiveness which nothing would
+satisfy out the immediate advent of the final conflagration. Gouty
+brothers whose own toes were a burden to them, and dropsical sisters
+with swelled legs, hobbled from street to street, laying would-be
+miraculous hands on each other, on teething children, on the dumb and
+blind, on foundered horses and mangy dogs even, or whatsoever other
+sickly creature happened to get under their silly noses. The doctors
+lost half their practice in consequence of the reliance of the people on
+these spiritual methods of physicking. Children were taken out of school
+in order that they might attend the prophesyings and get all knowledge
+by supernatural intuition. Logic and other worldly methods of arriving
+at truth were superseded by dreams, discernings of spirits, and similar
+irrational processes. The public madness was immense, tempestuous, and
+unequalled by anything of the kind since the "jerks" which appeared in
+the early part of this century under the thundering ministrations of
+Peter Cartwright. That nothing might be lacking to make the movement a
+fact in history, it had acquired a name. As its disciples used the word
+"dispensation" freely, the public called them Dispensationists, and
+their faith Dispensationism, while their meetings received the whimsical
+title of Dispensaries.
+
+Amid this clamor of daft delusion, Dr. Potter congratulated his people
+on the resurrection of the age of miracles, and preached in furtherance
+of the work with a fervid sincerity and eloquence rarely surpassed by
+men who support the claims of true religion and right reason. Had he
+brought the same zeal to bear against mathematics, it seems to me he
+might have shaken the popular faith in the multiplication-table. The
+wonders transacting in his church being noised abroad, the town was soon
+crowded with curious strangers, mostly laymen, but several clergymen,
+some anxious to believe, others ready to sneer, but all resolute to see.
+As might have been expected, the nature of the excitement alarmed the
+wiser pastors of the vicinity for the cause of Orthodoxy. They saw that
+several of the asserted miracles were simply hoaxes or delusions; they
+suspected that the unknown tongues might be nothing but the senseless
+bubbling of overheated brainpans; they perceived that the Doctor in
+his enthusiastic flights was soaring clear into the murky clouds of
+Spiritualism; and they dreaded lest the scoffing world should make a
+weapon out of these absurdities for an attack upon the Christian faith.
+They began to preach against the fanaticism; and, of course, my friend
+denounced them as infidels. High war ensued among the principalities and
+powers of theology in all that portion of Yankeedom.
+
+The reaction roused by the unbelieving clergymen reached the Doctor's
+congregation, and emboldened all the sensible members to combine into
+an anti-miracle party. At a meeting of these persons a committee was
+appointed to wait upon the pastor and respectfully request him to
+dismiss Riley, to cease his efforts after the supernatural, and to
+return to his former profitable manner of ministration. Dr. Potter was
+amazed and indignant; he replied, that he should preach the truth as it
+was revealed to himself; he scouted the dictation of the committee, and
+fell back upon the solemn duty of his office; he ended by informing the
+gentlemen that they were unbelievers and materialists. Naturally the
+dissenters grew all the more fractious for this currying, and held
+another meeting, in which the reaction kicked up higher than ever. Being
+resolved now to proceed to extremities, and, if necessary, to form a new
+congregation, they drew up the following recantation and sent it to Dr.
+Potter,--not with any hope that he would put his name to it, but for the
+purpose of ridiculing his infatuation, and driving him to resign his
+pulpit.
+
+"I, the undersigned, pastor of the First Church in Troubleton, having
+been led far from the truth by the absurdities of modern miracleism
+and spiritualism, and having seen the error of my ways, do penitently
+subscribe to the accompanying articles.
+
+"1st. I promise to cease all intercourse with a blasphemous blockhead
+named John M. Riley, who has been the human cause of my downfall.
+
+"2d. I promise to avoid in future all rhapsodies, ecstasies, frenzies,
+and whimseys which throw ridicule on true religion by caricaturing its
+influences.
+
+"3d. I promise to regard with the profoundest contempt and indifference
+both my own dreams or somnambulisms and those of other people.
+
+"4th. I promise not to unveil the secret things of Infinity, nor to
+encourage others to unveil them, but to mind my own finite business, and
+to rest satisfied with the revelations that are contained in the Bible.
+
+"5th. I promise not to speak unknown tongues as long as I can speak
+English, and not to listen to other people who commit the like
+absurdity, unless I know them to be Frenchmen or Dutchmen or other
+foreigners of some human species.
+
+"6th. I promise not to heal the sick by any unnatural and miraculous
+means, but rather to call in for their aid properly educated physicians,
+giving the preference to those of the allopathic persuasion.
+
+"7th. I promise not to work signs in heaven nor wonders on earth, but
+to let all things take the course allotted to them by a good and wise
+Providence."
+
+Of course Dr. Potter looked upon this production as the height of
+irreverence and irreligion, and proposed to excommunicate the authors
+of it. Hence the dissenters declared themselves seceders, and took
+immediate steps to form a new society.
+
+It was at this stage of the excitement that I returned to Troubleton and
+made my call upon the Doctor. I felt anxious to save my old friend and
+worthy pastor. I saw, that, if he continued in his present courses,
+he would strip himself, one after the other, of his influence, his
+position, his religion, and his reason. That very evening, after the
+usual conference-meeting was over, I called again on him, and found him
+in a truly lyrical frame of spirit.
+
+"Ah, my dear friend, there is no end to it!" exclaimed he. "The doors
+are opening, one beyond another. Wonder shows forth after wonder,
+miracle after miracle. Behind the veil! behind the veil!"
+
+"Indeed!" said I, rather vexed. "You'll find yourself behind a grate
+some day."
+
+"There is now no question of the physical value as well as the spiritual
+sublimity of these revelations," he continued, without observing my
+sneer. "Life and death, the sparing of precious blood, the prevention of
+crime, the punishment of the guilty,--you can appreciate these things, I
+presume."
+
+"When I am in my senses," returned I. "But what is the row? if I may use
+that worldly expression. Has Mr. John M. Riley been brought to confess
+any state-prison offences?"
+
+"Ah, Elderkin!" sighed the Doctor, letting go my hand with a look of sad
+reproach. "But no: you cannot remain forever in this skepticism; you
+will be brought over to us before long. Let me tell you what has
+happened. But, remember, you must keep the secret until to-morrow, as
+you value precious lives. Mr. Riley has just left me. He has made me a
+revelation, a prophecy, which will be proof to all men of the origin
+of our present experiences. He has had a vision, thrice repeated. It
+foretold that this very night a robbery and murder would be attempted in
+the city of New Haven. The evil drama will open between two and three
+o'clock. There will be three burglars. The house threatened is situated
+in the suburbs, to the east of the city, and about a mile from the
+colleges."
+
+"Is it? And what are you going to do about it?--telegraph?"
+
+"No. We will be there in person. We will ourselves prevent the crime and
+seize the criminals. I shall have a word in season for that family, Sir.
+I wish to improve the occasion for its conversion to a full belief in
+these sublime mysteries. Mr. Riley, with three of my people, will meet
+me at the station. We shall be in New Haven by eleven, stay an hour or
+two in some hotel, and at half past one go to the house."
+
+"My dear Sir, I remonstrate," exclaimed I. "You will get laughed at. You
+will get shot at. You will get into disgrace. You will get into jail.
+For pity's sake, give up this quixotic expedition, and grant me an
+absolution before the fact for kicking Riley out of doors."
+
+The Doctor turned his face away from me and walked to a window. His air
+of profound, yet uncomplaining grief, struck me with compunction, and,
+following him, I held out my hand.
+
+"Come, excuse me," said I. "Look here,--if this comes true, I'll quit
+geology and go to working miracles to-morrow. I'll come over to your
+faith, if I have to wade through my reason."
+
+"Will you?" he responded, joyfully. "You will never repent it. There,
+shake hands. I am not angry. Your unbelief is natural, though saddening.
+To-morrow night, then, come and see me again and I will tell you the
+whole adventure. I must be off to the train now. Excuse me for leaving
+you. Would you like to sit here awhile and look at Humby's 'Modern
+Miracles'?"
+
+"No, thank you. Prefer to look at your miracles. I am going with you."
+
+"Going with me? Are you? I'm delighted!" he cried, not in the least
+startled or embarrassed by the proposition. "Now you shall see with your
+own eyes."
+
+"Yes, if it isn't too dark, I will,--word of a geologist. Well, shall we
+start?"
+
+"But won't you have a weapon? We go armed, of course, inasmuch as the
+scoundrels may show fight when we come to arrest them."
+
+"I don't want it," said I, gently pushing away a pocket-pistol, about as
+dangerous as a squirt. "All the burglars you see to-night may shoot at
+me, and welcome."
+
+We walked to the station, and found our party waiting for the Boston
+train. The Doctor introduced me, with much affectionate effusion and
+many particulars concerning my family and early history, to the man of
+unearthly lingoes. He was a tall, lean, flat-chested, cadaverous being,
+of about forty, his sandy hair nicely sleeked, thin yellow whiskers
+spattered on his hollow cheeks, his nose short and snub, his face
+small, wilted, and so freckled that it could hardly be said to have
+a complexion. In short, by its littleness, by its yellowness, by its
+appearance of dusty dryness, this singular physiognomy reminded me so
+strongly of a pinch of snuff, that I almost sneezed at sight of it. His
+diminutive green eyes were fringed with ragged flaxen lashes, and seemed
+to be very loose in their reddened lids, as if he could cry them out at
+the shortest notice. I observed that he never looked his interlocutors
+in the face, but stared chiefly at their feet, as if surmising whether
+they would kick, or gazed into remote distance, as if trying to see
+round the world and get a view of his own back. His dress was a full
+suit of black, fine in texture, but bagging about him in a way that made
+you wonder whether he had not lost a hundred-weight or so in training
+for his spiritual battles. His manners were quiet, and would not have
+been disagreeable, but for an air of uncomfortably stiff solemnity,
+which draped him from head to foot like a robe of moral oilcloth, and
+might almost be said to rustle audibly. Whether he was a practical
+joker, a swindler, a fanatic, or a madman, my spiritual vision was not
+keen enough to discover at first sight. Beside him and ourselves the
+party consisted of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick-maker,
+all members of the Doctor's church and indefatigable workers of
+miracles,--plain men and foolish, but respectable in standing and
+sincere in their folly. Mr. Riley was so commonplace as to address me in
+English, probably because he wanted an answer.
+
+"Do you accompany us, Sir, on this blessed crusade against crime and
+unbelief?" he asked.
+
+"My friend, Dr. Potter, has granted me that inestimable privilege,"
+responded I.
+
+"I hope--in fact, I firmly believe--that Providence will aid us," he
+continued.
+
+"I hope so, too," said I. "But wouldn't it be advisable to have a
+policeman, too?"
+
+"By no means! Certainly not!" he returned, with considerable excitement.
+"All we want is a band of saints, of justified souls, of men fitted for
+the martyr's crown."
+
+"Oh, that's all, is it, Sir? Well, shall we get into the cars? There
+they are."
+
+The train was full, and our party had to scatter, but Mr. Riley and I
+got seats together.
+
+"I have not seen you at our meetings, Sir," he continued. "Allow me to
+ask, are you a believer in Dispensationism?"
+
+"Not so strong as I might be. However, I have been absent from
+Troubleton for three months, and only returned yesterday."
+
+"Ah! you have lost precious opportunities. You must lose no more. Life
+is short."
+
+"And uncertain," I added. "Especially in railroad travelling."
+
+"My dear Sir, I hope this road is prudently conducted," he said, with a
+look of some little anxiety.
+
+"Not many accidents," I answered. "And then, you know, we are always
+in the hands of Providence. No fear of slipping through the fingers
+unnoticed."
+
+"No, Sir, certainly not," he remarked, wrapping his moral oilcloth about
+him again. "Have you felt any extraordinary spiritual impressions since
+you returned?"
+
+"Nothing lasting, I think. Nothing that a night's sleep wouldn't take
+off the edge of."
+
+"No desire to lay hands on some sin-stricken wretch and cure him of the
+evil that is in him?"
+
+Now I did feel a strong desire to lay hands on this very Riley and pull
+out his snub nose for him; but I forbore to say so, and simply shook my
+head despondently.
+
+"I know, that, if you would come to our Dispensaries and join in our
+exercises, you would be sensible of a softening," he observed.
+
+"Yes, in the brain," thought I; but I still remained silent.
+
+"You should meditate upon the value of manifestations, unknown tongues,
+the laying on of hands, visions, ecstasies, and such like matters," he
+continued.
+
+"So I have," said I.
+
+"And with no result?"
+
+"Nothing that particularly astonishes me. I think that I hate humbug
+more than I did."
+
+"That's a good sign," he replied, after a brief, sharp glance of inquiry
+at me. "This vain world is a humbug, as you phrase it. Dead Orthodoxy is
+a humbug. Human reason is a humbug. We are all humbugs, unless we are
+made true by Dispensation. This age will be a humbug, unless it can
+be wrought into an age of miracles. If you could be brought to hate
+earnestly all these things, it would be a hopeful sign."
+
+I was on the point of disputing the hypothesis, but prudently checked
+myself. Suddenly he removed my hat and put his broad, hard palm upon my
+organs with an impudent dexterity which made me doubt whether he had not
+been a pickpocket or a phrenological lecturer.
+
+"I lay my hand upon your head and desire you to note the effect," said
+he. "Can no life come into these dry bones? Shall they not live?
+Yea, they shall live! Do you feel no irrepressible emotion, Sir,--no
+shaking?"
+
+"Not a shake," replied I,--"unless it be from the bad grading."
+
+"Evil is mighty, but the good must eventually prevail," he observed,
+impertinently cocking his snub nose toward heaven.
+
+"I believe you are quite right in both propositions," I admitted.
+"Cardinal points of mine. But excuse me, Sir, if you could spare my hat,
+I should like to put it on my head."
+
+I had lost patience with the man, partly because it irks me to have
+strangers take liberties with my person, and also because I had reached
+the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In
+a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to
+question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of
+lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with
+his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers.
+Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on
+the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, which seemed to startle
+him as if it were the clutch of a skeleton.
+
+"There is my ticket," said he. "Where is yours? Have you one for the
+Holy City? None? Then you are lost, lost, lost!"
+
+The last words rose to a high, clear shriek, which pierced the heavy
+rumble of the train and rang throughout the car. The conductor, in spite
+of the coolness which becomes second nature to men of his profession,
+turned slightly pale and shrank back before this wild apostrophe, with
+a thrill of spiritual horror at the solemn meaning of the words, (I
+thought,) and not because he considered the man a maniac. The fanaticism
+of Troubleton had already flown far and cast a vague shadow of dread
+over a large community.
+
+Turning abruptly from the conductor, my companion flung out his long
+arms toward the staring passengers, and continued in his strident,
+startling tenor:--"I have warned him. I call you all to witness that I
+have warned this man of his fearful peril. His blood be on his own head!
+The blood of your souls will be upon your heads, unless you turn to
+Dispensationism. I have said it. Amen!"
+
+Before he had sat down again I was in the alley on my way to another
+car, not anxious to become known as the intimate of this extraordinary
+apostle. I found an empty seat by the Doctor, dropped into it, and told
+my story.
+
+"My dear friend, give the fellow up," I concluded. "He's as mad as he
+can possibly be."
+
+"So Festus thought of Paul," returned my poor comrade, with hopeless
+fatuity.
+
+"Festus be d----d!" said I, losing my temper, and swearing for the first
+time since I graduated.
+
+"I fear he was so," remarked the Doctor, severely. "Let me urge you to
+take warning from his fate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, and that of Festus," I apologized. "But when I see
+you losing your reason, I can't keep my patience, and don't wish to."
+
+"You will wonder at these feelings before many hours," he responded
+gently. "To-morrow you will be a believer."
+
+"That makes no difference with me now," said I. "I am just as skeptical
+as if I hadn't a chance of conversion. Why, Doctor,--well, come
+now,--I'll argue the case with you. In the first place, all Church
+history is against you. There isn't a respectable author who upholds the
+doctrine of modern miracles."
+
+"Mistake!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had you in my library. I could face
+you with writer on writer, fact on fact, all supporting my views. I can
+prove that miracles have not ceased for eighteen centuries; that they
+appeared abundantly in the days of the venerable Catholic fathers; that
+a stream of prophecies and healings and tongues ran clear through the
+Dark Ages down to the Reformation; that the superhuman influence flamed
+in the dreams of Huss, the ecstasies of Xavier, and the marvels of Fox
+and Usher. Look at the French Prophets, or Tremblers of the Cevennes,
+who had prophesyings and healings and discoverings of spirits and
+tongues and interpretations. Look at the ecstatic Jansenists, or
+Convulsionists of St. Médard, who were blessed with the same holy gifts.
+Look at the Quakers, from Fox downward, who have held it as a constant
+principle to expect powers, revelations, discernings of spirits, and
+instantaneous healings of diseases. Why, here we are in our own days;
+here we are with our chain of miracles still unbroken; here we are in
+the midst of this geological and unbelieving nineteenth century."
+
+"Yes, here we are," said I; "and we must make the best of it. It's a bad
+affair, of course, to live in scientific times; and it's a great pity
+that we were not born in the Dark Ages; but it is too late to try to
+help it."
+
+"Ah! you answer with a sneer; you are materialistic and infidel."
+
+"Stop, Doctor! Let me make a bargain with you. If you won't call me
+names, I won't call you names. You are not in the pulpit now, and you
+have no right to domineer over me."
+
+"But what do you say to all these signs and wonders which I have
+mentioned?"
+
+"What do you say to the Rochester knockings and the Stratford mysteries
+and the Mormon miracles?"
+
+"All deceptions, or works of the Devil," affirmed the Doctor, without a
+moment's hesitation.
+
+"Excuse me for smiling," I replied "It is pleasant to observe what a
+quick spirit you have for discerning the true wonders from the false."
+
+"You will see, you will see," he answered, and relapsed into a grave
+silence.
+
+We reached New Haven and took rooms at the New Haven Hotel. I had
+anticipated a little nap before going out on our expedition; but I had
+not made allowance for the proselyting zeal of Dispensationists. My poor
+bewildered friend Potter uttered something which he sincerely meant to
+be a prayer, but which sounded to me painfully like blasphemy. Next they
+sang a queer hymn of theirs in discordant chorus. After that, Mr. Riley
+rolled up his sleeves and his eyes, flung his arms about, wept and
+shrieked unknown tongues for twenty minutes. Then the butcher, the
+baker, and candlestick-maker had a combined convulsion on the floor,
+rolling over each other and upsetting furniture. By this time the hotel
+was roused and the landlord made us a call.
+
+"What the Old Harry are you about?" he demanded, angrily. "Don't you
+know it's after midnight?"
+
+"We are holding a Dispensary," said Mr. Riley, solemnly.
+
+"Well, I'll dispense with your company, if you don't stop it," returned
+mine host. "There's a nervous lady in the next room, and you've worried
+her into fits."
+
+"Let me see her," cried the Doctor, eagerly. "It may be that the power
+of our faith is upon her. Which is her door?"
+
+"You're drunk, Sir," returned the landlord, severely. "Keep quiet now,
+or I'll have you put to bed by the porters."
+
+So saying, he shut the door and went muttering down-stairs. This
+untoward incident put an end to our exercises. A whispered palaver on
+Dispensationism followed, during which I tilted my chair back against
+the wall and stole a pleasant little nap.
+
+It was about half past one when the Doctor shook me up and said, "It is
+time." We slipped down-stairs in our stockinged feet, got the front-door
+open without awakening the porter, shut it carefully after us, and put
+on our boots outside. Mr. Riley immediately started up College Street,
+which, as all the world is aware, runs northerly to the Canal Railroad,
+where it changes to Prospect Street and goes off in a half-wild state up
+country. At the end of College Street we left the city behind us, struck
+the rail-track, forsook that presently for a desert sort of road known
+as Canal Street, and kept on in a northwesterly direction for half a
+mile farther. It was a dark, cool, and blustering night, such as the New
+Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew
+violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if
+it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and
+screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or
+rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a
+few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I
+halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging
+us not far behind, but concluded that I had been deceived by the
+black-art of magical Night, and hastened on after my crazy comrades.
+Presently Riley stopped, pointed to a dark mass on our right which
+seemed about large enough to be a story-and-a-half cottage, and
+whispered, "Here we are, brethren."
+
+"No doubt about that," said I. "But what the mischief is to come of it?"
+
+"Oh! let's go back and call the police," urged the baker, in a tremulous
+gurgle.
+
+"Too late!" returned Riley. "It is given to me to see the burglars. They
+are inside. They are taking the silver out of the closet. There will be
+murder in five minutes."
+
+"If there must be murder, why, of course we ought to have a hand in it,"
+I suggested. "Our motives at least will be good."
+
+"Right!" said Riley. "Come on, brethren! We must prove our faith by our
+works."
+
+But the baker hung back in a most dough-faced fashion, while the butcher
+and the candlestick-maker encouraged him in his cowardice. At last it
+was agreed that this unheroic trio should wait in the yard as a reserve,
+while Riley, the Doctor, and I went in to worry the burglars. Leaving
+the weaker brethren in a clump of evergreen shrubbery, we, the
+forlorn-hope, stole around the house to get at a back-door which Prophet
+Riley had plainly seen in his dream, and which he foretold us we should
+find unlocked. I was not much amazed to discover a back-door, inasmuch
+as most houses have one, but I really was surprised to learn that it was
+unfastened. My astonishment at this circumstance, however, was over-
+balanced by my alarm at finding that the Doctor still persisted in his
+intention of entering; for I had hoped that at the last moment his
+faith would give way, and let him slide down from the elevation of his
+ridiculous and reckless purpose.
+
+"But you are not really going in?" I whispered, jerking at his
+coat-tails.
+
+"Certainly," he replied. "The robbers are surely there. The door was
+unlocked."
+
+"Mere carelessness of the servants. Stop! Come back! Nonsense! Madness!
+You'll get into a scrape. Respectable family. Good gracious, what a pack
+of fools!"
+
+While I was rapidly muttering these observations, he was pulling away
+from me and stealing into the house after his prophet. Finding that
+there was no stopping him, I followed, in obedience, perhaps, to that
+great and no doubt beneficent, but as yet unexplained, instinct which
+causes sheep to leap after their bellwether. We were in a basement, or
+semi-subterranean story. I felt the walls of a narrow passage on
+either side of me, and can swear to a kitchen near by, for I smelt its
+cooking-range. I walked on the foremost end of my toes, and would have
+paid five dollars for a pair of list slippers. Rather than take another
+such little promenade as I had in that passage, I would submit to be
+placed on the middle sleeper of a railroad-bridge, with an express-train
+coming at me without a cowcatcher. Presently I overtook the Doctor's
+coat-tails again, and found that they were ascending a staircase. At the
+top of the stairs was a door, and on the other side of the door was a
+room, the uses of which I won't undertake to swear to, for I never saw
+it, although I was in it longer than I wanted to be. All I know is
+that it seemed to be as full of chairs, and tables, and sofas, and
+sideboards, and stoves, and crickets, as if it had been a shop for
+second-hand furniture. I was just rubbing my shins after an encounter
+with a remarkably solid object, nature uncertain, when somebody near me
+fell over something with a crash and a groan. Immediately somebody else
+seized me by the cravat and began to throttle me. Whoever it was, I
+floored him with a right-hander, and sent him across the other person,
+as I judged by the combined grunt, and the desperate, though dumb
+struggle which followed. Now there were two of them down, and how many
+standing I could not guess. An instant afterward, a muffled voice, like
+that of a man only half awake, shouted from a room behind me, "Who's
+there? Get out! I'm a-coming!" This seemed to encourage the individuals
+who were having a rough-and-tumble on the carpet, for they commenced
+roaring simultaneously, "Help! murder! thieves! fire!" without, however,
+relaxing hostilities for a moment.
+
+The next pleasant incident was a pistol-shot, the ball of which whizzed
+so near my head that it made me dodge, although I have not the least
+notion who fired it or whom it was aimed at. Female screams and
+masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that
+I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this
+confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly
+walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I
+would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come
+to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of
+it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no
+chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether
+I would go in or not. A sudden rush of fighting, howling persons swept
+me along, jammed me against a pillar, pushed me over a table, and forced
+me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the
+darkness and the extraordinary amount of furniture. A tremendous punch
+in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper. Rising in a
+rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and
+never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would
+keep quiet during the rest of the _soiree_. I hope sincerely that this
+suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of
+stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.
+
+All this while the house resounded with outcries of, "Who's there?"
+"What's the matter?" "Father!" "Henry!" "Jenny!" "Maria!" "Thieves!"
+"Murder!" "Police!" and so forth. Of course I did not feel disposed to
+tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained
+what was the matter. Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people
+unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.
+Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person
+who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a
+passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light
+glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation
+to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive,
+whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a
+stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.
+The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her
+pulses. Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I
+rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the
+act of trying to run off in her nightgown. Upstairs I tumbled, resolved
+to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from
+a window. Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in
+a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female
+costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while
+on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl
+of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful. Right through my
+alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration. I
+tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair
+which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory
+with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of
+it. It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you
+will fall, nor whether you will not alight on iron pickets. Fortunately,
+I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a
+sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off. I had scarcely steadied
+myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near
+ambuscade and seized me by the collar. Supposing him to be one of our
+reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the
+point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and
+I knew that I was in the hands of a policeman.
+
+"Come in and help," said I. "The house is full of rascals."
+
+Thinking me one of the family, he loosed his hold on my broadcloth and
+hurried away to the back-door. Whoever reads this story has already
+taken it for granted that I did not follow him, but that I did, on the
+contrary, make for the city and never cease travelling until I had
+reached the hotel. Let no man reproach me with forsaking my friend, the
+Doctor, in his extremity. I was brought up to reverence the law and to
+entertain a virtuous terror of policemen; and, besides, what could I
+have effected in that horrible labyrinth of dark rooms and multitudinous
+furniture? I rang up the porter, went to bed, and lay awake alt the rest
+of the night, listening for the return of my companions. No one came:
+no Doctor, no Riley, no butcher, no baker, no candlestick-maker. I was
+apparently the sole survivor of our little army. In the morning I walked
+over to the police-station, peeped cautiously through the grated door of
+a long room where the night's gatherings are lodged, and discovered my
+five friends, tattered and bruised, but holding a lively Dispensary in
+one corner. From that moment I despaired of the Doctor and resolved to
+let him manage his own monomania. I was still peeping when two of the
+police and a sly-looking man in citizen's dress came up and stared
+boldly at the prisoners.
+
+"Well, Old Cock, do you see your game?" asked one of the "force."
+
+"Thaht's him," returned the Old Cock, speaking with the soft drawl of
+the New York cockney. "Tall fellah thah with thah black eye, thaht's
+a-goin' it now. Thundah, what a roarah!"
+
+"Well, what is he?" inquired the second of the New-Haveners.
+
+"Joseph Hull, 'ligious lunatic," said the Old Cock. "Was in thah
+Bloomingdale Asylum. Cut off one night about foah months ago and stole a
+suit o' clothes that belonged to John M. Riley, with a lot o' money and
+papahs and lettahs in thah pockets. How'd you get hold of him?"
+
+"Broke into a house eout here last night," related the first
+New-Havener. "He and them other fellers, and one more that we ha'n't
+found. I was on my beat 'bout one o'clock, and see 'em puttin' up
+College Street full chisel. I thought they looked kinder dangerous. So I
+called Doolittle here, and Jarvis, and Jacobs, and we after 'em. Chased
+'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout
+in the country. Three was in the yard and gin right up without doublin'
+a fist, though they had their pockets chuck full o' little pistols. We
+locked 'em into the cellar, and then, went upstairs, where there was a
+devil of a yellin' and fightin'. Hanged if I know what they come there
+for. They'd been pitchin' into one another and knockin' one another's
+heads off, besides smashin' furnichy and chimbly crockery, but hadn't
+stole a thing. The fat one and the long one--them two with white
+chokers--was lyin' on the floor pootty much used up. There was another
+that got up-stairs and jumped out a winder. Jarvis was outside and
+collared him, but thought he was Russell's son-in-law,--ho, ho, ho!--and
+let him off,--ho, ho, ho! Tell ye, Jarvis feels thunderin' small 'bout
+it. Ha'n't been reound this mornin'."
+
+"Well, I'll leave my warrant with your big-wigs, and come after my man
+when they've got through with him," said the New York detective, turning
+away.
+
+Fearing the return of the enlightened Jarvis, I now left, and,
+taking the first train to Troubleton, informed some of the leading
+Dispensationists concerning their pastor's calamity. By dint of heavy
+bail and strong representations they saved him, together with the
+butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, from the disgrace of prison and
+the lunatic asylum. But the adventure was the ruin of Dispensationism.
+Mr. Joseph Hull had to give up Mr. John M. Riley's valuables, and return
+to his seclusion at Bloomingdale. Deprived of the apostle who had set
+them on fire, and overwhelmed by public ridicule, the Dispensationists
+lost their faith, got ashamed of their minister, and turned him adrift.
+He disappeared in the great whirl of men and other circumstances which
+fills this wonderful country. From time to time, during five years, I
+had made inquiries concerning him of mineralogists, botanists, and
+other vagrant characters, without getting the smallest hint as to his
+whereabouts. At last he had turned up as the private prophet of three
+middle-aged widows.
+
+"Jenny," said I to my wife, "do you remember the night I frightened you
+so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?"
+
+"You always say you kissed me, but I don't believe it," returned that
+dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish. "Yes, I remember the night
+well enough."
+
+"Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion,
+and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my
+getting my houri,--I have heard from him. He is our next neighbor."
+
+"Mercy on us, Frederic! I hope not! What mischief won't he do to people
+who are so handy?"
+
+"Don't be worried, my dear," said I. "I sha'n't go over to his religion
+again,--unless, indeed, you should insist upon it. But here he is, and
+still a supernaturalist. I am anxious to know just how mad he is. I
+shall call on him in a day or two."
+
+So I did. One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and
+told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared. So he had. I think that he
+was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away. The widows thought
+not. They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before
+him, he had been translated. They cried for him a good deal more than he
+was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at
+a loss, and dispersed. I know nothing more of them. Neither do I know
+anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PILOT'S STORY.
+
+
+I.
+
+  It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,--
+  Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,
+  Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,
+  Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,
+  Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.
+
+II.
+
+  All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume
+  From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,--
+  Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses
+  In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.
+  Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered;
+  In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson
+  Floated in slumber serene, and the restless river beneath them
+  Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom.
+  Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress;
+  Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,--
+  Beautiful, wood-grown isles,--with the gleam of the swart inundation
+  Seen through the swaying boughs and slender trunks of their willows;
+  And on the shore beside its the cotton-trees rose in the evening,
+  Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the inscrutable sadness
+  Of the mute races of trees. While hoarsely the steam from her
+     'scape-pipes
+  Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted again to the silence,
+  Trembling through all her frame with the mighty pulse of her engines,
+  Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad Mississippi,
+  Bank-full, sweeping on, with nearing masses of drift-wood,
+  Daintily breathed about with hazes of silvery vapor,
+  Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow alighted,
+  And the belated blackbird paused on the way to its nestlings.
+
+III.
+
+  It was the pilot's story:--"They both came aboard there, at Cairo,
+  From a New Orleans boat, and took passage with us for Saint Louis.
+  She was a beautiful woman, with just enough blood from her mother,
+  Darkening her eyes and her hair, to make her race known to a trader:
+  You would have thought she was white. The man that was with her,--you
+     see such,--
+  Weakly good-natured and kind, and weakly good-natured and vicious,
+  Slender of body and soul, fit neither for loving nor hating.
+  I was a youngster then, and only learning the river,--
+  Not over-fond of the wheel. I used to watch them at _monte_,
+  Down in the cabin at night, and learned to know all of the gamblers.
+  So when I saw this weak one staking his money against them,
+  Betting upon the turn of the cards, I knew what was coming:
+  _They_ never left their pigeons a single feather to fly with.
+  Next day I saw them together,--the stranger and one of the gamblers:
+  Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair and moustaches,
+  Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes from his villanous forehead:
+  On together they moved, still earnestly talking in whispers,
+  On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman alone by the gangway.
+  Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and, beholding her master,
+  Greeted him with a smile that was more like a wife's than another's,
+  Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the dread apprehension
+  Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the face of the gambler,
+  Dark and lustful and fierce and full of merciless cunning.
+  Something was spoken so low that I could not hear what the words were;
+  Only the woman started, and looked from one to the other,
+  With imploring eyes, bewildered hands, and a tremor
+  All through her frame: I saw her from where I was standing, she shook so.
+  'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white lips of her master
+  Died a sickly smile, and he said,--'Louise, I have sold you.'
+  God is my judge! May I never see such a look of despairing,
+  Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast on her master,
+  Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her,
+  Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman,
+  Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old Pocahontas!
+  Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the throat of the dying,
+  Came back her voice, that, rising, fluttered, through wild incoherence,
+  Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while she answered:--
+  'Sold me? sold me? sold----And you promised to give me my freedom!--
+  Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in Saint Louis!
+  What will you say to our boy, when he cries for me there in Saint Louis?
+  What will you say to our God?--Ah, you have been joking! I see it!--
+  No? God! God! He shall hear it,--and all of the angels in heaven,--
+  Even the devils in hell!--and none will believe when they hear it!
+  Sold me!'--Fell her voice with a thrilling wail, and in silence
+  Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face with her fingers."
+
+IV.
+
+  In his story a moment the pilot paused, while we listened
+  To the salute of a boat, that, rounding the point of an island,
+  Flamed toward us with fires that seemed to burn from the waters,--
+  Stately and vast and swift, and borne on the heart of the current.
+  Then, with the mighty voice of a giant challenged to battle,
+  Rose the responsive whistle, and all the echoes of island,
+  Swamp-land, glade, and brake replied with a myriad clamor,
+  Like wild birds that are suddenly startled from slumber at midnight;
+  Then were at peace once more, and we heard the harsh cries of the
+     peacocks
+  Perched on a tree by a cabin-door, where the white-headed settler's
+  White-headed children stood to look at the boat as it passed them,
+  Passed them so near that we heard their happy talk and their laughter.
+  Softly the sunset had faded, and now on the eastern horizon
+  Hung, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star of the evening.
+
+  V.
+
+  Still with his back to us standing, the pilot went on with his story:--
+  "Instantly, all the people, with looks of reproach and compassion,
+  Flocked round the prostrate woman. The children cried, and their mothers
+  Hugged them tight to their breasts; but the gambler said to the
+     captain,--
+  'Put me off there at the town that lies round the bend of the river.
+  Here, you! rise at once, and be ready now to go with me.'
+  Roughly he seized the woman's arm and strove to uplift her.
+  She--she seemed not to heed him, but rose like one that is dreaming,
+  Slid from his grasp, and fleetly mounted the steps of the gangway,
+  Up to the hurricane-deck, in silence, without lamentation.
+  Straight to the stern of the boat, where the wheel was, she ran, and
+     the people
+  Followed her fast till she turned and stood at bay for a moment,
+  Looking them in the face, and in the face of the gambler.
+  Not one to save her,--not one of all the compassionate people!
+  Not one to save her, of all the pitying angels in heaven!
+  Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there before her!
+  Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence and horror.
+  Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of passion
+  Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in the night-time.
+  White, she stood, and mute, till he put forth his hand to secure her;
+  Then she turned and leaped,--in mid air fluttered a moment,--
+  Down, there, whirling, fell, like a broken-winged bird from a tree-top,
+  Down on the cruel wheel, that caught her, and hurled her, and
+     crushed her,
+  And in the foaming water plunged her, and hid her forever."
+
+  VI.
+
+  Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but we heard him
+  Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope to stop her. Then, turning,--
+  "This is the place where it happened," brokenly whispered the pilot.
+  "Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in the night-time."
+  Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay in the starlight,
+  Cheerful with lamps. Below we could hear them reversing the engines,
+  And the great boat glided up to the shore like a giant exhausted.
+  Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps to the eastward
+  Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling wake into silver.
+  All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath of the willows
+  Smote like the subtile breath of an infinite sorrow upon us.
+
+
+
+
+A DAY WITH THE DEAD.
+
+
+"Good morning!" said the old custodian, as he stood in the door of the
+lodge, brushing out with his knuckles the cobwebs of sleep entangled in
+his eyelashes, and ventilating the apartments of his fleshly tabernacle
+with prolonged oscitations. "You are on hand early _this_ time, a'n't
+you? You're the first live man I've seen since I got up."
+
+So saying, he vanished, and reappearing in a moment with a huge brass
+key, entered the arch, unlocked the gate which closed the aperture
+fronting the east like the cover of a porthole, and sent it with a heavy
+push wide open.
+
+Wading through the flood of sunlight which poured into the
+passage-way----But stop! I was about,--who knows?--in imitation of
+divers admired models, to tell the reader in choicest poetic diction how
+the City of the Dead, with its magnificent streets, shining palaces, and
+lofty monuments, burst upon my dazzled vision,--how I walked for half a
+mile along a spacious avenue, beneath an arcade of giant elms hung with
+wreaths of mist and vocal with singing, feathery fruit,--past marble
+tombs whose yards were filled with bright and fragrant flowers,--
+among waving grassy knolls spread with the silver nets of spiders and
+sparkling dew,--through vales of cool twilight and ravines of sombre
+dusk,--and so on for more than a page, until finally, step by step,
+through laboriously elegant sentences, I worked my way up to the top
+of a lofty hill, the view from which to be graphically described as a
+picture and a poem dissolved together into mingled glory and mirage, and
+inundating with a billowy sea of beauty the landscape below;--and then
+further depicting to the delighted fancy of the reader, how on one
+side was a most remarkable river,--such as was never heard of before,
+probably,--in fact, a web of water framed between the hills, its rushing
+warp-currents, as it rolled along, woven by smoking steam-shuttles with
+a woof of foam,--how, at the entrance of a bay, flocks of snowy sails,
+with black, shining beaks, and sleek, unruffled plumage, were swimming
+out to sea,--how another river, not quite so unique as the last, was
+also in sight, coiling among emerald steeps and crags and precipices
+and forest,--while beyond, green woodlands, checkered fields, groves,
+orchards, villages, hills, farms, and villas, all glowed in an
+exceedingly charming manner in the morning sun;--and then, still
+further, to say something as brilliant as possible about a certain
+city, designated as the Great Metropolis,--how it resembled, perhaps,
+a Cyclopean type-form, with blocks of buildings for letters, domes,
+turrets, and towers for punctuation-points, church-spires for
+interrogation and exclamation marks, and squares and avenues for
+division-spaces between the paragraphs, set up and leaded with
+streets into a vast editorial page of original matter on Commerce and
+Manufactures, rolled every morning with the ink of toil, and printing
+before night an edition of results circulated to the remotest quarters
+of the globe. And the tall chimneys yonder were to be called--let me
+see--oh, the smoking cathedral-towers of the Holy Catholic Church of
+Labor, islanding the air with clouds of incense more grateful to the
+Deity than the fume of priest-swung censers. All this, and much more of
+a similar nature, including an eloquent address to the ocean hard by,
+it is possible I was about to say. But, unwilling to smother the reader
+beneath a mountain of rhetorical flowers,--which accident might happen,
+should I resolve to be "equal to the occasion,"--I shall contain myself,
+and state, in the way of a curt preface, in plain prose, and directly to
+the point, that I entered a remarkably large and populous cemetery,
+no matter where, very early one morning,--in fact, you have the
+gate-keeper's word for it that I was the first person there,--that I
+climbed to the summit of a high hill and enjoyed the view of a beautiful
+landscape, just after sunrise; and with this finally said and done, let
+us proceed.
+
+As I stood listening to the music of the sea-breeze in the pine-forests
+below, and watching the ships sinking into the ocean from view or
+dropping through the sky into sight at the rim of the horizon, and the
+clouds changing their picturesque sunrise-dress for a uniform of sober
+white, forming into rank and file, marching and countermarching, sending
+off scouts into the far distance and foraging-parties to scour the
+yellow fields of air, pitching their tents and placing sentinels on
+guard around the camp,--amusing myself with fashioning quaint, arabesque
+fancies,--a sort of intellectual whittling-habit I have when idle,--I
+was roused from my reverie by the creaking of an iron gate.
+
+Descending a few steps into a cluster of trees, I saw through their
+leafy lattice-work, in an inclosure ornamented with rose-bushes and
+other flowering shrubs, a young woman, richly dressed in black, kneeling
+by the side of a new-made grave. The mound, evidently covering a
+full-grown person, was nicely laid at the top with carefully cut sods,
+the dark edges of which projected a little over the lighter-colored
+gravel that sloped gradually down to the greensward. I was not long in
+becoming satisfied that the person I saw was a young widow at the grave
+of her husband, now three or four weeks dead, hither on her accustomed
+morning visit to display her love and affection for his memory.
+
+Bowing her head, for a few moments she gave way to sobs and weeping, and
+then, removing the cover from a little willow basket, which stood by her
+side, she took from it handfuls of bright flowers, and began to adorn
+the table of sods upon the top of the mound.
+
+As I regard her thus employed, weaving the tokens of her affection into
+garlands, chaplets, and fanciful devices, arranging their symbolic
+characters into interpretable monograms and hieroglyphs, matching their
+colors and blending their hues and shades with the skill of an artist,
+she becomes more and more absorbed in her work, the tears disappear from
+her eyes, and the morning light flushes her pale and beautiful face. Is
+she thinking now, I wonder, of the dead husband, or of something else?
+What has she found among the flowers so consoling? Do they suggest
+pleasant fancies, or recall the memories of happy days? Have they,
+perhaps, a double meaning,--souvenirs of felicity as well as symbols
+of sorrow? Are they opiates obliterating actual suffering, or prophets
+uttering hopeful predictions? Or is it none of these things, and does
+she find her work pleasant only because duty makes its performance
+cheerful labor? I cannot say _what_ it is, but _something_ has assuaged
+her grief; for I see her smiling now, as she holds a rosebud in her
+fingers, and gazes at it abstractedly; and her thoughts and feelings,
+whatever they may be, are indubitably not of a mournful character;--in
+fact, I am sure that she never was happier in her life than she is at
+this moment.
+
+"Happy, do you say?"
+
+Yes, I say happy.
+
+The nature of woman, it is conceded by all men, is a curious,
+interesting, and perplexing, if not, in respect of positive practical
+results, a most unsatisfactory study. But nothing puzzles us so much
+to comprehend as the fact just alluded to. The tenderest female
+constitution will sustain a burden of grief which would crush a robust
+and iron-nerved man, and drive him to despair and suicide. A woman
+rarely succumbs to a calamity; however sudden and overwhelming the
+initial shock may be, she revives and grows cheerful and happy under it
+in a way and to a degree marvellous to behold. What singular secret is
+there among the psychological mysteries of her nature which is able to
+account for this phenomenon?--A gentle, timid girl of sixteen, whom the
+sight of a spider or a live snake would have frightened into hysterics,
+I had once an opportunity, on a tour through Italy, to observe, while
+she took little or no notice of other works of art, would gaze, as if
+fascinated, at the writhings of Laocoön and his sons in the folds and
+fangs of the serpents, at the sculptured death of the Gladiator, and
+even at the ghastly, repulsive pictures of martyrdoms and barbaric
+mutilations and tortures,--the hideous monstrosities of a diseased and
+degraded imagination found in the churches and convents of Rome, which
+made others turn their backs with a shivering of the bones and a
+creeping of the flesh. On expressing surprise at such a singular
+exhibition of taste, I received this innocent, unpremeditated
+reply:--"Why, I don't like them; the sight of them almost freezes my
+blood; but--somehow I do like to look at them, _for I always feel better
+after it_!" Now is there not involved in this artless answer a possible
+explanation of the above-mentioned fact? Has not woman, hidden somewhere
+among her other (of course angelic)--affections, a positive _love_ of
+sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, which man does not possess? Is
+not the pain they cause, in her case, qualified by actual pleasure?
+Do they not act as a stimulus upon her sensitive nervous system, and
+produce, somehow, a _delightfully intoxicated state of the feelings_?
+Would not this explain her otherwise unaccountable fondness for
+witnessing the execution of murderers, for the horrible in novels
+and the deaths and catastrophes in the newspapers, that she has a
+constitutional relish for such horrid things, and that she enjoys them,
+not because they are _in se_ productive of pleasure, but just, as is the
+case with her "crying," _because she feels better after it_? And I think
+it would be found, if an investigation of the subject were instituted,
+that a foreknowledge of this inevitable result, derived from intuition
+or experience, is the agent which breaks up the clouds of her sorrow:
+so that, while the grief of a man stricken down by misfortune is an
+equinoctial storm, dark and dismal, which lasts for weeks and months,
+the grief of woman is a succession of refreshing April showers, each of
+brief duration, and the spaces between them filled with sunshine and
+rainbows.
+
+But the sweets of that widow's present sorrow will be soon extracted.
+How many weeks will she find it a pleasure to make morning visits here
+and plait pretty flowers on the grave of her husband?--The grave in the
+next inclosure furnishes an answer to the question. A few months ago,
+it, too, was tended at sunrise by just such a tearful woman; but now the
+wreaths of evergreen are yellow, and the weeds are springing up among
+the withered garlands. The living partner has visited already the
+"mitigated grief" department of the mourning store, and the severed
+cords of her affections have been spliced and made almost as good as
+new. Not that I would not have it so; not that I believe the grief of
+woman to be less real and sincere than man's, though it _be_ enjoyed;
+not that I would have her thrum a long mournful threnody on the
+harpstrings of her heart, and waste on the dead, who need them not,
+affections which, Heaven knows, the living need too much.
+
+Retracing my steps, and descending the opposite slope of the hill, I
+entered a beautiful vale covered with stately tombs and containing a
+little lake, in the middle of which a fountain was springing high into
+the air. In a spot so much frequented at a later hour of the day only a
+single human being was in sight,--a young man, perhaps five-and-twenty
+years of age, jauntily dressed, and his upper lip adorned with a long
+moustache, who was leaning lazily upon a marble balustrade, and staring,
+with a stupid, vacant look, at the massive monument it surrounded. As
+nothing appeared at the moment more attractive to my eyes, I fixed them
+upon him. No great skill in deciphering human character is required to
+tell his past or foretell his future history, or even to read the few
+poor spent thoughts that flicker in his brain. His father--some city
+merchant--died last year, and left him a man of leisure, with a fortune
+on his hands to spend in idleness and dissipation. This is the first
+anniversary of the old gentleman's decease and departure to another and
+better world, and the hopeful heir of his bank-stock and buildings has,
+as a matter of etiquette, come out here from the city this morning to
+pass an hour of solemn meditation--as he calls the sixty minutes in
+which he does not smoke or swear--by the old man's grave. I observe him
+every moment forming a firm resolution to fix his feeble thoughts upon
+sober things and his latter end, and breaking it the second afterwards:
+the effort is too much for the exhausted condition of his mind, and
+results in a total failure. He is evidently well pleased that any
+attention is directed towards him, and fancies that I regard him as a
+very dutiful son, and his appearance here, so early in the morning
+and long before breakfast, a remarkable example of posthumous filial
+affection. To intensify, if possible, this sentiment in my breast, he
+has just now pulled out a white cambric handkerchief and pretends to be
+wiping tears from his eyes. Poor fellow! you have no natural talent for
+the solemn parts in acting, or you would know that the expression
+which your face now wears is not that of sorrow, solemnity, meekness,
+gentleness, humility, or any other sober Christian grace or virtue. But
+I leave you, for I see something more attractive now. Stand thy hour
+out, young man! we shall meet again.
+
+"In the other world?"
+
+No: to-morrow evening, as I am taking my accustomed walk into the
+country, I shall be wellnigh run over by a swiftly driven team; I shall
+spring suddenly aside, when thou wilt pass, O bogus son of Jehu, with
+thy dog-cart and two-forty span of bays, dashing down the road, thy
+thoughts fixed on horse-flesh instead of eternity, and thy soul bounded,
+north by thy cigar, east and west by the wheels thy vehicle, and south
+by the dumb beasts that drag thee along.
+
+But, not to introduce the reader to more solemn scenes of affliction and
+sorrow which are witnessed here during the first vigil of the day, we
+pass to a later hour. The mourners who come hither in the early morning
+to decorate the graves of the recent dead, and to weep over them
+undisturbed by visitors, have now departed. The sun is already high, the
+dew has disappeared from the trees and the shrubs, and the paths and
+walks and avenues begin to be thronged with loungers and sight-seers
+from the city.
+
+I had stopped at the forks of a lane and was hesitating which branch
+to take and what to do with myself, when a tall and beautiful Willow,
+standing upon a knoll a few rods distant, with thick drooping boughs
+sweeping the ground on every side, beckoned to me. On approaching him,
+he extended a branch, shook me cordially by the hand, and invited me
+to accept the shelter and hospitality of his roof. The proposal so
+generously made was at once accepted with profuse thanks, and, parting
+the boughs, I entered the tent and threw myself upon the soft grass.
+
+Do you ever talk with trees? It is a custom of mine, and I usually find
+their conversation much more entertaining and profitable than that of
+most men I know. "Good morning!" I say to an acquaintance. "Fine day,"
+he replies; "how's business?" And so on for an hour, over themes of
+every nature, the current of conversation rippled with trite truisms,
+and whirling in the surface-eddies of Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy."
+But the tree takes the whole of the Tupperian philosophy for granted at
+the start, and the truisms which most men utter, and takes _you_ for
+granted likewise,--supposing neither half of your eyeballs blind,
+and that you have a soul as well as a body,--and enters at once into
+conversation upon the high table-land of science, reason, and poetry.
+The entire talk of a fashionable tea-party, strained from its lees of
+scandal, filtered through a sober reflection of the following morning,
+is not equal in value to the quivering of a single leaf. A tree will
+discourse with you upon botany, physiology, music, painting, philosophy,
+and a dozen arts and sciences besides, none of which it simply chats
+about, but all of which it _is_: and if you do not understand its
+language and comprehend what it tells you about them, so much the worse
+for you; it is not the fault of the tree.
+
+I say, I talk with trees for this reason,--because their wisdom is so
+much greater than that of my ordinary acquaintances,--and further,
+(to put the major after the minor premise,) because they are virtually
+living beings, endowed with instinct, feeling, reason, and display every
+essential attribute of sentient creatures,--in fact, because they have
+souls as well as men, only they are clothed in vegetable flesh.
+
+"That is transcendental moonshine, and you don't believe a word of it!"
+
+Well, my friend, allow me, then, to tell you, in all charity and with
+bowels of compassion, that you hold dangerous and fatal views respecting
+one of the cardinal doctrines of mythology,--yes, to be plain, you are a
+Joveless infidel, and in fearful danger of being locked out of Elysium;
+and I shall offer up a smoking sacrifice, the next time I get a sirloin,
+and pour out a solemn libation, in the presence of my whole family
+seated around the domestic altar early in the morning, for your speedy
+conversion.
+
+Know, then, O obtuse, faithless, and perverse skeptic, that these
+things are so: that ocular and auricular evidence, indubitable and
+overwhelming, exists, that the arboreal and human natures are in
+substance one. Know that once on a time, as Daphne, the lovely daughter
+of Peneus, was amusing herself with a bow and arrows in a forest of
+Thessaly, she was surprised by a rude musician named Phoebus. Timid and
+bashful, as most young ladies are, she turned and fled as fast as her
+[Greek: skelae] could carry her. After running, closely pursued by the
+eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she
+felt inclined to yield: but wishing to faint in a reputable manner, she
+lifted up her hands and asked the gods to help her. Her call was heard
+in a jiffy, and quicker than you could say, "Presto: change!" she was a
+Laurel-tree, which Phoebus married on the spot. This was the Eve of the
+Laurel family, so that all these trees you meet in the world at present
+must be rational beings, since they are the descendants of the beautiful
+Greek maiden Daphne. And to satisfy you that this is no foolish legend,
+but, on the contrary, a well-authenticated fact, clinched and riveted
+in the boiler-head of historical truth, permit me to assure you,--for I
+have seen it myself,--that in the Villa Borghese, near Rome in Italy,
+is an exact representation of the wonderful incident, cut in Carrara
+marble,--the bark of the Laurel growing over the vanishing girl, and her
+hands and fingers sprouting into branches and leaves,--supposed to
+have been copied from a photograph taken on the spot,--for there is a
+photograph in existence exactly like the marble statue.
+
+We know positively--for we have an equally minute account of the
+transaction--that the Cypress originated in a similar way. And is it
+not reasonable to infer, therefore, though we may not find the facts
+stated in _every_ case, that all trees were created out of men and
+women, their bodies being miraculously clothed in woody tissue? In the
+time of Virgil this was certainly the established orthodox belief; for
+he relates an anecdote, expressing no doubt whatever of its truth, of a
+party of travellers who commenced one day in a forest the indiscriminate
+destruction of some young trees, when their roots forthwith began
+to bleed, and voices proceeded from them, begging to be spared from
+laceration. And, in fact, hundreds of instances, similarly weighty as
+evidence, from equally veracious and trustworthy classic authors, might
+be cited to the point, did time and space permit. But we hasten to the
+other proof of their essential humanity, which I set out with assuming
+as an undoubted fact, and which is already foreshadowed in the adventure
+of the Trojan wanderers just related,--namely, that they possess the
+faculty of speech.
+
+Tasso, the author of a well-known metrical history, states distinctly,
+as you shall see in half a moment, that a tree upon one occasion
+discoursed with Major General Tancred,--
+
+  "Pur tragge alfin la spada e con gran forza
+  Percuote l' alta pianta. Oh, maraviglia!
+  ----quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente
+  Un indistinto gemito dolente,
+  Che poi _distinto in voci_."
+
+And then it goes on to tell the General how it once rejoiced in
+extensive hoops, wore a coal-scuttle on its head, and rubbed its face
+with prepared chalk,--(w-w-w-hy! what _was_ I saying? such a mistake! I
+should say)--was a woman by the name of Clorinda, and is still animated
+and sentient both in trunk and limbs, and that he will presently be
+guilty of murder, if he continues to hack her with his sword.
+
+The celebrated explorer, Sir John Mandeville, relates in the history
+of his discoveries that he heard whole groves of trees talking _to one
+another_. And when we come down to the present day, R.W. Emerson, of
+Concord, asseverates that trees have conversed with him,--that they
+speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, and several other
+languages perfectly,--
+
+  "Mountain speech to Highlanders,
+  Ocean tongues to islanders,"--
+
+and that he himself was on one occasion transformed into a Pine (_Pinus
+rigida_) and talked quite a large volume of philosophy while in that
+condition. Walter Whitman, Esq., author of "Leaves of Grass," relates
+similar personal experience. Tennyson, (Alfred,) now the Laureate of
+England, and upon whom the University of Oxford, a few years ago,
+conferred the title of Doctor of Laws, gives us a long conversation he
+once held with an Oak, reporting the exact words it said to him: they
+are excellent English, and corroborate what I said above respecting the
+wisdom of trees.
+
+If all this evidence, and I might add much more equally conclusive, did
+I think it necessary, does not, O skeptic, convince you of the humanity
+of trees, why, let me say that you hold for true a hundred things not
+based upon half so good testimony as this,--that I have seen juries
+persuaded of facts, and bring in verdicts in accordance with them, not
+nearly so well authenticated as these,--and that I have heard clergymen
+preach sermons two hours long, constructed out of arguments which they
+positively persisted you should regard as decisive, that were, to say
+the least, no _better_ than those here advanced. And now, if these
+things be so, in the words of the great Grecian, John P., _what are you
+going to do about it_?
+
+Trees, like animals, are righteously sacrificed only when required to
+supply our wants. A man does not go out into the fields and mutilate or
+destroy his horses and oxen: let him treat the oaks and the elms with
+the same humanity. I would that enough of the old mythology to which I
+have alluded, and which our fathers called religion, still lived among
+us to awaken a virtuous indignation in our breasts when we witnessed the
+wanton destruction of trees. I once remonstrated with a cruel wretch
+whom I saw engaged in taking the life of some beautiful elms inhabiting
+a piece of pasture-land. He replied, that in the hot days of summer the
+cattle did nothing but lie under them and chew their cud, when they
+should be at work feeding on the grass,--that his oxen did not get fat
+fast enough, nor his cows give as much milk as they should give,--"and
+so," said he, "I'm goin' to fix 'em,"--and down came every one of the
+hospitable old trees. We are not half so humane in our conduct towards
+the inferior races and tribes as the old Romans whom we calumniate with
+the epithet of Pagans. The Roman Senate degraded one of its members for
+putting to death a bird that had taken refuge in his bosom: would not
+the Senate of the United States "look pretty," undertaking such a thing?
+A complete Christian believes not only in the dogmas of the Bible, but
+_also_ in the mythology, or religion of Nature, which teaches us, no
+less than it taught our fathers, to regard wanton cruelty towards any
+vegetable or animal creature which lives in the breath and smile of the
+Creator, as a sin against Heaven.
+
+Having in the above paragraph got into the parson's private preserve,
+as I shall be liable anyhow to an action for trespass, I am tempted to
+commit the additional transgression of poaching, and to give you a
+few extracts from a _sermon_ a friend of mine once delivered. [It was
+addressed to a small congregation of Monothelites in a village "out
+West," just after the annual spring freshet, when half the inhabitants
+of the place were down with the chills and fever. It was his maiden
+effort,--he having just left the Seminary,--and did not "take" at
+all, as he learned the next day, when Deacon Jenners (the pious
+philanthropist of the place) called to tell him that his style of
+preaching "would never do," that his thoughts were altogether of too
+worldly a nature, and his language, decidedly unfit for the sacred
+"desk." Besides,--though he would not assume the responsibility
+of deciding that point before he had consulted with the Standing
+Committee,--he did not think his sentiments exactly orthodox. My friend
+was disgusted on the spot, and, being seized with a chill shortly
+afterwards, concluded not to accept the "call," and, packing his
+trunk, started in quest of a healthier locality and a more enlightened
+congregation.]
+
+"And here permit me to add a word or two for the purpose of correcting a
+very prevalent error.
+
+"Most men, I find, suppose that this earth belongs to them,--to the
+human race alone. It does not,--no more than the United States belong to
+Rhode Island. Human life is not a ten-thousand-millionth of the life on
+the planet, nor the race of men more than an infinitesimal fraction of
+the creatures which it nourishes. A swarm of summer flies on a field of
+clover, or the grasshoppers in a patch of stubble, outnumber the men
+that have lived since Adam. And yet we assume the dignity of lords and
+masters of the globe! Is not this a flagrant delusion of self-conceit?
+Let a pack of hungry wolves surround you here in the forest, and who is
+master? Let a cloud of locusts descend upon a hundred square miles
+of this territory, and what means do you possess to arrest their
+ravages?...
+
+"As a matter of _fact_, then, we do not own the world. And now let
+me say, that, as a matter of _right_, we ought not: man was the last
+created of creatures. When our race appeared on the earth, it had been
+for millions of years in quiet, exclusive, undisputed possession of the
+birds, beasts, fishes, and insects: it was _their_ world then, and we
+were intruders and trespassers upon their domain....
+
+"If, then, the other races have a right to exist on the planet as much
+as we, what follows? Surely, that they have a right to their share and
+proportion of the ground and its fruits, and the blessings of Heaven by
+which life here is sustained: man has no right to expect a monopoly of
+them. If we get a week of sunshine which supplies our wants, we have no
+reason to complain of the succeeding week of rain which supplies the
+wants of other races. If we raise a crop of wheat, and the insect
+foragers take tithes of it, we have no right to find fault: a share of
+it belongs to them. If you plant a field with corn, and the weeds spring
+up also along with it, why do you complain? Have not the weeds as much
+right there as the corn? If you encamp in one of the numberless swamps
+which surround this settlement, and get assailed by countless millions
+of robust mosquitoes, why do you rave and swear (as I know most of you
+would do under such circumstances) and want to know 'what in the ----
+mosquitoes were made for'? Why, to puncture the skin of blockheads and
+blasphemers like you, and suck the last drop of blood from their veins.
+Why, let me ask you, did you go out there? That place belonged to the
+mosquitoes, not to you; and you knew you were trespassing upon their
+land. The mosquitoes exist for themselves, and were created for the
+enjoyment of their own mosquito-life. Why was _man_ created? The Bible
+does not answer the question directly; the divines in the Catechism say,
+'To glorify God.' Now I should like to know if a Westminster Catechism
+of the mosquitoes would'nt make as good an answer for them?
+
+"And here I am just in the act of annihilating with a logical stroke
+a multitude of grumblers and croakers. If this world does not belong
+exclusively to man, and the other races have as much right here as he,
+and, consequently, a claim to their proportion of land, water, and sky,
+and their share of food for the sustenance of life, what follows?
+
+"A great many men, taking northeast storms, bleak winds,
+thunder-showers, flies, mosquitoes, Canada thistles, hot sunshine, cold
+snows, weeds, briers, thorns, wild beasts, snakes, alligators, and such
+like things, which they don't happen to like, and putting them all
+together, attempt to persuade you that this green earth is a complete
+failure, a wreck and blasted ruin. Don't you believe that, for it's
+wicked infidelity. I tell you the world is not all so bad as Indiana,
+and especially that part of the State which you, unfortunately, inhabit.
+I have seen, my friends, a large portion of the planet, and if there is
+another spot anywhere quite so infernal as Wabashville, why, I solemnly
+assure you I never found it.--And now for the point which shall prick
+your conscience and penetrate your understanding! Do the bears and
+wolves, the coons and foxes, the owls and wild-geese, find this region
+unhealthy, and get the chills and fever, and go around grumbling and
+cursing? Don't they find this climate especially salubrious and suited
+exactly to their constitutions? Well, then, that's because they belong
+here, _and you don't_. This region was never intended for the habitation
+of man: it belongs exclusively to the wild beasts and the fowls of the
+air, and you have no business here. [Manifest signs of disapprobation
+on part of Deacon Taylor, an extensive owner of town-lots.] And if you
+persist in remaining here, what moral right have you to complain of
+God?...
+
+"Remember, then, in conclusion, that, for millions of years before our
+race existed, mosquitoes, weeds, briers, thorns, thistles, snow-storms,
+and northeast winds prevailed upon this planet, and that during all this
+time it was pronounced by the Deity himself to be '_very good_.' If,
+then, the earth appears to be evil, is it not because 'thine eye is
+evil'? We share this world, my friends, with other races, whose wants
+are different from ours; and we are all of equal importance in the eyes
+of our Maker, who distributes to each its share of blessings--man and
+monster both alike--with impartial favor. Is not thus the fallacy of the
+corruption of Nature exposed, and the lie against our Creator's wisdom,
+love, and goodness dragged into noonday light?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is time to recommence our rambles through the City of the Dead.
+
+Right here I come across on a tombstone,--"All our children. Emma, aged
+1 mo. 23 days. John, 3 years 5 days. Anna, aged 1 year 1 mo." As a
+physiologist, I might make some very instructive comments upon this; but
+I forbear.
+
+And here, upon another, a few rods farther on, is an epitaph in verse:--
+
+  (FIRST VERSE.)
+
+  "Calm be her slumbers near kindred are sighing,
+  A husband deplores in deep anguish of heart,
+  Beneath the cold earth _unconsciously lying_,
+  No murmur can reach her, no tempest can start."
+
+  (SECOND VERSE.)
+
+  "Calm be her sleep as the silence of even
+  When hearts unto deep invocation give birth.
+  With a prayer she has _knelt at the portal of heaven_
+  And found the admission she hoped for on earth_."
+
+Not to speak of the "poetry" just here, how charmingly consistent with
+each other are the ideas contained in the passages I have italicized! In
+the first verse, you observe, the inmate is sleeping unconscious beneath
+the ground: in the second verse, she has ascended to heaven and
+found admittance to mansions in the skies!--A similar confusion and
+contradiction of ideas occur in most of the epitaphs I see. Does our
+theology furnish us with no clear conception of the state of the soul
+after death? The Catholic Church teaches that the spirit at death
+descends into the interior of the earth to a place called Hades, where
+it is detained until the day of judgment, when it is reunited with the
+dust of the body, and ascends to a heaven in the sky. This doctrine
+has the merit of being positive, clear, and comprehensible, and,
+consequently, whenever expressed, it always means something exact and
+well-defined. Has the Protestant Church equally definite notions on the
+subject, or, in fact, any fixed opinions respecting it whatever? If not,
+why, as a matter of good taste, for no weightier reason, in records
+almost imperishable like these, leave the matter alone! Silence
+is better than nonsense. Suppose a few thousand years hence our
+civilization to have become extinct, and that some antiquary from the
+antipodes should visit this desolate hill to excavate, like Layard at
+Nineveh, for relics of the old Americans. Suppose, having collected a
+ship-load of broken tombstones, he should forward them to the Polynesian
+Museum, and set the _savans_ of the age at work deciphering their
+inscriptions, what sense would be made out of these epitaphs? How would
+they interpret our notions of a future state? Taking our own monuments,
+cut with our own hands, inscribed with our own signs-manual, what would
+they infer our system of religion to have been? If the Egyptians were as
+vague and careless as we in this matter, our archaeologists must have
+made some amusing blunders.
+
+Here are two epitaphs which suggest something else:--
+
+  No. I.
+
+  "I loved him in his beauty,
+  A _mother_ boy while here,
+  I knew he was an angel bright
+  Formed for another sphere."
+
+  No. II.
+
+  "Farewell my wife and children dear
+  God calls you home to rest.
+  Still Angels _wisper_ in my ear
+  We'll meet in heavenly bliss."
+
+I want to make two annotations upon these. In No. 1 you will notice that
+a possessive _'s_ is wanting, and in No. 2 that the _h_ is omitted from
+_whisper_. A marble-cutter told me once, that a Pennsylvania Dutchman
+came to him one day to have an inscription cut upon a gravestone for his
+daughter, whose name was Fanny. The father, upon learning that the price
+of the inscription would be ten cents a letter, insisted that Fanny
+should be spelt with one _n_, as he should thereby save a dime! The
+marble-cutter, unable to overcome the obstinacy of the frugal Teuton,
+and unwilling to set up such a monument of his ignorance of spelling,
+compromised the matter by conforming to the current orthography, and
+inserted the superfluous consonant for nothing. And my second annotation
+shall consist of an inquiry: What is there in corrupt and diseased human
+nature which makes persons prefer such execrable rhyme as that quoted
+above, and that which I find upon two-thirds of the tombstones here, to
+decent English prose, which one would suppose might have been produced
+at a much less expenditure of intellectual effort? But since it is an
+unquestionable fact that we are thus totally depraved in taste and
+feeling, why don't some of our bards, to whom the Muse has not been
+propitious in other departments of metrical composition, and who, to be
+blunt, are good for nothing else, such as ----, or ----, and many
+others you know, come out here among the marble-cutters and open an
+_epitaph-shop_? Mournful stanzas might then be procured of every size
+and pattern, composed with decent reverence for the rules of grammar,
+respect for the feet and limbs of the linear members, and possibly some
+regard for consistency in the ideas they might chance occasionally to
+express. Genin the hatter, and Cockroach Lyon, each keeps a poet. Why
+cannot the marble-cutters procure some of the Heliconian fraternity as
+partners? Bards would thus serve the cause of education, benefit future
+antiquaries, and earn more hard dimes ten times over than they do in
+writing lines for the blank corners of newspapers and the waste spaces
+between articles in magazines. I throw this hint out of the window of
+the "Atlantic," in the fervent hope that it will be seen, picked up,
+and pocketed by some reformer who is now out of business; and I would
+earnestly urge such individual to agitate the question with all his
+might, and wake up the community to the vital importance, by making use
+of "poetic fire" and "inspired frenzy" now going to waste, or some other
+instrumentality, of a reformation in epitaphic necrology.
+
+Seriously, modern epitaphs are a burlesque upon religion, a caricature
+of all things holy, divine, and beautiful, and an outrage upon the
+common sense and culture of the community. A collection of comic
+churchyard poetry might be made in this place which would eclipse the
+productions of Mr. K.N. Pepper, and cause a greater "army of readers to
+explode" than his "Noad to a Whealbarrer" or the "Grek Slaiv" has done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During our rambles among the tombstones the sun has long since passed
+the meridian, and the streets and avenues of the cemetery are crowded
+with carriages and thronged with pedestrians, the tramping of horses'
+feet, the rumbling of wheels, and the voices of men fill the air, and
+the place which was so silent and deserted this morning is now as noisy
+and bustling as the metropolis yonder. And soon begin to arrive thick
+and fast the funeral trains. Many of the black-plumed hearses are
+followed by only a single hired coach or omnibus, others by long trails
+of splendid equipages. Upon the broad slope of a hill, whither the
+greater number of the processions move, entirely destitute of trees
+and flooded with sunshine, many thousand graves, mostly unmarked by
+headstones, lie close together, resembling in appearance a corn-field
+which has been permitted to run to grass unploughed. Standing upon an
+elevated point near the summit, and looking down those acres of hillocks
+to where the busy laborers are engaged in putting bodies into the
+ground, covering them with earth, and rounding the soil over them, one
+is perhaps struck for the first time with the full force, meaning,
+and beauty of the language of Paul in his first letter to the
+Corinthians:--"That which thou sowest is not that body which shall be,
+but bare grain. It [the human body] is sown in corruption, is sown in
+dishonor, is sown in weakness. It is sown a natural body; it is raised
+[or springs up, to complete the figure] a spiritual body. Flesh
+and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."--I once heard a
+distinguished botanist dispute the accuracy of this simile, inasmuch, he
+said, as the seed, when it is sown in the ground, does not _die_, but in
+fact then first begins to _live_ and to display the vital force which
+was previously asleep in it; while the human body decays and is resolved
+into its primitive gaseous, mineral, and vegetable elements, the
+particles of which, disseminated everywhere, and transferred through
+chemical affinities into other and new organisms, lose all traces of
+their former connection.--In answer to such a finical criticism as this,
+intended to invalidate the authority of the great Apostolic Theologian,
+I replied, that Paul was not an inspired _botanist_,--in fact, that
+he probably knew nothing whatever about botany as a science,--but an
+inspired religious teacher, who employed the language of his people and
+the measure of knowledge to which his age had attained, to expound to
+his contemporaries the principles of his Master's religion. I am not
+familiar with the nicer points of strict theological orthodoxy, but,
+from modern sermons and commentaries, I should infer that few doctors
+of even the most straitest school of divinity hold to the doctrine of
+verbal inspiration. That the Prophets and Apostles were acquainted with
+botany, chemistry, geology, or any other modern science, is a notion
+as unfounded in truth as it is hostile and foreign to the object and
+purpose of Revelation, which is strictly confined to religion and
+ethics. Those persons, therefore, (and they are a numerous class,) who
+resort to the Bible, assuming that it professes to be an inspired manual
+of universal knowledge, and then, because they find in its figurative
+Oriental phraseology, or in its metaphors and illustrations, some
+inaccuracies of expression or misstatements of scientific facts, would
+throw discredit upon the essential religious dogmas and doctrines which
+it is its object to state and unfold, are, to say the least, extremely
+disingenuous, if not deficient in understanding.
+
+But a much more prolific source of injury to the character of the Bible
+than that just mentioned is the injudicious and impertinent labors of
+many who volunteer in its defence. "Oh, save me from my friends!" might
+the Prophets and Apostles, each and all, too often exclaim of their
+supporters.--It is said that all men are insane upon some point: so are
+classes and communities. The popular monomania which at present prevails
+among a class of persons whose zeal surpasses their prudence and
+knowledge is a foolish fear and trembling lest the tendencies of science
+should result in the overthrow of the Bible. They seem, somehow, to be
+fully persuaded that the inspired word of God has no inherent power to
+stand alone,--that it has fallen among thieves and robbers,--is being
+pelted with fossil coprolites, suffocated with fire-mist and primitive
+gases, or beaten over the head with the shank-bones of Silurian
+monsters, and is bawling aloud for assistance. Therefore, not stopping
+to dress, they dash out into the public notice without hat or coat, in
+such unclothed intellectual condition as they happen to be in,--in their
+shirt, or stark naked often,--and rush frantically to its aid.
+
+The most melancholy case of this intellectual _delirium tremens_
+that probably ever came under the notice of any reader is found in a
+professed apology for the Scriptures, recently published, under
+the pompous and bombastic title of "COSMOGONY, OR THE MYSTERIES OF
+CREATION."--A volume of such puerile trash, such rubbish, twaddle,
+balderdash, and crazy drivelling[A] as this, was never before vomited
+from the press of any land, and beside it the "REVELATIONS" of Andrew
+Jackson Davis, the "Poughkeepsie Seer," rises to the lofty grandeur of
+the "Novum Organon,"--a sight that makes one who really respects the
+Bible hang his head for shame.
+
+[Footnote A: As the reader may never have seen this unique volume, and
+will be amused by a specimen of its grammar, rhetoric, wisdom, and
+learning, let him take a _morceau_ or two from the commencement of
+a chapter entitled, "_Naturalists.--Their Classification of Man and
+Beasts_."--"We look upon the animal in no different light from that of
+a vegetable, a plant, or a rock-crystal, which forms under the Creative
+hand, performs its part for the use of man, dissolves and reproduces by
+its parts another comfort for him. The animal bears _no resemblance_ to
+man, not even in his brain."--"One tree may bear apples, and another
+acorns, but they are not to be compared, the one as bearing a relation
+to the other, because they have each a body and limbs. They are distinct
+trees, and one will always produce apples and the other acorns, as long
+as they produce anything." (Indeed!)--"The usual classification of
+animals, is that of Vertebrata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata.
+This is not only offensive to man,--_but is impiety towards God_."
+(Why?)--"We are told by these naturalists that man belongs to the class
+called 'Vertebrata.' So does the snake, the monkey, the lizard and
+crocodile, and many other low and mean animals.--Have these creatures
+the reasoning faculties of man? Do they walk erect like man? Have they
+feet, hands, legs, arms, _hair upon their heads, or beards upon their
+faces_? Do they speak languages and _congregate and worship at the
+altar_?" (!!)--"Those who are ambitious of such relations, may plant
+their heraldic coat-of-arms in the serpent, the lizard, the crocodile,
+or the monkey, but we disclaim such relationship--we do not think it
+_good taste or good morals_ to place the fair daughters of Eve on
+a level with horrid and hideous animals, simply from some apparent
+similarity, which we are certain never existed."]
+
+The belligerent pundit who has flung in the face of peaceful geologists
+this octavo _camouflet_ of his scientific lucubrations professes to
+have scoured the surface and ravaged the bottom (in a suit of patent
+sub-marine Scriptural armor) of a no less abysmal subject than the
+cryptology of Genesis,--to have undermined with his sapping intellect
+and blown up with his explosive wisdom the walled secrets of time and
+eternity, carrying away with him in the shape of plunder a whole cargo
+of the plans and purposes of the Omnipotent in the Creation. I have not
+the least doubt, if he were respectfully approached and interrogated
+upon the subject, he would answer with the greatest ease and accuracy
+the famous question with which Dean Swift posed the theological tailor.
+The man who can tell us all about the institution of the law of gravity,
+how the inspired prophet thought and felt while writing his history, and
+who knows everything respecting "affinity and attraction when they
+were in Creation's womb," could not hesitate a moment to measure an
+arch-angel for a pair of breeches.--But I was talking of _funerals_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend once assured me that the heartiest laugh of which he was ever
+guilty on a solemn occasion occurred at a funeral. A trusty Irish
+servant, who had lived with him for many years, and for whom he had
+great affection, died suddenly at his house. As he was attending the
+funeral in the Catholic burial-place, and stood with his wife and
+children listening to the service which the priest was reading, his
+heart filled with grief and his eyes moist with tears, the inscription
+on a gravestone just before him happened to attract his attention. It
+was this_:--"Gloria in Excelsis Deo!_ Patrick Donahoe died July 12.
+18--." Now the exclamation-point after _"Deo"_ and the statement of
+the fact of Mr. D.'s demise following immediately thereafter made the
+epitaph to read, "Glory to God in the highest! Patrick is dead." This,
+which at another time would perhaps have caused no more than a smile,
+struck him as irresistibly funny, and drove in a moment every trace
+of sadness from his face and sorrow from his heart,--to give place to
+violent emotions of another nature, which his utmost exertions could not
+conceal.
+
+["I beg your pardon! I've been afloat," was the graceful parenthetical
+apology which a distinguished naval officer used to make, when by
+mistake he let drop one of "those big words which lie at the bottom of
+the best man's vocabulary," in conversation with sensitive persons whose
+ears he feared it might offend. I ought possibly, at the end of the
+following anecdote, to make some such excuse to the scrupulous reader,
+whose notions of propriety it will perhaps slightly infringe: "I beg
+your pardon! I couldn't help telling it."]
+
+An eminent divine once described to me a scene he witnessed at a
+funeral, which he said nearly caused him to expire with--well, you shall
+see. An intimate acquaintance of his, who belonged to a neighboring
+parish, having died, he was naturally induced to assist at the
+burial-service. The rector of this parish was a man who, though
+sensitive in the extreme to the absurdities of others,--being, in fact,
+a regular son of Momus,--was entirely unconscious of his own amusing
+eccentricities. Among these, numerous and singular, he had the habit
+of suddenly stopping in the middle of a sentence, while preaching, and
+calling out to the sexton, across the church, "Dooke, turn on more gas!"
+or "Dooke, shut that window!" or "Dooke, do"--something else which
+was pretty sure to be wanting itself done during the delivery of his
+discourse. Nearly every Sunday, strangers not acquainted with his ways
+were startled out of their propriety by some such unexpected behavior.
+
+On the occasion referred to, the funeral procession having entered the
+churchyard, and my informant and the officiating clergyman having taken
+their places at the head of the grave, the undertaker and his assistants
+having removed the coffin from the hearse, and the mourners, of whom
+there was a large crowd, having gathered into a circular audience, the
+Reverend Doctor ---- began the service.
+
+"'Man that is born of a woman'--Oh, stop those carriages! don't you see
+where they are going to?" (he suddenly broke out, rushing from the place
+where he stood, frantically, among the bystanders; and then returning to
+his former position, continued,)--"'hath but a short time to live, and
+is full of misery. He cometh up'--Oh, don't let that coffin down
+yet! wait till I tell you to," (addressed to the undertaker, who was
+anticipating the proper place in the service,)--"'and is cut down like a
+flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow,'--Please to hold the umbrella
+a little further over my head," (_sotto voce_ to the man who was
+endeavoring to protect his head from the sun,)-"'and never continueth in
+one stay.'--Hold the umbrella a little higher, will you?" (_sotto voce_
+again to the man holding the umbrella.)--"'In the midst of life we are
+in death.'--Stand down from there, boys, and be quiet!" (addressed to
+some urchins who were crowding and pushing one another about the grave,
+in their efforts to look at the coffin.) At length he had proceeded
+without further interruptions as far as the sentence, "'We therefore
+commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
+dust,'"--when Dooke, the sexton,--a queer, impetuous fellow,--who was
+vainly endeavoring to keep the boys away from the edge of the grave,
+seized suddenly the rope with which the coffin had just been lowered
+down, and, stooping forward, laid it like a whip-lash, "cut!" across the
+shins of a dozen youngsters, making them leap with "Oh! oh! oh!" a
+foot from the ground, and scatter in short order,--"'looking for
+the'"--(turning to my friend, as he witnessed the successful exploit of
+his favorite sexton, and whispering in his ear,) "_Dooke made 'em hop
+that time, didn't he!_--'general resurrection in the last day, and the
+life of the world to come.'"
+
+Dooke's mode of dispersing the boys, and the officiating clergyman's
+comment upon it, parenthesized into the middle of the most solemn
+sentence of the burial-service, were too much for the usual stern
+gravity of my clerical friend, and, under pretence of shedding tears, he
+buried his face in his handkerchief and his handkerchief in his hat and
+shook with laughter.
+
+Speaking of funerals reminds me of a congenial subject.--Nothing in New
+York astonishes visitors from the country so much as the magnificent
+coffin-shops, rivalling, in the ostentatious and tempting display of
+their wares, the most elegant stores on Broadway. Model coffins, of the
+latest style and pattern, are set up on end in long rows and protected
+by splendid show-cases, with the lids removed to exhibit their rich
+satin lining. Fancy coffins, decorated with glittering ornaments, are
+placed seductively in bright plate-glass windows, and put out for
+baiting advertisements upon the side-walks: as much as to say, "Walk in,
+walk in, ladies and gentlemen! Now's your chance! here's your fine, nice
+coffins!"--while in ornamental letters upon extensive placards hung
+about the doors, "IRON COFFINS," "ROSEWOOD COFFINS," "AIR-TIGHT
+COFFINS," "MAHOGANY COFFINS," "PATENT SARCOPHAGI," address the eyes
+and appeal to the purses of the passers-by. And I saw in one of these
+places, the other day, painted on glass and inclosed in an elegant gilt
+frame, "ICE COFFINS," which struck me as queer enough. As though it were
+not sufficiently cool to be dead!
+
+It seems to me, that, in this matter, the undertakers, digging a little
+too deep below the surface of the present age, have thrown out some of
+the mystical and grotesque remains of a very antique religious faith,
+which look as singular just now to the eyes of common people as would an
+Egyptian temple with its sacred Apis in Broadway, or a Sphinx on Boston
+Common. To the eyes of an old Egyptian, no object could be more grateful
+than the sarcophagus in which he was to repose at death. He purchased it
+as early in life as he could raise the means, and displayed it in his
+parlor as an attractive and costly ornament. Indeed, I do not know but
+it was useful as well, and the children kept their playthings in it, or
+the young ladies their knitting-work and embroidery.
+
+Are we not, in this class of our tastes and feelings, becoming rapidly
+Egyptianized? Why, I expect in a year or two to see coffins introduced
+into the parlors of the Fifth Avenue, and to find them, when their
+owners fail or absquatulate, advertised for sale at auction, with the
+rest of the household furniture, at a great sacrifice on the original
+cost.
+
+"--> ONE SUPERB COFFIN OF ELEGANT PATTERN AND SUPERIOR WORKMANSHIP, AS
+GOOD AS NEW. TWO DITTO, SLIGHTLY DAMAGED."
+
+And then the fashion will become popular with the less aristocratic
+portion of the community, and you will see crowds of servant-girls and
+street-loungers around the windows of our magnificent coffin-bazaars,
+and hear from them such exclamations as these: "Oh! do look here,
+Matilda! Wouldn't you like to have such a nice coffin as that?" or,
+"What a dear, sweet sarcophagus that one is there!" or, "Faith, I should
+like to own that air-tight!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the day is now far advanced. The funeral processions have ceased to
+arrive, and the husbandmen, having sown the immortal seed furnished by
+the metropolis, with shovels and empty dinner-pails, are on their way,
+whistling and talking in groups, homeward. The number of loungers and
+sight-seers is rapidly diminishing as the light in the more thickly
+shaded walks becomes dim, and the clock at the gateway indicates the
+near approach of the hour when the portals will be closed.
+
+--Alone with the dead! Alone in the night among tombs and graves! How
+many readers do not at the sight of these words feel an involuntary
+_soupçon_ of a shudder? Would not the cause of this indefinable secret
+dread of the darkness which covers a graveyard be a curious matter
+of inquiry? Let one ever so cultivated and skeptical, familiar as a
+physician or a soldier with the spectacle of death, ever so full of
+mental and physical courage, passing alone late at night through a
+graveyard, hear the least sound among the graves, or see a moving object
+of any kind, especially a white one, and he will instantly feel an
+_alloverishness_ foreign to ordinary experience, and I will not answer
+for him that his hair does not stand on end and his flesh grow rough as
+a nutmeg-grater. A company of three or four persons would feel far less
+disturbed. This proves the emotion to be genuine _fear_. And with this
+recognized as a fact, ask the question, Of what are you afraid? What
+makes your feet stick to the ground so fast, or inspires you to take to
+your legs and run for your life? "A ridiculous, foolish superstition,"
+reason answers.
+
+I do not intend by this to intimate that you, reader, bold and
+courageous person that I know you to be, would not dare to go through a
+graveyard at night. By no means. I only predicate the existence within
+you of this ridiculous, foolish superstition, and maintain that you
+would do so under _all_ circumstances with peculiar feelings which you
+did not possess before you entered it and which you will not possess
+as soon as you have left it, and under _certain_ circumstances with a
+trembling of the nerves and a palpitation of the heart, and that the
+occasion _might_ occur when you would be still _more_ strongly and
+strangely affected. To illustrate the latter case I have an anecdote
+_à-propos_.
+
+A college class-mate, (Poor B----! the shadows of the Pyramids now fall
+upon his early grave!) a young man easily agitated, to be sure, and
+possibly timid, on his way home, late one autumn night, from the
+house of a relative in the country, was hurrying past a dismal old
+burying-yard in the midst of a gloomy wood, when he was suddenly
+startled by a strange noise a short distance from the road. Turning
+his head, alarmed, in the direction whence it proceeded, he was
+horror-struck at seeing through the darkness a white object on the
+ground, struggling as if in the grasp of some terrible monster.
+Instantly the blood froze in his veins; he stood petrified,--the
+howlings of the wind, clanking of chains, and groans of agony, filling
+his ears,--with his eyes fixed in terror upon the white shape rolling
+and plunging and writhing among the tombs. Attempting to run, his feet
+refused to move, and he swooned and fell senseless in the road. A party
+of travellers, happening shortly to pass, stumbled over his body.
+Raising him upon his feet, they succeeded by vigorous shakes in
+restoring him to a state of consciousness.
+
+While explaining to them the cause of his fright, the noise was renewed.
+The men, although somewhat alarmed, clubbed their individual courage,
+climbed the wall, and found--nearly in the centre of the graveyard--_an
+old white horse_ thrown down by his fetters and struggling violently to
+regain his feet.
+
+B---- assured me, the explanation of the spectacle instinctively
+occurring to his mind at the moment as indubitable was that some
+reprobate had just been buried there, and that the Devil, coming for
+his body, was engaged in binding his unwilling limbs, preparatory to
+carrying him away!
+
+The reader may smile at the weakness and folly displayed in this case,
+but the assertion may nevertheless be safely ventured, that there is not
+one person in a hundred who would not under the same circumstances have
+been greatly disturbed, or would have invented a much less frightfully
+absurd solution of the phenomenon than poor B----'s.
+
+I think the singular feelings associated with graveyard darkness, which
+the wisest and bravest of men find slumbering beneath all their courage
+and philosophy, would be found upon investigation to proceed principally
+from two sources,--a constitutional inclination to religious
+superstition, and an acquired educational belief in the reality of the
+dreams and fancies of poets, mingled, of course, with some natural
+cowardice.
+
+The dryest and hardest men have more poetry in them than they or we
+begin to suspect. Indeed, if we could take our individual or collective
+culture to pieces and award to each separate influence its due and just
+share of results, I should not be surprised at finding that the poet had
+done more in the way of fashioning our education than the scientist
+or any other teacher. Milton, to give but a single example, with his
+speculations concerning the Fall,--its effects upon humanity, the brute
+creation, and physical nature,--and his imaginary conflicts between
+the hostile armies of heaven, and his celestial and Satanic
+personifications, has had so much influence in Anglo-Saxon culture, that
+nine-tenths of the people believe, without knowing it, as firmly in
+"Paradise Lost" as in the text of the Bible. The Governor of Texas,
+citing in his proclamation a familiar passage in Shakspeare as emanating
+from the inspired pen of the Psalmist, is not to so great extent
+an example of ignorance as an illustration of the lofty peerage
+instinctively assigned the great dramatist in the ordinary associations
+of our thoughts. This faith in the visionary world of poets is instilled
+into us (and it is for this reason that Rousseau, in his masterly
+work on education, the "Émile," reprobates the custom as promotive of
+superstition) in early infancy by our parents and nurses with their
+stories of nymphs, fairies, elves, dwarfs, giants, witches, hobgoblins,
+and the like fabulous beings, and, as soon as we are able to read, by
+the tales of genii, sorcerers, demons, ghouls, enchanted caves and
+castles, and monsters and monstrosities of every name. The exceedingly
+impressible and poetical nature of children (for all children are poets
+and talk poetry as soon as they can lisp) appropriates and absorbs with
+intense relish these fanciful myths, and for years they believe more
+firmly in their truth than in the realities of the actual world. And I
+more than suspect that this child-credulity rather slumbers in the grown
+man, smothered beneath superimposed skepticisms and cognitions, than is
+ever eradicated from his mind, and thus, upon the shock of an emergency
+disturbing him suddenly to the foundation, is ready to burst up through
+the crevices of his shattered practical experience and appear on the
+surface of his judgment and understanding.
+
+In addition, then, to an instinctive tendency to religious superstition,
+(of which I shall here say nothing,) to the fairy mythology of the
+nursery, and the phantom machinery invented by poets to clothe with the
+semblance of reality their dreams and fancies, can be traced in a great
+measure the existence in the mind of the _credulity_ which renders the
+_fear_ in question possible, opening an introduction for it into the
+heart excited by inexplicable phenomena or circumstanced where such
+phenomena might, according to our superstitious beliefs, easily occur.
+
+Without entering into an analysis of the _fear_ itself, beyond the
+remark that any extraordinary sight or sound not immediately explicable
+by the eye or ear to the understanding (as a steamboat to the Indians or
+a comet to our ancestors) is a legitimate cause of the emotion, as well
+as the _possibility_ of the occurrence of such sights and sounds,
+for believing which we have seen man prepared, first by natural
+superstitious inclination, and secondly by a peculiar education,--I will
+only further add, for the purpose of a brief introduction to an anecdote
+I wish to relate, that there is another fountain of knowledge, from
+which we drink at a later period than childhood, as well as then, whose
+waters are strongly impregnated with this superstitious, fear-provoking
+credulity: I mean the stories of _ghosts_ which have been seen and heard
+in all ages and countries, revealing important secrets, pointing out
+the places where murder has been committed or treasure concealed,
+foretelling deaths and calamities, and forewarning men of impending
+dangers. Hundreds of books familiar to all have been written upon this
+subject and form an extensive department of our literature, especially
+of our older literature.
+
+The philosopher attempts to account for such phenomena by referring them
+to optical illusions or a disordered condition of the brain, making them
+_subjective_ semblances instead of _objective_ realities. But one is
+continually being puzzled and perplexed with evidence contradicting this
+hypothesis, which, upon any other subject _a priori_ credible to the
+reason and judgment, would be received as satisfactory and decisive
+without a moment's hesitation. In truth, with all the light which
+science is able to shed upon it, and all the resolute shutting of the
+eyes at points which no elucidating theory is available to explain,
+there are facts in this department of supernaturalism which stagger the
+unbelief of the stoutest skeptic.
+
+It is constantly urged, among other objections to the credibility
+of supernatural apparitions, that the names of the witnesses have
+singularly and suspiciously disappeared,--that you find them, upon
+investigation, substantiated thus: A very worthy gentleman told another
+very worthy gentleman, who told a very intelligent lady, who told
+somebody else, who told the individual who finally communicated the
+incident to the world. There are, however, as just intimated, instances
+in which such ambiguity is altogether wanting. Among these is one so
+well authenticated by well-known witnesses of undoubted veracity, that,
+having never before been published, I venture to relate it here.
+
+My informant was Professor Tholuck, of Halle University, the most
+eminent living theologian in Germany, and the principal ecclesiarch of
+the Prussian Church. He prefaced the account by assuring me that it
+was received from the lips of De Wette himself, immediately after the
+occurrence,--that De Wette was an intimate personal friend, a plain,
+practical man, of remarkably clear and vigorous intellect, with no more
+poetry and imagination in his nature than just sufficient to keep him
+alive,--in a word, that he would rely upon his coolness of judgment
+and accuracy of observation, under any possible combination of
+circumstances, as confidently as upon those of any man in the world.
+
+Dr. De Wette, the famous German Biblical critic, returning home one
+evening between nine and ten o'clock, was surprised, upon arriving
+opposite the house in which he resided, to see a bright light burning in
+his study. In fact, he was rather more than surprised; for he distinctly
+remembered to have extinguished the candles when he went out, an hour or
+two previously, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, which,
+upon feeling for it, was still there. Pausing a moment to wonder by
+what means and for what purpose any one could have entered the room, he
+perceived the shadow of a person apparently occupied about something in
+a remote corner. Supposing it to be a burglar employed in rifling his
+trunk, he was upon the point of alarming the police, when the man
+advanced to the window, into full view, as if for the purpose of looking
+out into the street. _It was De Wette himself!_--the scholar, author,
+professor,--his height, size, figure, stoop,--his head, his face, his
+features, eyes, mouth, nose, chin, every one,--skullcap, study-gown,
+neck-tie, all, everything: there was no mistaking him, no deception
+whatever: there stood Dr. De Wette in his own library, and he out in
+the street:--why, he must be _somebody else!_ The Doctor instinctively
+grasped his body with his hands, and tried himself with the
+psychological tests of self-consciousness and identity, doubtful, if
+he could believe his senses and black were not white, that he longer
+existed his former self, and stood, perplexed, bewildered, and
+confounded, gazing at his other likeness looking out of the window. Upon
+the person's retiring from the window, which occurred in a few moments,
+De Wette resolved not to dispute the possession of his study with
+the other Doctor before morning, and ringing at the door of a house
+opposite, where an acquaintance resided, he asked permission to remain
+over night.
+
+The chamber occupied by him commanded a full view of the interior of
+his library, and from the window he could see his other self engaged
+in study and meditation, now walking up and down the room, immersed in
+thought, now sitting down at the desk to write, now rising to search
+for a volume among the book-shelves, and imitating in all respects
+the peculiar habits of the great Doctor engaged at work and busy with
+cogitations. At length, when the cathedral clock had finished striking
+through first four and then eleven strokes, as German clocks are wont
+to do an hour before twelve, De Wette Number Two manifested signs of
+retiring to rest,--took out his watch, the identical large gold one the
+other Doctor in the other chamber felt sure was at that moment safe
+in his waistcoat-pocket, and wound it up, removed a portion of his
+clothing, came to the window, closed the curtains, and in a few moments
+the light disappeared. De Wette Number One, waiting a little time until
+convinced that Number Two had disposed himself to sleep, retired also
+his-self to bed, wondering very much what all this could mean.
+
+Rising the next morning, he crossed the street, and passed up-stairs to
+his library. The door was fastened; he applied the key, opened it, and
+entered. No one was there; everything appeared in precisely the same
+condition in which he had left it the evening before,--his pen lying
+upon the paper as he had dropped it on going out, the candles on the
+table and the mantel-piece evidently not having been lighted, the
+window-curtains drawn aside as he had left them; in fine, there was not
+a single trace of any person's having been in the room. "Had he been
+insane the night before? He must have been. He was growing old;
+something was the matter with his eyes or brain; anyhow, he had been
+deceived, and it was very foolish of him to have remained away all
+night." Endeavoring to satisfy his mind with some such reflections
+as these, he remembered he had not yet examined his bed-room. Almost
+ashamed to make the search, now convinced it was all an hallucination of
+the senses, he crossed the narrow passageway and opened the door. He
+was thunderstruck. The ceiling, a lofty, massive brick arch, had fallen
+during the night, filling the room with rubbish and crushing his bed
+into atoms. De Wette the Apparition had saved the life of the great
+German scholar.
+
+Tholuck, who was walking with me in the fields near Halle when relating
+the anecdote, added, upon concluding, "I do not pretend to account
+for the phenomenon; no knowledge, scientific or metaphysical, in my
+possession, is adequate to explain it; but I have no more doubt it
+actually, positively, literally did occur, than I have of the existence
+of the sun _im Himmel da_."
+
+
+
+
+CULTURE.
+
+
+The word of ambition at the present day is Culture. Whilst all the world
+is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture
+corrects the theory of success. A man is the prisoner of his power. A
+topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, a disputant;
+skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces
+these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the
+dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches
+success. For performance Nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the
+performer to get it done,--makes a dropsy or a tympany of him. If she
+wants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs, and any
+excess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some defect
+in a contiguous part.
+
+Our efficiency depends so much on our concentration, that Nature
+usually, in the instances where a marked man is sent into the world,
+overloads him with bias, sacrificing his symmetry to his working power.
+It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect,
+it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances. If she create
+a policeman like Fouché, he is made up of suspicions and of plots to
+circumvent them. "The air," said Fouché, "is full of poniards." The
+physician Sanctorius spent his life in a pair of scales, weighing his
+food. Lord Coke valued Chaucer highly, because the Canon Yeman's Tale
+illustrates the Statute _Hen. V. Chap. 4_, against Alchemy. I saw a man
+who believed the principal mischiefs in the English state were derived
+from the devotion to musical concerts. A freemason, not long since, set
+out to explain to this country, that the principal cause of the success
+of General Washington was the aid he derived from the freemasons.
+
+But, worse than the harping on one string, Nature has secured
+individualism by giving the private person a high conceit of his weight
+in the system. The pest of society is egotists. There are dull and
+bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. 'Tis a disease
+that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions. In the distemper
+known to physicians as _chorea_, the patient sometimes turns round
+and continues to spin slowly on one spot. Is egotism a metaphysical
+varioloid of this malady? The man runs round a ring formed by his own
+talent, falls into an admiration of it, and loses relation to the world.
+It is a tendency in all minds. One of its annoying forms is a craving
+for sympathy. The sufferers parade their miseries, tear the lint from
+their bruises, reveal their indictable crimes, that you may pity them.
+They like sickness, because physical pain will extort some show of
+interest from the bystanders; as we have seen children, who, finding
+themselves of no account when grown people come in, will cough till they
+choke, to draw attention.
+
+This distemper is the scourge of talent,--of artists, inventors, and
+philosophers. Eminent spiritualists shall have an incapacity of putting
+their act or word aloof from them, and seeing it bravely for the nothing
+it is. Beware of the man who says, "I am on the eve of a revelation!" It
+is speedily punished, inasmuch as this habit invites men to humor it,
+and, by treating the patient tenderly, to shut him up in a narrower
+selfism, and exclude him from the great world of God's cheerful fallible
+men and women. Let us rather be insulted, whilst we are insultable.
+Religious literature has eminent examples; and if we run over our
+private list of poets, critics, philanthropists, and philosophers, we
+shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we
+ought to have tapped.
+
+This goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons, that we
+must infer some strong necessity in Nature which it subserves,--such as
+we see in the sexual attraction. The preservation of the species was a
+point of such necessity, that Nature has secured it at all hazards by
+immensely overloading the passion, at the risk of perpetual crime and
+disorder. So egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which
+each individual persists to be what he is.
+
+This individuality is not only not inconsistent with culture, but is the
+basis of it. Every valuable nature is there in its own right; and the
+student we speak to must have a mother-wit invincible by his culture,
+which uses all books, arts, facilities, and elegancies of intercourse,
+but is never subdued and lost in them. He only is a well-made man who
+has a good determination. And the end of culture is, not to destroy
+this,--God forbid!--but to train away all impediment and mixture,
+and leave nothing but pure power. Our student must have a style and
+determination, and be a master in his own specialty. But, having this,
+he must put it behind him. He must have a catholicity, a power to see
+with a free and disengaged look every object. Yet is this private
+interest and self so overcharged, that, if a man seeks a companion
+who can look at objects for their own sake, and without affection
+or self-reference, he will find the fewest who will give him that
+satisfaction; whilst most men are afflicted with a coldness, an
+incuriosity, as soon as any object does not connect with their
+self-love. Though they talk of the object before them, they are thinking
+of themselves, and their vanity is laying little traps for your
+admiration.
+
+But after a man has discovered that there are limits to the interest
+which his private history has for mankind, he still converses with his
+family, or a few companions,--perhaps with half a dozen personalities
+that are famous in his neighborhood. In Boston, the question of life is
+the names of some eight or ten men. Have you seen Mr. Allston, Doctor
+Channing, Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, Mr. Greenough? Have you heard Everett,
+Garrison, Father Taylor, Theodore Parker? Have you talked with Messieurs
+Turbinewheel, Summitlevel, and Lacofrupees? Then you may as well die. In
+New York, the question is of some other eight, or ten, or twenty. Have
+you seen a few lawyers, merchants, and brokers,--two or three scholars,
+two or three capitalists, two or three editors of newspapers? New
+York is a sucked orange. All conversation is at an end, when we have
+discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities, domestic or imported,
+which make up our American existence. Nor do we expect anybody to be
+other than a faint copy of these heroes.
+
+Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men
+together again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating
+and calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confusion
+of insanities would come up! The "causes" to which we have sacrificed,
+Tariff or Democracy, Whiggism or Abolition, Temperance or Socialism,
+would show like roots of bitterness and dragons of wrath: and our
+talents are as mischievous as if each had been seized upon by some bird
+of prey, which had whisked him away from fortune, from truth, from the
+dear society of the poets, some zeal, some bias, and only when he was
+now gray and nerveless was it relaxing its claws, and he awaking to
+sober perceptions.
+
+Culture is the suggestion from certain best thoughts, that a man has a
+range of affinities, through which he can modulate the violence of any
+master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor
+him against himself. Culture redresses his balance, puts him among his
+equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns
+him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.
+
+'Tis not a compliment, but a disparagement, to consult a man only on
+horses, or on steam, or on theatres, or on eating, or on books, and,
+whenever he appears, considerately to turn the conversation to the
+bantling he is known to fondle. In the Norse heaven of our forefathers,
+Thor's house had five hundred and forty floors: and Man's house has five
+hundred and forty floors. His excellence is facility of adaptation,
+and of transition through many related points to wide contrasts and
+extremes. Culture kills his exaggeration, his conceit of his village or
+his city. We must leave our pets at home when we go into the street, and
+meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense. No performance
+is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy
+goods called fine arts and philosophy. In the Norse legend, Allfadir did
+not get a drink of Mimir's spring, (the fountain of wisdom,) until he
+left his eye in pledge. And here is a pedant that cannot unfold his
+wrinkles, nor conceal his wrath at interruption by the best, if their
+conversation do not fit his impertinency,--here is he to afflict us with
+his personalities. 'Tis incident to scholars, that each of them fancies
+he is pointedly odious in his community. Draw him out of this limbo of
+irritability. Cleanse with healthy blood his parchment skin. You restore
+to him his eyes which he left in pledge at Mimir's spring. If you are
+the victim of your doing, who cares what you do? We can spare your
+opera, your gazetteer, your chemic analysis, your history, your
+syllogisms. Your man of genius pays dear for his distinction. His head
+runs up into a spire, and, instead of a healthy man, merry and wise, he
+is some mad dominie. Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has
+points to carry, she carries them. To wade in marshes and sea-margins is
+the destiny of certain birds; and they are so accurately made for this,
+that they are imprisoned in those places. Each animal out of its
+habitat would starve. To the physician, each man, each woman, is an
+amplification of one organ. A soldier, a locksmith, a bank-clerk, and
+a dancer could not exchange functions. And thus we are victims of
+adaptation.
+
+The antidotes against this organic egotism are--the range and variety
+of attractions, as gained by acquaintance with the world, with men of
+merit, with classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons, and
+with the high resources of philosophy, art, and religion: books, travel,
+society, solitude.
+
+The hardiest skeptic, who has seen a horse broken, a pointer trained, or
+who has visited a menagerie, or the exhibition of the Industrious Fleas,
+will not deny the validity of education. "A boy," says Plato, "is the
+most vicious of all wild beasts"; and, in the same spirit, the old
+English poet Gascoigne says, "A boy is better unborn than untaught." The
+city breeds one kind of speech and manners; the back-country a different
+style; the sea another; the army a fourth. We know that an army which
+can be confided in may be formed by discipline,--that by systematic
+discipline all men may be made heroes. Marshal Lannes said to a French
+officer, "Know, Colonel, that none but a poltroon will boast that he
+never was afraid." A great part of courage is the courage of having done
+the thing before. And, in all human action, those faculties will be
+strong which are used. Robert Owen said, "Give me a tiger, and I will
+educate him." 'Tis inhuman to want faith in the power of education,
+since to meliorate is the law of Nature; and men are valued precisely as
+they exert onward or meliorating force. On the other hand, poltroonery
+is the acknowledging an inferiority to be incurable.
+
+Incapacity of melioration is the only mortal distemper. There are people
+who can never understand a trope, or any second or expanded sense given
+to your words, or any humor,--but remain literalists, after hearing the
+music and poetry and rhetoric and wit of seventy or eighty years. They
+are past the help of surgeon or clergy. But even these can understand
+pitchforks and the cry of "Fire!"--and I have noticed in some of this
+class a marked dislike of earthquakes.
+
+Let us make our education brave and preventive. Politics is an
+after-work, a poor patching. We are always a little late. The evil is
+done, the law is passed, and we begin the up-hill agitation for repeal
+of that of which we ought to have prevented the enacting. We shall
+one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our
+root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only
+medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up,--namely, in Education.
+
+Our arts and tools give to him who can handle them much the same
+advantage over the novice as if you extended his life ten, fifty, or a
+hundred years. And I think it the part of good sense to provide every
+fine soul with such culture, that it shall not, at thirty or forty
+years, have to say, "This which I might do is made hopeless through my
+want of weapons."
+
+But it is conceded that much of our training fails of effect,--that all
+success is hazardous and rare,--that a large part of our cost and pains
+is thrown away. Nature takes the matter into her own hands, and, though
+we must not omit any jot of our system, we can seldom be sure that it
+has availed much, or that as much good would not have accrued from a
+different system.
+
+Books, as containing the finest records of human wit, must always enter
+into our notion of culture. The best heads that ever existed, Pericles,
+Plato, Julius Caesar, Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, were well-read,
+universally educated men, and quite too wise to undervalue letters.
+Their opinion has weight, because they had means of knowing the opposite
+opinion. We look that a great man should be a good reader, or in
+proportion to the spontaneous power should be the assimilating power.
+Good criticism is very rare, and always precious. I am always happy to
+meet persons who perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakspeare
+over all other writers. I like people who like Plato. Because this love
+does not consist with self-conceit.
+
+But books are good only as far as a boy is ready for them. He sometimes
+gets ready very slowly. You send your child to the schoolmaster; but
+'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin
+class; but much of his tuition comes on his way to school, from the
+shop-windows. You like the strict rules and the long terms; and he finds
+his best leading in a by-way of his own, and refuses any companions but
+of his choosing. He hates the grammar and _Gradus_, and loves guns,
+fishing-rods, horses, and boats. Well, the boy is right; and you are not
+fit to direct his bringing-up, if your theory leaves out his gymnastic
+training. Archery, cricket, gun and fishing-rod, horse and boat, are all
+educators, liberalizers; and so are dancing, dress, and the street-talk;
+and--provided only the boy has resources, and is of a noble and
+ingenuous strain--these will not serve him less than the books. He
+learns chess, whist, dancing, and theatricals. The father observes that
+another boy has learned algebra and geometry in the same time. But the
+first boy has acquired much more than these poor games along with them.
+He is infatuated for weeks with whist and chess; but presently will find
+out, as you did, that, when he rises from the game too long played, he
+is vacant and forlorn, and despises himself. Thenceforward it takes
+place with other things, and has its due weight in his experience. These
+minor skills and accomplishments--for example, dancing--are tickets of
+admission to the dress-circle of mankind, and the being master of them
+enables the youth to judge intelligently of much on which otherwise he
+would give a pedantic squint. Landor said, "I have suffered more from my
+bad dancing than from all the misfortunes and miseries of my life
+put together." Provided always the boy is teachable, (for we are not
+proposing to make a statue out of punk,) football, cricket, archery,
+swimming, skating, climbing, fencing, riding, are lessons in the art of
+power, which it is his main business to learn,--riding specially, of
+which Lord Herbert of Cherbury said, "A good rider on a good horse is as
+much above himself and others as the world can make him." Besides, the
+gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse constitute, among all who use them,
+secret freemasonries.
+
+They are as if they belonged to one club.
+
+There is also a negative value in these arts. Their chief use to the
+youth is, not amusement, but to be known for what they are, and not to
+remain to him occasions of heartburn. We are full of superstitions. Each
+class fixes its eyes on the advantages it has not: the refined, on rude
+strength; the democrat, on birth and breeding. One of the benefits of a
+college-education is, to show the boy its little avail. I knew a leading
+man in a leading city, who, having set his heart on an education at the
+university and missed it, could never quite feel himself the equal
+of his own brothers who had gone thither. His easy superiority to
+multitudes of professional men could never quite countervail to him this
+imaginary defect. Balls, riding, wine-parties, and billiards pass to a
+poor boy for something fine and romantic, which they are not; and a free
+admission to them on an equal footing, if it were possible, only once or
+twice, would be worth ten times its cost, by undeceiving him.
+
+I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run
+away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run
+back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For
+the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have
+no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious
+things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think there is a
+restlessness in our people which argues want of character. All educated
+Americans, first or last, go to Europe,--perhaps because it is their
+mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An
+eminent teacher of girls said, "The idea of a girl's education is
+whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this
+tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our country-men? One sees very
+well what their fate must be. He that does not fill a place at home
+cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a larger
+crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you have
+not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do you
+suppose there is any country where they do not scald milkpans, and
+swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is
+true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can
+find only so much beauty or worth as he carries.
+
+Of course, for some men travel may be useful. Naturalists, discoverers,
+and sailors are born. Some men are made for couriers, exchangers,
+envoys, missionaries, bearers of despatches, as others are for farmers
+and working-men. And if the man is of a light and social turn, and
+Nature has aimed to make a legged and winged creature, framed for
+locomotion, we must follow her hint, and furnish him with that breeding
+which gives currency as sedulously as with that which gives worth. But
+let us not be pedantic, but allow to travel its full effect. The boy
+grown up on the farm which he has never left is said in the country to
+have had _no chance_, and boys and men of that condition look upon work
+on a railroad or drudgery in a city as opportunity. Poor country-boys of
+Vermont and Connecticut formerly owed what knowledge they had to their
+peddling-trips to the Southern States. California and the Pacific Coast
+are now the university of this class, as Virginia was in old times. "To
+have _some chance_" is their word. And the phrase, "to know the world,"
+or to travel, is synonymous with all men's ideas of advantage and
+superiority. No doubt, to a man of sense travel offers advantages. As
+many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades,
+so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison
+where-from to judge his own. One use of travel is, to recommend the
+books and works of home; (we go to Europe to be Americanized;) and
+another, to find men. For as Nature has put fruits apart in latitudes,
+a new fruit in every degree, so knowledge and fine moral quality she
+lodges in distant men. And thus, of the six or seven teachers whom each
+man wants among his contemporaries, it often happens that one or two of
+them live on the other side of the world.
+
+Moreover, there is in every constitution a certain solstice, when the
+stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required
+some foreign force, some diversion or alternative, to prevent
+stagnation. And, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best. Just
+as a man witnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and,
+meditating on the contingencies of wounds, cancers, lockjaws, rejoices
+in Dr. Jackson's benign discovery, so a man who looks at Paris, at
+Naples, or at London, says, "If I should be driven from my own home,
+here, at least, my thoughts can be consoled by the most prodigal
+amusement and occupation which the human race in ages could contrive and
+accumulate."
+
+Akin to the benefit of foreign travel, the aesthetic value of railroads
+is to unite the advantages of town and country life, neither of which we
+can spare. A man should live in or near a large town, because, let his
+own genius be what it may, it will repel quite as much of agreeable and
+valuable talent as it draws, and, in a city, the total attraction of all
+the citizens is sure to conquer, first or last, every repulsion, and
+drag the most improbable hermit within its walls some day in the
+year. In town he can find the swimming-school, the gymnasium, the
+dancing-master, the shooting-gallery, opera, theatre, and panorama,--the
+chemist's shop, the museum of natural history, the gallery of fine arts,
+the national orators in their turn, foreign travellers, the libraries,
+and his club. In the country he can find solitude and reading, manly
+labor, cheap living, and his old shoes,--moors for game, hills for
+geology, and groves for devotion. Aubrey writes, "I have heard Thomas
+Hobbes say, that, in the Earl of Devon's house, in Derbyshire, there was
+a good library and books enough for him, and his Lordship stored the
+library with what books he thought fit to be bought. But the want
+of good conversation was a very great inconvenience, and, though he
+conceived he could order his thinking as well as another, yet he found
+a great defect. In the country, in long time, for want of good
+conversation, one's understanding and invention contract a moss on them,
+like an old paling in an orchard."
+
+Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the
+nonsense out of a man. A great part of our education is sympathetic and
+social. Boys and girls who have been brought up with well-informed and
+superior people show in their manners an inestimable grace. Fuller says,
+that "William, Earl of Nassau, won a subject from the King of Spain
+every time he put off his hat." You cannot have one well-bred man
+without a whole society of such. They keep each other up to any
+high point. Especially women: it requires a great many cultivated
+women,--saloons of bright, elegant, reading women, accustomed to ease
+and refinement, to spectacles, pictures, sculpture, poetry, and to
+elegant society,--in order that you should have one Madame de Staël.
+The head of a commercial house, or a leading lawyer or politician, is
+brought into daily contact with troops of men from all parts of the
+country,--and those, too, the driving-wheels, the business-men of each
+section,--and one can hardly suggest for an apprehensive man a
+more searching culture. Besides, we must remember the high social
+possibilities of a million of men. The best bribe which London offers
+to-day to the imagination is, that, in such a vast variety of people
+and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic
+character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope
+to confront their counterparts.
+
+I wish cities could teach their best lesson,--of quiet manners. It is
+the foible especially of American youth,--pretension. The mark of the
+man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he
+takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly,
+promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his
+fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil
+tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather
+and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and
+the unlocking of his learning and philosophy. How the imagination is
+piqued by anecdotes of some great man passing incognito, as a king in
+gray clothes!--of Napoleon affecting a plain suit at his glittering
+levee!--of Burns, or Scott, or Beethoven, or Wellington, or Goethe,
+or any container of transcendent power, passing for nobody!--of
+Epaminondas, "who never says anything, but will listen eternally!"--of
+Goethe, who preferred trifling subjects and common expressions in
+intercourse with strangers, worse rather than better clothes, and to
+appear a little more capricious than he was! There are advantages in the
+old hat and box-coat. I have heard, that, throughout this country, a
+certain respect is paid to good broadcloth: but dress makes a little
+restraint; men will not commit themselves. But the box-coat is like
+wine; it unlocks the tongue, and men say what they think. An old poet
+says,--
+
+  "Go far and go sparing;
+  For you'll find it certain,
+  The poorer and the baser you appear,
+  The more you'll look through still."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Beaumont and Fletcher: The Tamer Tamed.]
+
+Not much otherwise Milnes writes, in the "Lay of the Humble":--
+
+  "To me men are for what they are,
+  They wear no masks with me."
+
+'Tis odd that our people should have--not water on the brain,--but
+a little gas there. A shrewd foreigner said of the Americans, that
+"whatever they say has a little the air of a speech." Yet one of the
+traits down in the books, as distinguishing the Anglo-Saxon, is a trick
+of self-disparagement. To be sure, in old, dense countries, among a
+million of good coats, a fine coat comes to be no distinction, and you
+find humorists. In an English party, a man with no marked manners or
+features, with a face like red dough, unexpectedly discloses wit,
+learning, a wide range of topics, and personal familiarity with good men
+in all parts of the world, until you think you have fallen upon some
+illustrious personage. Can it be that the American forest has refreshed
+some weeds of old Pictish barbarism just ready to die out,--the love of
+the scarlet feather, of beads, and tinsel? The Italians are fond of
+red clothes, peacock-plumes, and embroidery; and I remember, one rainy
+morning in the city of Palermo, the street was in a blaze with scarlet
+umbrellas. The English have a plain taste. The equipages of the grandees
+are plain. A gorgeous livery indicates new and awkward city-wealth. Mr.
+Pitt, like Mr. Pym, thought the title of _Mister_ good against any king
+in Europe. They have piqued themselves on governing the whole world in
+the poor, plain, dark committee-room which the House of Commons sat in
+before the fire.
+
+Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found,
+cities degrade us by magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town
+a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the
+horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He
+has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile
+to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and
+disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects
+are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to a cloud of
+insignificant annoyances:--
+
+  "Mirmidons, race féconde,
+  Mirmidons,
+  Enfins nous commandons;
+  Jupiter livre le monde
+  Aux mirmidons, aux mirmidons."[B]
+
+  [Footnote B: Béranger.]
+
+  'Tis heavy odds
+  Against the gods,
+  When they will match with myrmidons.
+  We spawning, spawning myrmidons,
+  Our turn to-day; we take command:
+  Jove gives the globe into the hand
+  Of myrmidons, of myrmidons.
+
+What is odious but noise, and people who scream and bewail?--people
+whose vane points always east, who live to dine, who send for the
+doctor, who raddle themselves, who toast their feet on the register,
+who intrigue to secure a padded chair and a corner out of the draught?
+Suffer them once to begin the enumeration of their infirmities, and the
+sun will go down on the unfinished tale. Let these triflers put us out
+of conceit with petty comforts. To a man at work, the frost is but a
+color; the rain, the wind, he forgot them when he came in. Let us learn
+to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of
+dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.
+Neither will we be driven into a quiddling abstemiousness. 'Tis a
+superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the
+same chemical atoms.
+
+A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants. How can you mind
+diet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the figure you make in
+company, or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think
+how paltry are the machinery and the workers? Wordsworth was praised to
+me, in Westmoreland, for having afforded to his country neighbors an
+example of a modest household, where comfort and culture were secured
+without display. And a tender boy who wears his rusty cap and outgrown
+coat, that he may secure the coveted place in college and the right
+in the library, is educated to some purpose. There is a great deal of
+self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and
+country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that
+keeps the earth sweet,--that saves on superfluities, and spends on
+essentials,--that goes rusty, and educates the boy,--that sells the
+horse, but builds the school,--works early and late, takes two looms in
+the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the
+paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.
+
+We can ill spare the commanding social benefits of cities; they must be
+used,--yet cautiously, and haughtily,--and will yield their best values
+to him who best can do without them. Keep the town for occasions, but
+the habits should be formed to retirement. Solitude, the safeguard of
+mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter
+where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He
+who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling
+with the souls of other men,--from living, breathing, reading, and
+writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning,
+solitude," said Pythagoras,--that Nature may speak to the imagination,
+as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make
+acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to
+serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus,
+Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth did not live in a crowd,
+but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise
+instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul, in the
+disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits
+of solitude. The high advantage of university-life is often the mere
+mechanical one, I may call it, of a separate chamber and fire,--which
+parents will allow the boy without hesitation at Cambridge, but do not
+think needful at home. We say solitude, to mark the character of the
+tone of thought; but if it can be shared between two, or more than two,
+it is happier, and not less noble. "We four," wrote Neander to his
+sacred friends, "will enjoy at Halle the inward blessedness of a
+_civitas Dei_, whose foundations are forever friendship. The more I know
+you, the more I dissatisfy and must dissatisfy all my wonted companions.
+Their very presence stupefies me. The common understanding withdraws
+itself from the one centre of all existence."
+
+Solitude takes off the pressure of present importunities, that more
+catholic and humane relations may appear. The saint and poet seek
+privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of
+culture, to interest the man more in his public than in his private
+quality. Here is a new poem, which elicits a good many comments in
+the journals and in conversation. From these it is easy, at last, to
+eliminate the verdict which readers passed upon it; and that is, in the
+main, unfavorable. The poet, as a craftsman, is interested only in the
+praise accorded to him, and not in the censure, though it be just; and
+the poor little poet hearkens only to that, and rejects the censure, as
+proving incapacity in the critic. But the poet _cultivated_ becomes a
+stockholder in both companies,--say Mr. Curfew,--in the Curfew stock,
+and in the _humanity_ stock; and, in the last, exults as much in the
+demonstration of the unsoundness of Curfew as his interest in the former
+gives him pleasure in the currency of Curfew. For the depreciation of
+his Curfew stock only shows the immense values of the humanity stock.
+As soon as he sides with his critic against himself, with joy, he is a
+cultivated man.
+
+We must have an intellectual quality in all property and in all action,
+or they are nought. I must have children, I must have events, I must
+have a social state and history, or my thinking and speaking want body
+or basis. But to give these accessories any value, I must know them as
+contingent and rather showy possessions, which pass for more to the
+people than to me. We see this abstraction in scholars, as a matter
+of course: but what a charm it adds when observed in practical men!
+Bonaparte, like Caesar, was intellectual, and could look at every object
+for itself, without affection. Though an egotist _à l'outrance_, he
+could criticize a play, a building, a character, on universal grounds,
+and give a just opinion. A man known to us only as a celebrity in
+politics or in trade gains largely in our esteem, if we discover that he
+has some intellectual taste or skill: as when we learn of Lord Fairfax,
+the Long Parliament's general, his passion for antiquarian studies; or
+of the French regicide Carnot, his sublime genius in mathematics; or of
+a living banker, his success in poetry; or of a partisan journalist,
+his devotion to ornithology. So, if, in travelling in the dreary
+wildernesses of Arkansas or Texas, we should observe on the next seat a
+man reading Horace, or Martial, or Calderon, we should wish to hug him.
+In callings that require roughest energy, soldiers, sea-captains, and
+civil engineers sometimes betray a fine insight, if only through a
+certain gentleness when off duty: a good-natured admission that there
+are illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We only
+vary the phrase, not the doctrine, when we say that culture opens the
+sense of beauty. A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and,
+however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be
+said to have arrived at self-possession. I suffer, every day, from the
+want of perception of beauty in people. They do not know the charm with
+which all moments and objects can be embellished,--the charm of manners,
+of self-command, of benevolence. Repose and cheerfulness are the badge
+of the gentleman,--repose in energy. The Greek battle-pieces are calm;
+the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene
+aspect: as we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed. A cheerful,
+intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough; for it
+indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.
+
+When our higher faculties are in activity, we are domesticated,
+and awkwardness and discomfort give place to natural and agreeable
+movements. It is noticed that the consideration of the great periods and
+spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind and an indifference
+to death. The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains,
+appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. Even a high dome,
+and the expansive interior of a cathedral, have a sensible effect
+on manners. I have heard that stiff people lose something of their
+awkwardness under high ceilings and in spacious halls. I think sculpture
+and painting have an effect to teach us manners and abolish hurry.
+
+But, over all, culture must reinforce from higher influx the empirical
+skills of eloquence, or of politics, or of trade and the useful arts.
+There is a certain loftiness of thought and power to marshal and
+adjust particulars, which can come only from an insight of their whole
+connection. The orator who has once seen things in their divine order
+will never quite lose sight of this, and will come to affairs as from a
+higher ground, and, though he will say nothing of philosophy, he will
+have a certain mastery in dealing with them, and an incapableness of
+being dazzled or frighted, which will distinguish his handling from that
+of attorneys and factors. A man who stands on a good footing with the
+heads of parties at Washington reads the rumors of the newspapers and
+the guesses of provincial politicians with a key to the right and
+wrong in each statement, and sees well enough where all this will end.
+Archimedes will look through your Connecticut machine at a glance, and
+judge of its fitness. And much more, a wise man who knows not only what
+Plato, but what Saint John can show him, can easily raise the affair
+he deals with to a certain majesty. Plato says, Pericles owed this
+elevation to the lessons of Anaxagoras. Burke descended from a higher
+sphere when he would influence human affairs. Franklin, Adams,
+Jefferson, Washington, stood on a fine humanity, before which the brawls
+of modern senates are but pot-house politics.
+
+But there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the
+apprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave.
+We must know our friends under ugly masks. The calamities are our
+friends. Ben Jonson specifies in his address to the Muse:--
+
+  "Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill-will,
+  And, reconciled, keep him suspected still,
+  Make him lose all his friends, and, what is worse,
+  Almost all ways to any better course;
+  With me thou leav'st a better Muse than thee,
+  And which thou brought'st me, blessed Poverty."
+
+We wish to learn philosophy by rote, and play at heroism. But the wiser
+God says, Take the shame, the poverty, and the penal solitude that
+belong to truth-speaking. Try the rough water, as well as the smooth.
+Rough water can teach lessons worth knowing. When the state is unquiet,
+personal qualities are more than ever decisive. Fear not a revolution
+which will constrain you to live five years in one. Don't be so tender
+at making an enemy now and then. Be willing to go to Coventry sometimes,
+and let the populace bestow on you their coldest contempts. The finished
+man of the world must eat of every apple once. He must hold his hatreds
+also at arm's length, and not remember spite. He has neither friends nor
+enemies, but values men only as channels of power.
+
+He who aims high must dread an easy home and popular manners. Heaven
+sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as
+the burr that protects the fruit. If there is any great and good thing
+in store for you, it will not come at the first or the second call, nor
+in the shape of fashion, ease, and city drawing-rooms. Popularity is for
+dolls. "Steep and craggy," said Porphyry, "is the path of the gods."
+Open your Marcus Antoninus. In the opinion of the ancients, he was the
+great man who scorned to shine, and who contested the frowns of Fortune.
+They preferred the noble vessel too late for the tide, contending with
+winds and waves, dismantled and unrigged, to her companion borne into
+harbor with colors flying and guns firing. There is none of the social
+goods that may not be purchased too dear, and mere amiableness must not
+take rank with high aims and self-subsistency.
+
+Bettine replies to Goethe's mother, who chides her disregard of
+dress,--"If I cannot do as I have a mind, in our poor Frankfort, I shall
+not carry things far." And the youth must rate at its true mark the
+inconceivable levity of local opinion. The longer we live, the more we
+must endure the elementary existence of men and women: and every brave
+heart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.
+
+"All that class of the severe and restrictive virtues," said Burke, "are
+almost too costly for humanity." Who wishes to be severe? Who wishes
+to resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor and low and
+impolite? and who that dares do it can keep his temper sweet, his frolic
+spirits? The high virtues are not debonair, but have their redress in
+being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring, and the
+tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their
+contemporaries! The measure of a master is his success in bringing all
+men round to his opinion twenty years later.
+
+Let me say here, that culture cannot begin too early. In talking with
+scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of
+boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and
+infinite quality in their esteem. I find, too, that the chance for
+appreciation is much increased by being the son of an appreciator, and
+that these boys who now grow up are caught not only years too late, but
+two or three births too late, to make the best scholars of. And I think
+it a presentable motive to a scholar, that, as, in an old community, a
+well-born proprietor is usually found, after the first heats of youth,
+to be a careful husband, and to feel an habitual desire that the estate
+shall suffer no harm by his administration, but shall be delivered
+down to the next heir in as good condition as he received it,--so,
+a considerate man will reckon himself a subject of that secular
+melioration by which mankind is mollified, cured, and refined, and will
+shun every expenditure of his forces on pleasure or gain, which will
+jeopardize this social and secular accumulation.
+
+The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms,
+and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their
+dwelling-place,--and that the lower perish, as the higher appear. Very
+few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry
+sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped
+organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men.
+Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music
+that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears
+and joy,--if Want with his scourge,--if War with his cannonade,--if
+Christianity with its charity,--if Trade with its money,--if Art with
+its portfolios,--if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of
+space and time, can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on
+the tough chrysalis can break its walls and let the new creature emerge
+erect and free,--make way, and sing paean! The age of the quadruped is
+to go out,--the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in.
+The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be
+organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material. He
+is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.
+The formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if one
+shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature
+to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in
+the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not
+overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and
+gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the hells into
+benefit.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
+
+
+  Between the dark and the daylight,
+  When the night is beginning to lower,
+  Comes a pause in the day's occupations
+  That is known as the Children's Hour.
+
+  I hear in the chamber above me
+  The patter of little feet,
+  The sound of a door that is opened,
+  And voices soft and sweet.
+
+  From my study I see in the lamplight,
+  Descending the broad hall-stair,
+  Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
+  And Edith with golden hair.
+
+  A whisper, and then a silence:
+  Yet I know by their merry eyes
+  They are plotting and planning together
+  To take me by surprise.
+
+  A sudden rush from the stairway,
+  A sudden raid from the hall!
+  By three doors left unguarded
+  They enter my castle wall!
+
+  They climb up into my turret
+  O'er the arms and back of my chair;
+  If I try to escape, they surround me;
+  They seem to be everywhere.
+
+  They almost devour me with kisses,
+  Their arms about me entwine,
+  Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
+  In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
+
+  Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
+  Because you have scaled the wall,
+  Such an old moustache as I am
+  Is not a match for you all?
+
+  I have you fast in my fortress,
+  And will not let you depart,
+  But put you down into the dungeons
+  In the round-tower of my heart.
+
+  And there will I keep you forever,
+  Yes, forever and a day,
+  Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
+  And moulder in dust away!
+
+
+
+
+THREE-MILE CROSS.
+
+
+It seems but yesterday, although more than thirteen years have gone
+by, since I first opened the little garden-gate and walked up the path
+leading to Mary Russell Mitford's cottage at Three-Mile Cross. A friend
+in London had given me his card to the writer of "Our Village," and I
+had promised to call on my way to Oxford, and have a half-hour's chat
+over her geraniums with the charming person whose sketches I had read
+with so much interest in my own country. Her cheerful voice at the
+head of the stairs, telling her little maid to show me the way to her
+sitting-room, sounded very musically, and I often observed in later
+interviews how like a melody her tones always appeared in conversation.
+Once when she read a lyrical poem, not her own, to a group of friends
+assembled at her later residence, in Swallowfield, of which number it
+was my good-fortune to be one, the verses came from her lips like an
+exquisite chant. Her laugh had a ringing sweetness in it, rippling out
+sometimes like a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told
+a comic story, which she often did with infinite tact and grace, she
+joined in with the jollity at the end, her eyes twinkling with delight
+at the pleasure her narrative was always sure to bring. Her enjoyment of
+a joke was something delicious, and when she heard a good thing for
+the first time her exultant mirth was unbounded. As she sat in her
+easy-chair, listening to a Yankee story which interested her, her "Dear
+me! dear me! dear me!" (three times repeated always)
+
+  "Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair."
+
+The sunny summer-day was falling full on her honeysuckles, lilies, and
+roses, when I first saw her face in the snug cottage at Three-Mile
+Cross. As we sat together at the open casement, looking down on the
+flowers that sent up their perfumes to her latticed window like fragrant
+tributes from a fountain of distilled sweet waters, she pointed out,
+among the neighboring farm-houses and villas, the residences of her
+friends, in all of whom she seemed to have the most affectionate
+interest. I noticed, as the village children went by her window, they
+all stopped to bow and curtsy. One curly-headed urchin made bold to take
+off his well-worn cap and wait to be recognized as "little Johnny,"--"no
+great scholar," said the kind-hearted old lady to me, "but a sad rogue
+among our flock of geese. Only yesterday, the young marauder was
+detected by my maid with a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his
+pocket!" While she was thus discoursing of Johnny's peccadilloes, the
+little fellow looked up with a knowing expression, and very soon caught
+in his cap a gingerbread dog, which the old lady threw to him from the
+window. "I wish he loved his book as well as he relishes sweet cake,"
+sighed she, as the boy kicked up his heels and disappeared down the
+lane.
+
+Full of anecdote, her conversation that afternoon ran on in a perpetual
+flow of good-humor, until it was time for me to be on my way toward the
+University City. From that time till she died, our friendship continued,
+and, during other visits to England, I saw her frequently, driving about
+the country with her in her pony-chaise, and spending many happy hours
+under her cottage-roof. She was always the same cheerful spirit,
+enlivening our intercourse with shrewd and pertinent observations and
+reminiscences, some of which it may not be out of place to reproduce
+here. Country life, its scenery and manners, she was never tired of
+depicting; but not infrequently she loved to talk of those celebrities
+in literature and art whom she had known intimately, with a vivacity and
+sweetness of temper never-failing and delightful. I well remember, one
+autumn evening, when half a dozen friends were sitting in her library
+after dinner, talking with her of Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon, then
+lately published, how graphically she described to us the eccentric
+painter, whose genius she was among the fore-most to recognize.
+The flavor of her discourse I cannot reproduce; but I was too much
+interested in what she was saying to forget the main incidents she drew
+for our edification, during those pleasant hours now far away in the
+past.
+
+"I am a terrible forgetter of dates," she used to say, when any one
+asked her of the time when; but for the _manner how_ she was never at a
+loss. "Poor Haydon!" she began. "He was an old friend of mine, and I am
+indebted to Sir William Elford, one of my dear father's correspondents
+during my girlhood, for a suggestion which sent me to look at a picture
+then on exhibition in London, and thus was brought about my knowledge of
+the painter's existence. He, Sir William, had taken a fancy to me, and
+I became his child-correspondent. Few things contribute more to that
+indirect after-education, which is worth all the formal lessons of the
+school-room a thousand times told, than such good-humored condescension
+from a clever man of the world to a girl almost young enough to be his
+granddaughter. I owe much to that correspondence, and, amongst other
+debts, the acquaintance of Haydon. Sir William's own letters were most
+charming,--full of old-fashioned courtesy, of quaint humor, and
+of pleasant and genial criticism on literature and on art. An
+amateur-painter himself, painting interested him particularly, and
+he often spoke much and warmly of the young man from Plymouth, whose
+picture of the 'Judgment of Solomon' was then on exhibition in London.
+'You must see it,' said he, 'even if you come to town on purpose.'"--The
+reader of Haydon's Life will remember that Sir William Elford, in
+conjunction with a Plymouth banker named Tingecombe, ultimately
+purchased the picture. The poor artist was overwhelmed with astonishment
+and joy when he walked into the exhibition-room and read the label,
+"Sold," which had been attached to his picture that morning before
+he arrived. "My first impulse," he says in his Autobiography, "was
+gratitude to God."
+
+"It so happened," continued Miss Mitford, "that I merely passed through
+London that season, and, being detained by some of the thousand and one
+nothings which are so apt to detain women in the great city, I arrived
+at the exhibition, in company with a still younger friend, so near the
+period of closing, that more punctual visitors were moving out, and the
+doorkeeper actually turned us and our money back. I persisted, however,
+assuring him that I only wished to look at one picture, and promising
+not to detain him long. Whether my entreaties would have carried
+the point or not, I cannot tell; but half a crown did; so we stood
+admiringly before the 'Judgment of Solomon.' I am no great judge of
+painting; but that picture impressed me then, as it does now, as
+excellent in composition, in color, and in that great quality of telling
+a story which appeals at once to every mind. Our delight was sincerely
+felt, and most enthusiastically expressed, as we kept gazing at the
+picture, and seemed, unaccountably to us at first, to give much pleasure
+to the only gentleman who had remained in the room,--a young and very
+distinguished-looking person, who had watched with evident amusement our
+negotiation with the doorkeeper. Beyond indicating the best position to
+look at the picture, he had no conversation with us; but I soon surmised
+that we were seeing the painter, as well as his painting; and when, two
+or three years afterwards, a friend took me by appointment to view the
+'Entry into Jerusalem,' Haydon's next great picture, then near its
+completion, I found I had not been mistaken.
+
+"Haydon was, at that period, a remarkable person to look at and listen
+to. Perhaps your American word _bright_ expresses better than any other
+his appearance and manner. His figure, short, slight, elastic, and
+vigorous, looked still more light and youthful from the little
+sailor's-jacket and snowy trousers which formed his painting costume.
+His complexion was clear and healthful. His forehead, broad and
+high, out of all proportion to the lower part of his face, gave an
+unmistakable character of intellect to the finely placed head. Indeed,
+he liked to observe that the gods of the Greek sculptors owed much of
+their elevation to being similarly out of drawing! The lower features
+were terse, succinct, and powerful,--from the bold, decided jaw, to the
+large, firm, ugly, good-humored mouth. His very spectacles aided the
+general expression; they had a look of the man. But how shall I attempt
+to tell you of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid, energetic
+manner, of his quick turns of thought, as he flew on from topic to
+topic, dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas? Slow and quiet
+persons were a good deal startled by this suddenness and mobility. He
+left such people far behind, mentally and bodily. But his talk was so
+rich and varied, so earnest and glowing, his anecdotes so racy, his
+perception of character so shrewd, and the whole tone so spontaneous and
+natural, that the want of repose was rather recalled afterwards than
+felt at the time. The alloy to this charm was a slight coarseness of
+voice and accent, which contrasted somewhat strangely with his constant
+courtesy and high breeding. Perhaps this was characteristic. A defect
+of some sort pervades his pictures. Their great want is equality and
+congruity,--that perfect union of qualities which we call _taste_. His
+apartment, especially at that period when he lived in his painting-room,
+was in itself a study of the most picturesque kind. Besides the great
+picture itself, for which there seemed hardly space between the walls,
+it was crowded with casts, lay figures, arms, tripods, vases, draperies,
+and costumes of all ages, weapons of all nations, books in all tongues.
+These cumbered the floor; whilst around hung smaller pictures, sketches,
+and drawings, replete with originality and force. With chalk he could do
+what he chose. I remember he once drew for me a head of hair with nine
+of his sweeping, vigorous strokes! Among the studies I remarked that
+day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just lost her only
+child,--a most masterly rendering of an unspeakable grief. A sonnet,
+which I could not help writing on this sketch, gave rise to our long
+correspondence, and to a friendship which never flagged. Everybody feels
+that his life, as told by Mr. Taylor, with its terrible catastrophe, is
+a stern lesson to young artists, an awful warning that cannot be set
+aside. Let us not forget that amongst his many faults are qualities
+which hold out a bright example. His devotion to his noble art, his
+conscientious pursuit of every study connected with it, his unwearied
+industry, his love of beauty and of excellence, his warm family
+affection, his patriotism, his courage, and his piety, will not easily
+be surpassed. Thinking of them, let us speak tenderly of the ardent
+spirit whose violence would have been softened by better fortune, and
+who, if more successful, would have been more gentle and more humble."
+
+And so with her vigilant and appreciative eye she saw, and thus in her
+own charming way she talked of the man, whose name, says Taylor, as a
+popularizer of art, stands without a rival among his brethren.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her passion for the Drama continued through life, and to see a friend's
+play would take her up to London when nothing else would tempt her to
+leave her cottage. It was delightful to hear her talk of the old actors,
+many of whom she had known. She loved to describe John Kemble, Mrs.
+Siddons, Miss O'Neill, and Edmund Kean, as they were wont to electrify
+the town. Elliston was a great favorite, and she had as many good things
+to tell of him as Elia ever had. One autumn afternoon she related all
+the circumstances attending the "first play" she ever saw,--which, by
+the way, was a tragedy enacted in a barn somewhere in the little town of
+Alresford, where she was born. The winking candles dividing the stage
+from the audience, she used to say, were winking now in her memory,
+although fifty years had elapsed since her father took her, a child of
+four years, to see "Othello." Her talent at mimicry made her always most
+interesting, when she spoke of Munden and his pleasant absurdities on
+the stage. For Bannister, Johnstone, Fawcett, and Emery she had a most
+exquisite relish, and she said they had made comedy to her a living art
+full of laughter and tears. Her passion for the stage, and overclouded
+prospects for the future, led her in early youth to write a play. She
+had already written a considerable number of verses which had been
+printed, and were honored by being severely castigated by Gifford in the
+"Quarterly."
+
+"I didn't mind the great reviewer's blows at all," she used to say. "My
+poems had been republished in America; and Coleridge had prophesied that
+I should one day write a tragedy."
+
+Talfourd was then, though a young man, a most excellent critic, and lent
+a helping hand to the young authoress. Her anxieties attending the first
+representation of her play at Covent Garden she was always fond of
+relating, and in such a manner that we who listened fell into such
+boisterous merriment with her, that I have known carriages stop in front
+of her window, and their inmates put out anxiously inquiring heads, to
+learn, if possible, what it all meant inside the cottage.
+
+She never forgot "the warm grasp of Mrs. Charles Kemble's hand, when she
+saw her, all life and heartiness, at her house in Soho Square,--or the
+excellent acting of Young and Kemble and Macready, who did everything
+actors could do to secure success for her."
+
+"These are the things," she once wrote, "one thinks of, when sitting
+calm and old by the light of a country fire."
+
+The comic and the grotesque that were mingled up with her first
+experiences of the stage as a dramatic author were inimitably rendered
+by herself, whenever she sat down to relate the story of that visit to
+London for the purpose of bringing out her tragedy. The rehearsals,
+where "the only grave person present was Mr. Liston!--the tragic
+heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in bonnets and thick
+shawls,--the untidy ballet-girls" (there was a dance in "Foscari")
+"walking through their quadrille to the sound of a solitary
+fiddle,"--she was never weary of calling up for the amusement of her
+listeners.
+
+The old dramatists she had grown up to worship,--Shakspeare first, as in
+all loyalty bound, and after him Fletcher. "Affluent, eloquent, royally
+grand," she used to call both Beaumont and Fletcher; and whole scenes
+from favorite plays she knew by heart. Dr. Valpy was her neighbor, he
+being in the days of her youth headmaster of Reading School. A family
+intimacy of long standing had existed between her father's household and
+that of the learned and excellent scholar, so that his well-known taste
+for the English dramatists had no small influence on Doctor Mitford's
+studious daughter. "He helped me also," she said, "to enter into the
+spirit of those mighty masters who dealt forth the stern Tragedies of
+Destiny."
+
+One of the dearest friends of her youth was Miss Porden, (afterwards
+married, as his first wife, to Sir John Franklin,) and at her suggestion
+Miss Mitford wrote "Rienzi." I have heard her say, that, going up
+to London to bring out that play, she saw her old friend, then Mrs.
+Franklin, working a flag for the captain's ship, then about to sail on
+one of his early adventurous voyages. The agitation of parting with
+her husband was too great for her delicate temperament, and before the
+expedition was out of the Channel Mrs. Franklin was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Often and often, when the English lanes were white with blossoms, I
+have sat by her side while her faithful servant guided her low-wheeled
+pony-chaise among the pleasant roads about Reading and Swallowfield.
+Once we went to a cricket-ground together, and as we sat under the
+trees, looking on as the game proceeded, she, who fell in love with
+Nature when a child, and had studied the landscape till she knew
+familiarly every flower and leaf that grows on English soil, assembled
+all that was best in poesy from her memory to illustrate the beautiful
+scene before us, and to prove how much better and more truly the great
+end of existence is answered in a rural life than in the vexatious cares
+of city occupation. As we sat looking at the vast lawn, magnificent in
+its green apparel, she quoted Irving as one who had understood English
+country-life perhaps more deeply and fully than any other foreign author
+who had ever written.
+
+Speaking, one day, of the slowness of poetical fame, she said,--
+
+"It always takes ten years to make a poetical reputation in England; but
+America is wiser and bolder, and dares say at once, '_This is fine!_'"
+
+She rejoiced greatly in several of the American poets, and was never
+weary of quoting certain ringing couplets which she has celebrated in
+her "Notes of a Literary Life." "Is there anything under the sun," she
+exclaims, "that Dr. Holmes cannot paint?"
+
+During the last six years of her life she became a great invalid and
+moved about only with severe pain. "It is not age," she said, "that has
+thus prostrated me, but the hard work and increasing anxieties of thirty
+years of authorship, during which my poor labors were all that my dear
+father and mother had to look to; besides which, for the greater part of
+that time I was constantly called upon to attend the sick bed, first of
+one parent, and then of the other. I have only to be intensely thankful
+that the power of exertion did not fail until the necessity for such
+exertion was removed."
+
+"I love poetry and people as well at sixty as I did at sixteen," she
+said one day, when I gave her a new volume by an American friend, "and
+can never be sufficiently grateful to God for having permitted me to
+retain the two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy." The
+"Ballad of Cassandra Southwick" she esteemed as one of the finest things
+of our time; and of "Astrea" she said,--"Nobody in England can write
+the glorious resonant metre of Dryden like that strain, nowadays."
+
+Pope was a great favorite with her, and she took me one morning to an
+old house where he was a frequent guest, and where Arabella Fermor, the
+heroine of the "Rape of the Lock," passed her married life. On the way
+she often quoted the poet, whose works she seemed to know by heart.
+Returning at sunset, she was very anxious that I should hear my first
+nightingale among the woody lanes of her pretty country; but we were
+both disappointed. We listened long, but, although the air was full of
+birdsongs that evening, the sweet-voiced warbler was not of the choir.
+She talked much, as we rode along, of Kingsley and Ruskin, both of whom
+she loved as friends as well as authors. "John Ruskin," she said, "is
+good and kind, and charming beyond the common lot of mortals, and there
+are pages of his prose, to my thinking, more eloquent than any thing out
+of Jeremy Taylor."
+
+Speaking of Humor, she said,--"Between ourselves, I always have a little
+doubt of genius, when there is none of that quality: certainly, in the
+very highest poetry, the two go together."
+
+She greatly admired Béranger, and often spoke of him as the beautiful
+old man, the truest and best type of perfect independence. Hazlitt she
+ranked highly as an essayist, and she mentioned that she had heard both
+Charles Lamb and Talfourd praise him as not only the most brilliant, but
+the soundest of critics.
+
+Among modern romances, those by the author of "The Scarlet Letter"
+seemed to impress her almost more than any others; and when "The House
+of the Seven Gables" was translated into Russian, she was filled with
+delight. Indeed, she was always among the first to cry, "Bravo!" over
+any good words for American literature.
+
+"Do coax Mr. Hawthorne and Dr. Holmes," she said one day, "into visiting
+England. I want them to be welcomed as they deserve, and as they are
+sure to be."
+
+Her interest in the French Emperor's career amounted to enthusiasm, and
+one day she told us a very pretty story about him which she knew to
+be true. She said, when he was in England after Strasbourg and before
+Boulogne, he spent a twelvemonth at Leamington, living in the quietest
+manner. One of the principal persons in that town, Mr. H., a very
+liberal and accomplished man, made a point of showing every attention in
+his power to the Prince; and they very soon became intimate. There
+was in the town an old officer of the Emperor's Polish Legion, who,
+compelled to leave France after Waterloo, had taken refuge in England,
+and, having a natural talent for languages, maintained himself by
+teaching French, Italian, and German in different families. The old
+exile and the young one found each other out, and the language-master
+was soon an habitual guest at the Prince's table, where he was treated
+with the most affectionate attention. At last Louis Napoleon was obliged
+to repair to London, but before he went he called on his friend Mr. H.
+to take leave. After warm thanks to him for all the pleasure he had
+experienced in his society, the Prince said,--
+
+"I am about to prove to you my entire reliance upon your unfailing
+kindness by leaving you a legacy. I wish to ask that you would transfer
+to my poor old friend the goodness you have lavished on me. His health
+is failing,--his means are small; pray, call upon him sometimes, and see
+that the lodging-house people do not neglect him. Draw upon me for what
+may be wanting for his needs or for his comforts."
+
+Mr. H. promised, and faithfully replaced the Prince in his kind
+attentions to his old friend. The poor old man grew ill at last, and
+died, Mr. H. defraying all the charges of his illness and of his
+funeral. "I would willingly have paid them myself," said he, "but I knew
+that would have offended and grieved the Prince. I found that provision
+had been made at his banker's to answer my drafts to a much larger
+amount than the actual debt."
+
+Miss Mitford used to say that she kept this anecdote for non-admirers of
+the Emperor.
+
+One day she came limping into the room, with her dog Fanchon following
+in the same lame plight,--she laughing heartily at their similarity of
+gait, and holding up a letter just in from the post.
+
+"Here," said she, "is an epistle from my dear old friend, Lady M.,"
+(Gibbon's correspondent,) "who at the age of eighty-three is caught
+by new books, and is as enthusiastic as a girl. She commissions me to
+inquire of you all about your new authoress, the writer of 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin,' who she is, and all you know of her. So let me hear what you
+have to say about the lady."
+
+During a brief visit to her cottage not long before she died, the chase
+was started one evening to find, if possible, the origin of the line
+quoted by Byron,--
+
+"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."
+
+In vain we searched among the poets, and at last all the party gave up
+in despair. I went up to London soon after, thinking no more of the lost
+line. In a few days, however, came a brief note, as follows:--
+
+"Hurrah, dear friend! I have found the line without any other person's
+aid or suggestion! Last night it occurred to me that it was in some
+prologue or epilogue; and my little book-room being very rich in the
+drama, I have looked through many hundreds of those bits of rhyme, and
+at last made a discovery, which, if it have no other good effect, will
+at least have 'emptied my head of Corsica,' as Johnson said to Boswell;
+for never was the great biographer more haunted by the thought of Paoli
+than I by that line. It occurs in an epilogue by Garrick, on quitting
+the stage, June, 1776, when the performance was for the benefit of sick
+and aged actors.
+
+"Not finding it quoted in Johnson convinced me that it would probably
+have been written after the publication of the Dictionary, and
+ultimately guided me to the right place. It is singular that epilogues
+were just dismissed at the first representation of one of my plays,
+'Foscari,' and prologues at another, 'Rienzi.'
+
+"Ever most affectionately yours,
+
+"M.R. MITFORD.
+
+"P.S. I am still a close prisoner in my room. But when fine weather
+comes, I will get down in some way or other, and trust myself to that
+which never hurts anybody, the honest open air. Spring, and even the
+approach of spring, sets me dreaming. I see leafy hedges in my sleep,
+and flowery banks, and then I long to make the vision a reality.
+I remember that my dog Flush, Fanchon's father, who was a famous
+sporting-dog, used, at the approach of the covering season, to hunt in
+his sleep, doubtless by the same instinct that works in me. So, as soon
+as the sun tells the same story with the primroses, I shall make a
+descent after some fashion, and, no doubt, aided by Sam's stalwart arm,
+successfully."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After leaving Three-Mile Cross for Swallowfield, her health, never of
+late years robust, seemed failing. In one of her letters to me she gives
+this pleasant picture of her home:--
+
+"Ill as I am, my spirits are as good as ever; and just at this moment I
+am most comfortably seated under the acacia-tree at the corner of the
+house,--the beautiful acacia literally loaded with its snowy chains. The
+flowering-trees this summer, the lilacs, laburnums, and rhododendrons,
+have been one mass of blossoms, but none are so graceful as this
+waving acacia. On one side is a syringa, smelling and looking like an
+orange-tree,--a jar of roses on the table before me,--fresh gathered
+roses,--the pride of my gardener's heart. Little Fanchon is at my
+feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with which I am trying to tempt
+her,--biscuits from Boston, sent to me by kind Mrs. S., and which
+Fanchon ought to like; but you know her laziness of old, and she
+improves in it every day."
+
+It was about this period that Walter Savage Landor sent to her these
+exquisite lines:--
+
+  "The hay is carried; and the Hours
+  Snatch, as they pass, the linden-flowers;
+  And children leap to pluck a spray
+  Bent earthward, and then run away.
+  Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves,
+  About whose frocks the fragrant leaves,
+  Sticking and fluttering here and there,
+  No false nor faltering witness bear.
+
+  "I never view such scenes as these
+  In grassy meadow girt with trees,
+  But comes a thought of her who now
+  Sits with serenely patient brow
+  Amid deep sufferings: none hath told
+  More pleasant tales to young and old.
+  Fondest was she of Father Thames,
+  But rambled to Hellenic streams;
+  Nor even there could any tell
+  The country's purer charms so well
+  As Mary Mitford.
+
+  "Verse! go forth
+  And breathe o'er gentle hearts her worth.
+  Needless the task: but should she see
+  One hearty wish from you and me,
+  A moment's pain it may assuage,--
+  A rose-leaf on the couch of Age."
+
+In the early days of the year 1855 she sent, in her own handwriting,
+kind greetings to her old friends only a few hours before she died.
+Sweetness of temper and brightness of mind, her never-failing
+characteristics, accompanied her to the last; and she passed on in her
+usual cheerful and affectionate mood, her sympathies uncontracted by
+age, narrow fortune, and pain.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR.
+
+
+The two meeting-houses which faced each other like a pair of
+fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other for a
+considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been dyspeptic and
+low-spirited of late, and was too languid for controversy. The Reverend
+Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with his benevolent associations,
+and had discoursed chiefly on practical matters, to the neglect of
+special doctrinal subjects. His senior deacon ventured to say to him
+that some of his people required to be reminded of the great fundamental
+doctrine of the worthlessness of all human efforts and motives. Some of
+them were altogether too much pleased with the success of the Temperance
+Society and the Association for the Relief of the Poor. There was a
+pestilent heresy about, concerning the satisfaction to be derived from
+a good conscience,--as if anybody ever did anything which was not to be
+hated, loathed, despised, and condemned.
+
+The old minister listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his
+deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had
+gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon his
+first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great deal of
+hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state which is so
+common in good ministers,--that, namely, in which they contrive to
+switch off their logical faculties on the narrow side-track of their
+technical dogmas, while the great freight-train of their substantial
+human qualities keeps in the main highway of common-sense, in which
+kindly souls are always found by all who approach them by their human
+side.
+
+The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, paternal interest: it was
+well argued from his premises. Here and there he dashed his pen through
+a harsh expression. Now and then he added an explanation or qualified
+a broad statement. But his mind was on the logical side-track, and he
+followed the chain of reasoning without fairly perceiving where it would
+lead him, if he carried it into real life.
+
+He was just touching up the final proposition, when his granddaughter,
+Letty, once before referred to, came into the room with her smiling face
+and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia Forrester was a city-bred
+girl of some fifteen or sixteen years old, who was passing the summer
+with her grandfather for the sake of country air and quiet. It was a
+sensible arrangement; for, having the promise of figuring as a belle
+by-and-by, and being a little given to dancing, and having a voice which
+drew a pretty dense circle around the piano when she sat down to play
+and sing, it was hard to keep her from being carried into society before
+her time, by the mere force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had
+some quiet as well as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass
+two or three of the summer months in the country, where she was much
+better bestowed than she would have been at one of those watering-places
+where so many half-formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice of
+self-consciousness.
+
+Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a young
+girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic pattern
+which is the classical type of certain excellent young females, often
+the subjects of biographical memoirs. But the old minister was proud of
+his granddaughter for all that. She was so full of life, so graceful, so
+generous, so vivacious, so ready always to do all she could for him and
+for everybody, so perfectly frank in her avowed delight in the pleasures
+which this miserable world offered her in the shape of natural beauty,
+of poetry, of music, of companionship, of books, of cheerful cooperation
+in the tasks of those about her, that the Reverend Doctor could not
+find it in his heart to condemn her because she was deficient in those
+particular graces and that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes
+noticed in feeble young persons suffering from various chronic diseases
+which impaired their vivacity and removed them from the range of
+temptation.
+
+When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study,
+he glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her,
+it flashed across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and
+unnatural about the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking at,
+with his features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. Technically,
+according to the fifth proposition of the sermon on Human Nature, very
+bad, no doubt. Practically, according to the fact before him, a very
+pretty piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and soul. Was it not a
+conceivable thing that the divine grace might show itself in different
+forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, and in that poor thing he had
+visited yesterday, half-grown, half-colored, in bed for the last year
+with hip-disease? Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl,
+with life throbbing all over her, _could_, without a miracle, be good
+according to the invalid pattern and formula?
+
+And yet there were mysteries in human nature which pointed to some
+tremendous perversion of its tendencies,--to some profound, radical vice
+of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as you will have it, but
+positive, at any rate, as the leprosy, breaking out in the blood of
+races, guard them ever so carefully. Did he not know the case of a young
+lady in Rockland, daughter of one of the first families in the place,
+a very beautiful and noble creature to look at, for whose bringing-up
+nothing had been spared,--a girl who had had governesses to teach her at
+the house, who had been indulged almost too kindly,--a girl whose father
+had given himself up to her, he being himself a pure and high-souled
+man?--and yet this girl was accused in whispers of having been on the
+very verge of committing a fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all
+who knew the dark hints which had been let fall about her, and there
+were some that believed--Why, what was this but an instance of the total
+obliquity and degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it
+be owing, but to an innate organic tendency?
+
+"Busy, grandpapa?" said Letty, and without waiting for an answer
+kissed his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little
+function,--fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a
+finish of pretty dimples, the rosebud lips of girlhood's June.
+
+The old gentleman looked at his granddaughter. Nature swelled up from
+his heart in a wave that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle to his
+eye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as we are winding up a
+string of propositions with the grand conclusion which is the statement
+in brief of all that has gone before: our own starting-point, into which
+we have been trying to back our reader or listener as one backs a horse
+into the shafts.
+
+"_Video meliora, proboque_,--I see the better, and approve it;
+_deteriora sequor_,--I follow after the worse: 'tis that natural
+dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted
+selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of"--
+
+Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty.
+
+"Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a poor
+old black woman wants to see you so much!"
+
+The good minister was as kind-hearted as if he had never groped in the
+dust and ashes of those cruel old abstractions which have killed out so
+much of the world's life and happiness, "With the heart man believeth
+unto righteousness"; a man's love is the measure of his fitness for good
+or bad company here or elsewhere. Men are tattooed with their special
+beliefs like so many South-Sea Islanders; but a real human heart, with
+Divine love in it, beats with the same glow under all the patterns of
+all earth's thousand tribes!
+
+The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and laid the Quarto Cruden on
+it. He rose from his desk, and, looking once more at the young girl's
+face, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to himself that she was
+a little angel,--which was in violent contradiction to the leading
+doctrine of his sermon on Human Nature. And so he followed her out of
+the study into the wide entry of the old-fashioned country-house.
+
+An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble visitors
+waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy. She was old, but how
+old it would be very hard to guess. She might be seventy. She might be
+ninety. One could not swear she was not a hundred. Black women remain at
+a stationary age (to the eyes of _white_ people, at least) for thirty
+years. They do not appear to change during this period any more than
+so many Trenton trilobites. Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long
+upper-lip, projecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, long
+arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers,
+it was impossible not to see in this old creature a hint of the
+gradations by which life climbs up through the lower natures to the
+highest human developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because
+we do not understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own.
+No doubt they see a great deal in each other's faces that we
+cannot,--changes of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and
+sudden betrayals of feeling,--just as these two canaries know what
+their single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that
+variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals.
+
+This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her
+class. Old as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing. She wore a
+red-and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of
+gold in her ears, and beads of gold about her neck, and an old funeral
+ring upon her finger. She had that touching stillness about her which
+belongs to animals that wait to be spoken to and then look up with a
+kind of sad humility.
+
+"Why, Sophy!" said the good minister, "is this you?"
+
+She looked up with the still expression on her face. "It's old Sophy,"
+she said.
+
+"Why," said the Doctor, "I did not believe you could walk so far as this
+to save the Union. Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine's good for
+old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or preaching a
+good while."
+
+The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the
+great pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each
+communion-service was brought to the minister's house. With much toil
+she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled. The
+minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers.
+
+"I wan' to see you 'n' talk wi' you all alone," she said presently.
+
+The minister got up and led the way towards his study. "To be sure," he
+said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked her
+into the library. The young girl took her gently by the arm, and helped
+her feeble steps along the passage. When they reached the study, she
+smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old woman sit
+down in it. Then she tripped lightly away, and left her alone with the
+minister.
+
+Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend Doctor Honeywood's church.
+She had been put through the necessary confessions in a tolerably
+satisfactory manner. To be sure, as her grandfather had been a cannibal
+chief, according to the common story, and, at any rate, a terrible wild
+savage, and as her mother retained to the last some of the prejudices
+of her early education, there was a heathen flavor in her Christianity,
+which had often scandalized the elder of the minister's two deacons.
+But the good minister had smoothed matters over: had explained that
+allowances were to be made for those who had been long sitting without
+the gate of Zion,--that, no doubt, a part of the curse which descended
+to the children of Ham consisted in "having the understanding darkened,"
+as well as the skin,--and so had brought his suspicious senior deacon to
+tolerate old Sophy as one of the communion of fellow-sinners.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+----Poor things! How little we know the simple notions with which these
+rudiments of souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness! Did not Mrs.
+Professor come home this very blessed morning with a story of one of her
+old black women?
+
+"And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?"
+
+"Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head all the time." (What
+doctors call _tinnitus aurium_.)
+
+"She's got a cold in the head," said old Mrs. Rider.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear! Whatever I'm thinking about, it's all this singing,
+this music. When I'm thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all turns into
+this singing and music. When the clark came to see me, I asked him if
+he couldn't cure me, and he said, No,--it was the Holy Spirit in me,
+singing to me; and all the time I hear this beautiful music, and it's
+the Holy Spirit a-singing to me."----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The good man waited for Sophy to speak; but she did not open her lips as
+yet.
+
+"I hope you are not troubled in mind or body," he said to her at length,
+finding she did not speak.
+
+The poor old woman took out a white handkerchief, and lifted it to her
+black face. She could not say a word for her tears and sobs.
+
+The minister would have consoled her; he was used to tears, and could in
+most cases withstand their contagion manfully; but something choked his
+voice suddenly, and when he called upon it, he got no answer, but a
+tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than silence.
+
+At last she spoke.
+
+"Oh, no, no, no! It's my poor girl, my darling, my beauty, my baby,
+that's grown up to be a woman; she will come to a bad end; she will do
+something that will make them kill her or shut her up all her life. Oh,
+Doctor, Doctor, save her, pray for her! It a'n't her fault. It a'n't
+her fault. If they knew all that I know, they wouldn't blame that poor
+child. I must tell you, Doctor: if I should die, perhaps nobody else
+would tell you. Massa Venner can't talk about it. Doctor Kittredge won't
+talk about it. Nobody but old Sophy to tell you, Doctor; and old Sophy
+can't die without telling you."
+
+The kind minister soothed the poor old soul with those gentle, quieting
+tones which had carried peace and comfort to so many chambers of
+sickness and sorrow, to so many hearts overburdened by the trials laid
+upon them.
+
+Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and proceeded to tell her
+story. She told it in the low half-whisper which is the natural voice
+of lips oppressed with grief and fears; with quick glances around the
+apartment from time to time, as if she dreaded lest the dim portraits on
+the walls and the dark folios on the shelves might overhear her words.
+
+It was not one of those conversations which a third person can report
+minutely, unless by that miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers
+of stories made out of authors' brains. Yet its main character can be
+imparted in a much briefer space than the old black woman took to give
+all its details.
+
+She went far back to the time when Dudley Venner was born,--she being
+then a middle-aged woman. The heir and hope of a family which had been
+narrowing down as if doomed to extinction, he had been surrounded with
+every care and trained by the best education he could have in New
+England. He had left college, and was studying the profession which
+gentlemen of leisure most affect, when he fell in love with a young girl
+left in the world almost alone, as he was. The old woman told the story
+of his young love and his joyous bridal with a tenderness which had
+something more, even, than her family sympathies to account for it. Had
+she not hanging over her bed a small paper-cutting of a profile--jet
+black, but not blacker than the face it represented--of one who would
+have been her own husband in the small years of this century, if the
+vessel in which he went to sea, like Jamie in the ballad, had not sailed
+away and never come back to land? Had she not her bits of furniture
+stowed away which had been got ready for her own wedding,--_two_
+rocking-chairs, one worn with long use, one kept for him so long that it
+had grown a superstition with her never to sit in it,--and might he not
+come back yet, after all? Had she not her chest of linen ready for her
+humble house-keeping, with store of serviceable huckaback and piles of
+neatly folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed so white against
+her black face was taken, for that she knew her eyes would betray her in
+"the presence"?
+
+All the first part of the story the old woman told tenderly, and yet
+dwelling upon every incident with a loving pleasure. How happy this
+young couple had been, what plans and projects of improvement they had
+formed, how they lived in each other, always together, so young and
+fresh and beautiful as she remembered them in that one early summer when
+they walked arm in arm through the wilderness of roses that ran riot in
+the garden,--she told of this as loath to leave it and come to the woe
+that lay beneath.
+
+She told the whole story;--shall I repeat it? Not now. If, in the
+course of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, _it tells
+itself_, perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of producing a
+painful impression on some of those susceptible readers whom it would be
+ill-advised to disturb or excite, when they rather require to be amused
+and soothed. In our pictures of life, we must show the flowering-out of
+terrible growths which have their roots deep, deep underground. Just
+how far we shall lay bare the unseemly roots themselves is a matter of
+discretion and taste, in which none of us are infallible.
+
+The old woman told the whole story of Elsie, of her birth, of her
+peculiarities of person and disposition, of the passionate fears and
+hopes with which her father had watched the course of her development.
+She recounted all her strange ways, from the hour when she first tried
+to crawl across the carpet, and her father shrank from her with an
+involuntary shudder as she worked her way towards him. With the memory
+of Juliet's nurse she told the story of her teething, and how, the woman
+to whose breast she had clung dying suddenly about that time, they
+had to struggle hard with the child before she would learn the
+accomplishment of feeding with a spoon. And so of her fierce plays and
+fiercer disputes with that boy who had been her companion, and the whole
+scene of the quarrel when she struck him with those sharp white teeth,
+frightening her, old Sophy, almost to death; for, as she said, the boy
+would have died, if it hadn't been for the old Doctor's galloping over
+as fast as he could gallop and burning the places right out of his arm.
+Then came the story of that other incident, sufficiently alluded to
+already, which had produced such an ecstasy of fright and left such a
+nightmare of apprehension in the household. And so the old woman came
+down to this present time. That boy she never loved nor trusted was
+grown to a dark, dangerous-looking man, and he was under their roof. He
+wanted to marry our poor Elsie, and Elsie hated him, and sometimes she
+would look at him over her shoulder just as she used to look at that
+woman she hated; and she, old Sophy, couldn't sleep for thinking she
+should hear a scream from the white chamber some night and find him in
+spasms such as that woman came so near dying with. And then there was
+something about Elsie she did not know what to make of: she would sit
+and hang her head sometimes, and look as if she were dreaming; and she
+brought home books they said a young gentleman up at the great school
+lent her; and once she heard her whisper in her sleep, and she talked as
+young girls do to themselves when they're thinking about somebody they
+have a liking for and think nobody knows it.
+
+She finished her long story at last. The minister had listened to it in
+perfect silence. He sat still even when she had done speaking,--still,
+and lost in thought. It was a very awkward matter for him to have a hand
+in. Old Sophy was his parishioner, but the Venners had a pew in the
+Reverend Mr. Fairweather's meeting-house. It would seem that he, Mr.
+Fairweather, was the natural adviser of the parties most interested. Had
+he sense and spirit enough to deal with such people? Was there enough
+capital of humanity in his somewhat limited nature to furnish sympathy
+and unshrinking service for his friends in an emergency? or was he too
+busy with his own attacks of spiritual neuralgia, and too much occupied
+with taking account of stock of his own thin-blooded offences, to forget
+himself and his personal interests on the small scale and the large,
+and run a risk of his life, if need were, at any rate give himself up
+without reserve to the dangerous task of guiding and counselling these
+distressed and imperilled fellow-creatures?
+
+The good minister thought the best thing to do would be to call and talk
+over some of these matters with Brother Fairweather,--for so he would
+call him at times, especially if his senior deacon were not within
+earshot. Having settled this point, he comforted Sophy with a few words
+of counsel and a promise of coming to see her very soon. He then called
+his man to put the old white horse into the chaise and drive Sophy back
+to the mansion-house.
+
+When the Doctor sat down to his sermon again, it looked very differently
+from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. When he came to
+think of it, he did not feel quite so sure _practically_ about that
+matter of the utter natural selfishness of everybody. There was Letty,
+now, seemed to take a very unselfish interest in that old black woman,
+and indeed in poor people generally; perhaps it would not be too much to
+say that she was always thinking of other people. He thought he had
+seen other young persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others; it
+seemed to be a family trait in some he had known.
+
+But most of all he was exercised about this poor girl whose story Sophy
+had been telling. If what the old woman believed was true,--and it
+had too much semblance of probability,--what became of his theory of
+ingrained moral obliquity applied to such a case? If by the visitation
+of God a person receives any injury which impairs the intellect or the
+moral perceptions, is it not monstrous to judge such a person by our
+common working standards of right and wrong? Certainly, everybody will
+answer, in cases where there is a palpable organic change brought about,
+as when a blow on the head produces insanity. Fools! How long will it be
+before we shall learn that for every wound which betrays itself to the
+sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple,
+each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy
+told and believed was the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing
+enough, what tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost,
+blighted, hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom
+as perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of humanity shared
+with her?
+
+The minister thought these matters over until his mind was bewildered
+with doubts and tossed to and fro on that stormy deep of thought heaving
+forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas. He laid by his old sermon.
+He put back a pile of old commentators with their eyes and mouths and
+hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then he opened the book of
+Genesis at the eighteenth chapter and read that remarkable argument
+of Abraham's with his Maker, in which he boldly appeals to first
+principles. He took as his text, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth
+do right?" and began to write his sermon, afterwards so famous,--"On the
+Obligations of an Infinite Creator to a Finite Creature."
+
+It astonished the good people, who had been accustomed so long to repeat
+mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to hear their
+worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of the old
+Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with reference to
+his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to his Maker, and
+a great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if he had yielded the
+whole matter, and pretended that men had not rights as well as duties.
+The same logic which had carried him to certain conclusions with
+reference to human nature, this same irresistible logic carried him
+straight on from his text until he arrived at those other results, which
+not only astonished his people, as was said, but surprised himself. He
+went so far in defence of the rights of man, that he put his foot into
+several heresies, for which men had been burned so often, it was time,
+if ever it could be, to acknowledge the demonstration of the _argumentum
+ad ignem_. He did not believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did
+not believe a new-born infant was morally answerable for other people's
+acts. He thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to
+account for not walking erect. He thought, if the crook was in his
+brain, instead of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any
+consequence of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might
+call it. He argued, that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, body,
+and disposition, and had perfect teaching from infancy, that person
+could do nothing more than keep the moral law perfectly. But supposing
+that the Creator allows a person to be born with an hereditary or
+ingrafted organic tendency, and then puts this person into the hands of
+teachers incompetent or positively bad, is not what is called _sin_ or
+transgression of the law necessarily involved in the premises? Is not
+a Creator bound to guard his children against the ruin which inherited
+ignorance might entail on them? Would it be fair for a parent to put
+into a child's hands the title-deeds to all its future possessions, and
+a bunch of matches? And are not men children, nay, babes, in the eye of
+Omniscience?--The minister grew bold in his questions. Had not he as
+good right to ask questions as Abraham?
+
+This was the dangerous vein of speculation in which the Reverend Doctor
+Honeywood found himself involved, as a consequence of the suggestions
+forced upon him by old Sophy's communication. The truth was, the good
+man had got so humanized by mixing up with other people in various
+benevolent schemes, that, the very moment he could escape from his old
+scholastic abstractions, he took the side of humanity instinctively,
+just as the Father of the Faithful did,--all honor be to the noble old
+Patriarch for insisting on the worth of an honest man, and making the
+best terms he could for a very ill-conditioned metropolis, which might
+possibly, however, have contained ten righteous people, for whose sake
+it should be spared!
+
+The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and seemingly
+self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and cane and went
+forth to call on his heretical brother. The old minister took it for
+granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew the private history of
+his parishioner's family. He did not reflect that there are griefs
+men _never_ put into words,--that there are fears which must not be
+spoken,--intimate matters of consciousness which must be carried, as
+bullets that have been driven deep into the living tissues are sometimes
+carried, for a whole life-time,--_encysted_ griefs, if we may borrow the
+chirurgeon's term, never to be reached, never to be seen, never to be
+thrown out, but to go into the dust with the frame that bore them about
+with it, during long years of anguish, known only to the sufferer and
+his Maker. Dudley Venner had talked with his minister about this child
+of his. But he had talked cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy,
+looking out for those indications of tact and judgment which would
+warrant him in some partial communication, at least, of the origin of
+his doubts and fears, and never finding them.
+
+There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which repressed
+all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this something was,
+Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it distinctly, and it sealed
+his lips. He never got beyond certain generalities connected with
+education and religious instruction. The minister could not help
+discovering, however, that there were difficulties connected with this
+girl's management, and he heard enough outside of the family to convince
+him that she had manifested tendencies, from an early age, at variance
+with the theoretical opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in
+a dim way of holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the
+human being.
+
+About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs began
+to cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around its
+nucleus. Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, had it not
+been for the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every Sunday, on his
+way to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of worshippers, swarming into the
+pews like bees, filling all the aisles, running over at the door like
+berries heaped too full in the measure,--some kneeling on the steps,
+some standing on the side-walk, hats off, heads down, lips moving, some
+looking on devoutly from the other side of the street! Oh, could he
+have followed his own Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that
+steaming throng, and bowed his head while the priests intoned their
+Latin prayers! could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and
+felt that he was in the great ark which holds the better half of the
+Christian world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some
+struggling against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected
+rafts, and some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out
+the flood which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon their own
+private, individual life-preservers!
+
+Such was the present state of mind of the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather,
+when his clerical brother called upon him to talk over the questions to
+which old Sophy had called his attention.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIRWEATHER.
+
+
+For the last few months, while all these various matters were going on
+in Rockland, the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with the
+records of ancient councils and the writings of the early fathers. The
+more he read, the more discontented he became with the platform upon
+which he and his people were standing. They and he were clearly in
+a minority, and his deep inward longing to be with the majority was
+growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned especially towards the
+good old unquestioning, authoritative Mother Church, with her articles
+of faith which took away the necessity for private judgment, with her
+traditional forms and ceremonies, and her whole apparatus of stimulants
+and anodynes.
+
+About this time he procured a breviary and kept it in his desk under
+the loose papers. He sent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a small
+crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He ordered his new coat to be
+cut very narrow in the collar and to be made single-breasted. He began
+an informal series of religious conversations with Miss O'Brien, the
+young person of Irish extraction already referred to as Bridget, maid
+of all work. These not proving very satisfactory, he managed to fall in
+with Father McShane, the Catholic priest of the Rockland church. Father
+McShane encouraged his nibble very scientifically. It would be such
+a fine thing to bring over one of those Protestant heretics, and a
+"liberal" one too!--not that there was any real difference between
+them, but it sounded better to say that one of these rationalizing
+free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert than any of those
+half-way Protestants who were the slaves of catechisms instead of
+councils and of commentators instead of popes. The subtle priest played
+his disciple with his finest tackle. It was hardly necessary: when
+anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a bare hook and a coarse line
+are all that is needed.
+
+If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty,
+if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And
+the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a
+heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice
+which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life
+we shirk it by forming _habits_, which take the place of
+self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of
+much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters
+there are great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist
+ready with his bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be
+at peace. The more absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the
+temptation becomes to those who have been long tossed among doubts and
+conflicts.
+
+So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the great
+ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the hulks
+and the razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. They rock
+peacefully as children in their cradles on the subdued swell that comes
+feebly in over the bar at the harbor's mouth, slowly crusting with
+barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if they really wanted to be
+free, but better contented to remain bound as they are. For these no
+more the round unwalled horizon of the open sea, the joyous breeze
+aloft, the furrow, the foam, the sparkle that track the rushing keel!
+They have escaped the dangers of the wave, and lie still henceforth,
+evermore. Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief
+beatitude!
+
+America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But
+political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still
+mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was
+born to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right
+of self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its
+intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of its liberty to
+a spiritual dictatorship which always proves to rest, in the last
+analysis, on _a majority vote_, nothing more nor less, commonly an old
+one, passed in those barbarous times when men cursed and murdered each
+other for differences of opinion, and of course were not in a condition
+to settle the beliefs of a comparatively civilized community.
+
+In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. We forget that weakness
+is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may call for our
+most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate infirmity. Who of us
+does not look with great tenderness on the young chieftain in the "Fair
+Maid of Perth," when he confesses his want of courage? All of us love
+companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much. All of us
+are more or less imaginative in our theology. Some of us may find the
+aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a necessity. The boldest
+thinker may have his moments of languor and discouragement, when he
+feels as if he could willingly exchange faiths with the old beldame
+crossing herself at the cathedral-door,--nay, that, if he could drop
+all coherent thought, and lie in the flowery meadow with the brown-eyed
+solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to the sky, and all their simple
+consciousness staining itself blue, then down to the grass, and life
+turning to a mere greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,--no
+individual mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great
+calm cattle-sense of all time and all places that know the milky smell
+of herds,--if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven
+home by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient
+Babylon. Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those
+who leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek
+non-combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions. Age, illness,
+too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us to
+this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our own
+individuality against every human combination, let as not forget to
+caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice which is
+criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge. God
+help him over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the sad
+supplication, _Requiescat in pace_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study-door called his eyes
+from the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if expecting a
+welcome guest.
+
+The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., entered the study of the
+Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr.
+Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer,
+and pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a paper
+lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and welcomed,
+a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor.
+
+"Good evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a
+very cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of those
+eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear."
+
+"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a languid
+tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which belonged to
+it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and then, and which
+says as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am a suffering
+individual. I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and imposed upon by
+mankind and the powers of the universe generally. But I endure all. I
+endure _you_. Speak. I listen. It is a burden to me, but I even approve.
+I sacrifice myself. Behold this movement of my lips! It is a smile."
+
+The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of Mr. Fairweather's, and was
+not troubled by it. He proceeded to relate the circumstances of his
+visit from the old black woman, and the fear she was in about the young
+girl, who being a parishioner of Mr. Fairweather's, he had thought it
+best to come over and speak to him about old Sophy's fears and fancies.
+
+In telling the old woman's story, he alluded only vaguely to those
+peculiar circumstances to which she had attributed so much importance,
+taking it for granted that the other minister must be familiar with
+the whole series of incidents she had related. The old minister was
+mistaken, as we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had been settled in
+the place only about ten years, and, if he had heard a strange hint now
+and then about Elsie, had never considered it as anything more than
+idle and ignorant, if not malicious, village-gossip. All that he fully
+understood was that this had been a perverse and unmanageable child, and
+that the extraordinary care which had been bestowed on her had been so
+far thrown away that she was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all
+feared and almost all shunned, as if she carried with her some malignant
+influence.
+
+He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, that Elsie had always
+given trouble. There seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about
+her. Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. Never amenable to good
+influences. Had sent her good books from the Sunday-school library.
+Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of one of them, and kept
+it, and flung the book out of the window. It was a picture of Eve's
+temptation; and he recollected her saying that Eve was a good
+woman,--and she'd have done just so, if she'd been there. A very sad
+child,--very sad; bad from infancy.--He had talked himself bold, and
+said all at once,--
+
+"Doctor, do you know I am almost ready to accept your doctrine of the
+congenital sinfulness of human nature? I am afraid that is the only
+thing which goes to the bottom of the difficulty."
+
+The old minister's face did not open as approvingly as Mr. Fairweather
+had expected.
+
+"Why, yes,--well,--many find comfort in it,--I believe;--there is much
+to be said,--there are many bad people,--and bad children,--I can't
+be so sure about bad babies,--though they cry very malignantly at
+times,--especially if they have the stomach-ache. But I really don't
+know how to condemn this poor Elsie; she may have impulses that act
+in her like instincts in the lower animals, and so not come under the
+bearing of our ordinary rules of judgment."
+
+"But this depraved tendency, Doctor,--this unaccountable perverseness.
+My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right about human nature.
+Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in iniquity,' and the rest!
+What are we to do with them,--we who teach that the soul of a child is
+an unstained white tablet?"
+
+"King David was very subject to fits of humility, and much given to
+self-reproaches," said the Doctor, in a rather dry way. "We owe you and
+your friends a good deal for calling attention to the natural graces,
+which, after all, may, perhaps, be considered as another form of
+manifestation of the divine influence. Some of our writers have pressed
+rather too hard on the tendencies of the human soul toward evil as such.
+It may be questioned whether these views have not interfered with the
+sound training of certain young persons, sons of clergymen and others.
+I am nearer of your mind about the possibility of educating children so
+that they shall become good Christians without any violent transition.
+That is what I should hope for from bringing them up 'in the nurture and
+admonition of the Lord.'"
+
+The younger minister looked puzzled, but presently answered,--
+
+"Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but,
+after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at the
+root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about many
+young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like genuine
+goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward your view,
+that these human affections, as we see them in our children,--ours, I
+say, though I have not the fearful responsibility of training any of my
+own,--are only a kind of disguised and sinful selfishness."
+
+The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart had been softened by
+the sweet influences of children and grandchildren. He thought of
+a half-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the fine, brave,
+noble-hearted boy he laid in it thirty years before,--the sweet,
+cheerful child who had made his home all sunshine until the day when he
+was brought home, his long curls dripping, his fresh lips purpled in
+death,--foolish dear little blessed creature to throw himself into the
+deep water to save the drowning boy, who clung about him and carried him
+under! Disguised selfishness! And his granddaughter too, whose disguised
+selfishness was the light of his household!
+
+"Don't call it my view!" he said, "Abstractly, perhaps, all Nature may
+be considered vitiated; but practically, as I see it in life, the divine
+grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from infancy in many
+natures. Besides, this perversion itself may often be disease, bad
+habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary misfortune, as
+with this Elsie we were talking about."
+
+The younger minister was completely mystified. At every step he made
+towards the Doctor's recognized theological position, the Doctor took
+just one step towards his. They would cross each other soon at this
+rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once
+wished they would, it may be remembered.
+
+The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally
+puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored
+to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly
+influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His
+sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished.
+Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his own
+spiritual interests.
+
+A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather rose
+and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught something,
+which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with a string of
+beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian features of Father
+McShane presented themselves, and from their centre proceeded the
+clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, _Pax vobiscum!_
+
+The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his disciple
+together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_Autobiographical Recollections_. By the late CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE,
+R.A. Edited, with a Prefatory Essay on Leslie as an Artist, and
+Selections from his Correspondence, by TOM TAYLOR, Esq., Editor of the
+"Autobiography of Haydon." With Portrait. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+1860. pp. lviii., 363.
+
+Those who remember the excellent judgment with which Mr. Taylor selected
+his material for the Autobiography of Haydon from the papers left by
+that artist need not be told that this work is executed with spirit and
+discrimination. It is a delicate task to publish just so much of the
+letters and reminiscences of a man lately dead as shall consist with
+good taste and gentlemanly feeling, to discriminate between legitimate
+anecdote and what at second-hand becomes tale-bearing gossip, and not to
+break faith with the dead by indiscreet confidences about the living.
+If the dead have any privilege, it ought to be that of holding their
+tongues; yet an unseemly fashion has prevailed lately of making
+them gabble for years in Diaries, Remains, Correspondences, and
+Recollections, perpetuating in a solid telltale record all they may
+have said and written thoughtlessly or in a momentary pet, giving to a
+fleeting whim the printed permanence of a settled opinion, and robbing
+the grave of what is sometimes its only consoling attribute, the dignity
+of reserve. We know of no more unsavory calling than this, unless it be
+that of the Egyptian dealers in mummy, peddling out their grandfathers
+to be ground into pigment. Obsequious to the last moment, the jackal
+makes haste to fill his belly from the ribs of his late lion almost
+before he is cold.
+
+Mr. Taylor is too manly and well-bred to be guilty of any indiscretions,
+much more of any indecencies. He let Haydon tell his own story, nor
+assumed the function of a judge. And wisely, as we think; for, commonly,
+when men take it upon themselves uncalled, their inability to conceive
+the special weakness that is not theirs, (and which, perhaps, was but
+the negative of a strength equally alien to them.) their humanly narrow
+and often professionally back-attic view of character and circumstance,
+their easy after-dinner superiority to what was perhaps a loathing
+compromise with famine and the jail, fit them rather for the office of
+_advocatus diaboli_ than of the justice which must be all-seeing that it
+may be charitable. It is so hard to see that a sin is sometimes but a
+thwarted and misdirected virtue! When Burns sighed that "the light that
+led astray was light from Heaven," he was but unconsciously repeating
+what a poet who of all men least needed the apology had said centuries
+before.
+
+We do not admit, that, because a man has published a volume or a
+picture, he has published himself, excommunicated his soul from the
+sanctuary of privacy, and made his life as common as a tavern-threshold
+to every blockhead in the parish,--or that any Pharisee who kept
+carefully to windward of his virtues, out of the way of infection, has
+thereby earned the right to mismoralize his failings after he is dumbly
+defenceless. The moral compasses that are too short for the aberration
+may be, must be, unequal to the orbit. We would not deny that Burns was
+a chamberer and a drunkard because he was a great poet; but we would not
+admit that whiskey and wenches made him any the less the most richly
+endowed genius of his century, with just title to the love and
+admiration of men. It is not for us to decide whether he, who, by
+doubling the suggestive and associative power of any thought, fancy,
+feeling, or natural object, has so far added permanently to the sum of
+human happiness, is not as sure of a welcome and a well-done from the
+Infinite Fatherliness as he that has turned an honest penny by printing
+a catechism; but we are sure that it is a shallow cant which holds up
+the errors of men of genius as if they were especial warnings, and
+proofs of how little the rarest gifts avail. Is it intended to put men
+on their guard against being geniuses? That is scarcely called for till
+those who yield to the temptation become more numerous. Do they mean,
+We, too, might have been geniuses, but we chose rather to be good and
+dull? Self-denial is always praiseworthy, and we reconcile ourselves to
+the Ovid lost in consideration of the Deacon gained. But if it be meant
+that the danger was in the genius, we deny it altogether. Burns's genius
+was the one good thing he had, and it was always, as it always must be,
+good, and only good, the leaven of uncontaminate heaven in him that
+would not let him sink contentedly into the sty of oblivion with the
+million other tipplers and loose-livers of his century. It was his
+weakness of character, and not his strength or pride of intellect, that
+betrayed him; and to call his faults errors of genius is a mischievous
+fallacy. If they were, then they were no lesson for the rest of us; if
+they were not, to call them so is to encourage certain gin-and-water
+philosophers who would fain extenuate their unpleasant vices by the plea
+that they are the necessary complement of unusual powers,--as if the
+path to immortality were through the kennel, and fine verses were to be
+written only at the painful sacrifice of bilking your washerwoman.
+
+We are over-fond of drawing monitory morals from the lives of gifted
+persons, tacking together our little ten-by-twelve pinfolds to impound
+breachy human nature in, but it is only because we know more than we
+have any business to know of the private concerns of such persons
+that we have the opportunity. We are thankful that the character of
+Shakspeare is wrapped safely away from us in un-Boswellable night.
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge the man stood forever in the way of Samuel
+Taylor Coleridge the poet and metaphysician, and the fault of the
+poppy-juice in his nature is laid at the door of the laudanum he bought
+of the apothecary. Yet all the drowsy juices of Circe's garden could not
+hinder De Quincey from writing his twenty-five volumes. To us nothing is
+more painful, and nothing seems more cruelly useless, than the parading
+of mortal weaknesses, especially of those to whom we are indebted
+for delight and teaching. For an inherent weakness has no lesson of
+avoidance in it, being helpless from the first, and by the doom of its
+own nature growing more and more helpless to the last, not more so in
+the example than in him who is to profit by it, and who is more likely
+to have his appetite flattered by good company than his fear aroused by
+the evil consequence. Because the swans have a vile habit of over-eating
+themselves, shall we nail them to the barn-door as a moral lesson to the
+crows?
+
+There is, doubtless, a great deal to be taught by biography; but it is
+by the mistakes of men that we learn, and not by their weaknesses. To
+see clearly an error of judgment and its consequences may be of positive
+service to us in the conduct of life, while a vice of temperament
+concerns us not at all in private men, and only so far in statesmen
+and rulers as it may have been influential in history as a modifier of
+action, or is essential to an understanding of it as an explainer of
+motive.
+
+The Autobiography of Leslie seems to us in some sort the complement
+of Haydon's, and throws the defiant struggle of that remarkable
+self-portraiture into stronger relief by the contrast of its equable
+good-fortune and fireside tranquillity. The causes of the wide
+difference in the course and the result of these two lives are on the
+surface and are instructive. Comparing the two men at the outset, we
+should have said that all the chances were on Haydon's side. If he had
+not genius, he had at least the temperament and external characteristics
+that go along with it. He had what is sometimes wanting to it in its
+more purely aesthetic manifestation, the ambition that spurs and the
+unflagging energy that seemed a guerdon of unlimited achievement.
+Yet the ambition fermented into love of notoriety and soured into a
+fraudulent self-assertion, that grew boastful as it grew distrustful of
+its claims and could bring less proof in support of them; the energy
+degenerated into impudence, evading the shame of spendthrift bankruptcy
+to-day by shifts that were sure to bring a more degrading exposure
+tomorrow; and the whole ended at last in a suicide whose tragic pang
+is deadened to us by the feeling that so much of the mixed motive that
+drove him to it as was not cowardice was a hankering after melodramatic
+effect, the last throb of a passion for making his name the theme of
+public talk, and his fate the centre of a London day's sensation.
+Chatterton makes us lenient to a life of fraud by the dogged and cynical
+uncomplainingness of the despair that drove him to cut it short; but
+Haydon continues his self-autopsy to the last moment, and in pulling the
+trigger seems to be only firing the train for an explosion that shall
+give him a week longer of posthumous notoriety. The egotism of Pepys was
+but a suppressed garrulity, which habitual caution, fostered by a period
+of political confusion and the mystery of office, drove inward to a kind
+of soliloquy in cipher; that of Montaigne was metaphysical,--in studying
+his own nature and noting his observations he was studying man, and that
+with a singular insouciance of public opinion; but Haydon appears to
+have written his journals with a deliberate intention of their some day
+advertising himself, and his most private aspirations are uttered with
+an eye to the world. Yet it was a genuine instinct that led him to the
+pen, and his lifelong succession of half-successes that are worse than
+defeats was due to the initial error of mistaking a passion for a power.
+A fine critic, a vivid sketcher of character, and a writer of singular
+clearness, point, and eloquence was spoiled to make an artist, sometimes
+noble in conception, but without sense of color, and utterly inadequate
+to any but the most confused expression of himself by the pencil. His
+very sense of the power which he was conscious of somewhere in himself
+harassed and hampered him, as time after time he refused to see that his
+failure was due, not to injustice or insensibility on the part of the
+world, but to his having chosen the wrong means of making his ability
+felt and acknowledged. His true place would have been that of Professor
+and Lecturer in the Royal Academy. The world is not insensible or
+unjust, but it knows what it wants, and will not long be put off with
+less. There is always a public for success; there never is, and never
+ought to be, for inadequacy. Haydon was in some respects a first-rate
+man, but the result of his anxious, restless, and laborious life was
+almost zero, as far as concerned its definite aims. It does not convey
+the moral of neglected genius, or of loose notions of money-obligations,
+ending in suicide, but simply of a mischosen vocation, leading sooner or
+later to utter and undeniable failure. _Pas même académicien_! Plenty of
+neglected geniuses have found it good to be neglected, plenty of Jeremy
+Diddlers (in letters and statesmanship as often as in money-matters)
+have lived to a serene old age, but the man who in any of the unuseful
+arts insists on doing what Nature never asked him to do has no place in
+the world. Leslie, a second-rate man in all respects, but with a genuine
+talent rightly directed, an obscure American, with few friends, no
+influential patrons, and a modesty that would never let him obtrude his
+claims, worked steadily forward to competence, to reputation, and the
+Council of the Academy. The only blunder of his life was his accepting
+the Professorship of Drawing at West Point, a place for which he was
+unsuited. But this blunder he had the good sense and courage to correct
+by the frank acknowledgment of resignation. Altogether his is a career
+as pleasant as Haydon's is painful to contemplate, the more so as we
+feel that his success was fairly won by honest effort directed by
+a contented consciousness of the conditions and limitations of his
+faculty.
+
+Nothing can be more agreeable than the career of a successful artist.
+His employment does not force upon him the solitude of an author; it
+is eminently companionable; from its first design, through all the
+processes that bring his work to perfection, he is not shut out from the
+encouragement of sympathy; his success is definite and immediate; he
+can see it in the crowd around his work at the exhibition; and his very
+calling brings him into pleasant contact with beauty, taste, and (if a
+portrait-painter) with eminence in every department of human activity.
+
+Leslie's passage through the world was of that equal temper which is
+happiest for the man and unhappiest for the biographer. With no dramatic
+surprises of fortune, and no great sorrows, his life had scarce any
+other alternation than that it went round with the earth through night
+and day, and would have been tame but for his necessary labor in an
+art which he loved wisely and with the untumultuous sentiment of
+an after-honey-moon constancy. We should say that his leading
+characteristic was Taste, an external quality, it is true, but one which
+is often the indication of more valuable ones lying deeper. In the
+conduct of life it insures tact, and in Art a certain gentlemanlike
+equipoise, incapable of what is deepest and highest, but secure also
+from the vulgar, the grotesque, and the extravagant. Leslie, we think,
+was more at home with Addison than with Cervantes.
+
+His autobiographical reminiscences are very entertaining, especially
+that part of them which describes a voyage home to America, varied by
+a winter in Portugal, during the early part of his life. The Scotch
+captain, who, with his scanty merchant-crew, beats off a Bordeaux
+privateer, and then, crippled and half-sinking, clears for action with
+what he supposes to be a French frigate, but which turns out to be
+English, is a personage whose acquaintance it is pleasant to make. The
+sketches of life in Lisbon, too, are very lively, and the picture of
+the decayed Portuguese nobleman's family, for whose pride of birth an
+imaginary dinner-table was set every day in the parlor with the remains
+of the hereditary napery and plate, the numerous covers hiding nothing
+but the naked truth, while their common humanity, squatting on the floor
+in the kitchen, fished its scanty meal from an earthen pot with pewter
+spoons, is pathetically humorous and would have delighted Caleb
+Balderstone. In after-life, Leslie's profession made him acquainted with
+some of the best London life of his time, and the volume is full of
+agreeable anecdotes of Scott, Irving, Turner, Rogers, Wilkie, and
+many more. It contains also several letters of Irving, of no special
+interest, and some from a sort of Lesmahago of a room-mate of Leslie's,
+named Peter Powell, so queer, individual, and shrewd, that we are sorry
+not to have more of them and their writer. Altogether the book is one of
+the pleasantest we have lately met with.
+
+
+_The Old Battle-Ground_. By J.T. TROWBRIDGE, Author of "Father
+Brighthopes," "Neighbor Jackwood," etc. New York: Sheldon & Company.
+1860. pp. 276.
+
+Mr. Trowbridge's previous works have made him known to a large circle of
+appreciating readers as a writer of originality and promise. His "Father
+Brighthopes" we have never read, but we have heard it spoken of as one
+of the most wholesome children's books ever published in America, and
+our knowledge of the author makes us ready to believe the favorable
+opinion a just one. Parts of "Neighbor Jackwood" we read with sincere
+relish and admiration; they showed so true an eye for Nature and so
+thorough an appreciation of the truly humorous elements of New England
+character, as distinguished from the vulgar and laughable ones. The
+domestic interior of the Jackwood family was drawn with remarkable truth
+and spirit, and all the working characters of the book on a certain
+average level of well-to-do rusticity were made to think and talk
+naturally, and were as full of honest human nature as those of the
+conventional modern novel are empty of it. An author who puts us in the
+way to form some just notion of the style of thought proper to so large
+a class as our New England country-people, and of the motives likely to
+influence their social and political conduct, does us a greater service
+than we are apt to admit. And the power to conceive the leading
+qualities that make up an average representative and to keep them
+always clearly in view, so as to swerve neither toward tameness nor
+exaggeration, is by no means common. This power, it seems to us, Mr.
+Trowbridge possesses in an unusual degree. The late Mr. Judd, in his
+remarkable romance of "Margaret," gave such a picture as has never been
+equalled for truth of color and poetry of conception, of certain phases
+of life among a half-gypsy family in the outskirts of a remote village,
+and growing up in the cold penumbra of our civilization and material
+prosperity. But his scene and characters were exceptional, or, if
+typical, only so of a very limited class, and his book, full of fine
+imagination as it is, is truly a romance, an ideal and artistic
+representation, rather a poem than a story of manners general and
+familiar enough to be called real.
+
+Mr. Trowbridge, we think, fails in those elements of (we had almost said
+creative) power in which Mr. Judd was specially rich. If the latter had
+possessed the shaping spirit as fully as he certainly did the essential
+properties of imagination, he would have done for the actual, prosaic
+life of New England what Mr. Hawthorne has done for the ideal essence
+that lies behind and beneath it. But, with all his marvellous fidelity
+of dialect, costume, and landscape, and his firm clutch of certain
+individual instincts and emotions, his characters are wanting in any
+dramatic unity of relation to each other, and seem to be "moving about
+in worlds not realized," each a vivid reality in itself, but a very
+shadow in respect of any prevailing intention of the story. With the
+innate sentiments of a kind of aboriginal human nature Mr. Judd was
+at home; with the practical working of every-day motives he seemed
+strangely unfamiliar. It is just here that Mr. Trowbridge's strength
+and originality lie; but, with that not uncommon tendency to overvalue
+qualities that we do not possess, and to attempt their display, to the
+neglect, and sometimes at the cost, of others quite as valuable, but
+which seem cheap, because their exercise is easy and habitual,--and
+therefore, we may be sure, natural and pleasing,--he insists on being a
+little metaphysical and over-fine. What he means for his more
+elevated characters are tiresome with something of that melodramatic
+sentimentality with which Mr. Dickens has infected so much of the
+lighter literature of the day. Here and there the style suffers from
+that overmuchness of unessential detail and that exaggeration of
+particulars which Mr. Dickens brought into fashion and seems bent on
+wearing out of it,--a style which is called graphic and poetical by
+those only who do not see that it is the cheap substitute, in all
+respects equal to real plate, (till you try to pawn it for lasting
+fame,) introduced by writers against time, or who forget that to be
+graphic is to tell most with fewest penstrokes, and to be poetical is
+to suggest the particular in the universal. We earnestly hope, that,
+instead of trying to do what no one can do well, Mr. Trowbridge will
+wisely stick close to what he has shown that no one can do better.
+
+"The Old Battle-Ground," whose name bears but an accidental relation to
+the story, is an interesting and well-constructed tale, in which Mr.
+Trowbridge has introduced what we believe is a new element in American
+fiction, the French Canadian. The plot is simple and not too improbable,
+and the characters well individualized. Here, also, Mr. Trowbridge
+is most successful in his treatment of the less ambitiously designed
+figures. The relation between the dwarf Hercules fiddler and the
+heroine Marie seems to be a suggestion from Victor Hugo's Quasimodo and
+Esmeralda, though the treatment is original and touching. Indeed, there
+is a good deal of pathos in the book, marred here and there with the
+sentimental extract of Dickens-flowers, unpleasant as _patchouli_.
+Generally, however, it has the merit of unobtrusiveness,--a rare piece
+of self-denial nowadays, when authors have found out, and the public has
+not, how very easy it is to make the public cry, and how much the simple
+creature likes it, as if it had not sorrows enough of its own. But it is
+in his more ordinary characters that Mr. Trowbridge fairly shows himself
+as an original and delightful author. His boys are always masterly.
+Nothing could be truer to Nature, more nicely distinguished as to
+idiosyncrasy, while alike in expression and in limited range of ideas,
+or more truly comic, than the two that figure in this story. Nick
+Whickson, too, the good-natured ne'er-do-well, who is in his own and
+everybody's way till he finds his natural vocation as an aid to a dealer
+in horses, is a capital sketch. The hypochondriac Squire Plumworthy
+is very good, also, in his way, though he verges once or twice on the
+"heavy father," with a genius for the damp handkerchief and long-lost
+relative line.
+
+We are safe in assigning to Mr. Trowbridge a rank quite above that of
+our legion of washy novelists; he seems to have a definite purpose and
+an ambition for literary as well as popular success, and we hope that
+by study and observation he will be true to a very decided and peculiar
+talent. We violate no confidence in saying that the graceful poem, "At
+Sea," which first appeared in the "Atlantic," and which, under the name
+of now one, now another author, has been deservedly popular, was written
+by Mr. Trowbridge.
+
+
+
+
+JULY REVIEWED BY SEPTEMBER.
+
+
+The Editors of the "Atlantic," of course, have universal knowledge
+(with few exceptions) at their fingers' ends,--that is, they possess
+an Encyclopaedia, gapped here and there by friends fond of portable
+information and familiar with that hydrostatic paradox in which the
+motion of solids up a spout is balanced by a very slender column of the
+liquidating medium. The once goodly row of quartos looks now like a set
+of mineral teeth that have essayed too closely to simulate Nature by
+assaulting a Boston cracker; and the intervals of vacuity among the
+books, as among the incisors, deprive the owner of his accustomed
+glibness in pronouncing himself on certain topics. Among the missing
+volumes is one of those in M, and accordingly our miss-information [A]
+on all subjects from Mabinogion to Mustard is not to be entirely relied
+upon. Under these painful circumstances, and with the chance of still
+further abstractions from our common stock of potential learning, we
+have engaged a staff of consulting engineers, who contract, for certain
+considerations, to know every useless thing from A to Z, and every
+obsolete one from Omega to Alpha. In these gentlemen we repose unlimited
+confidence in proportion to their salaries; for a considerable
+experience of mankind has taught us that omniscience is a much commoner
+and easier thing than science, especially in this favored country and
+under democratic institutions, which give to every man the inestimable
+right of knowing as much as he pleases. Everything was going on well
+when our Man of Science unaccountably disappeared, and our Aesthetic
+Editor experienced in all its terrors the Scriptural doom of being left
+to himself. This latter gentleman is tolerably _shady_ in scientific
+matters, nay, to say sooth, light-proof, or only so far penetrable as
+to make darkness visible. Between science and nescience the difference
+seems to his mind little, if _n e_, and he would accept as perfectly
+satisfactory a statement that "the ponderability of air in a vitreous
+table-tipping medium (the abnormal variation being assumed as $ x-b
+.0000001) is exactly proportioned to the squares of the circumambient
+distances, provided the perihelia are equal, and the evolution of
+nituretted carbogen in the boomerang be carefully avoided during
+evaporation; the power of the parallax being represented, of
+course, according to the well-known theorem of Rabelais, by H.U.M.
+Hemsterhuysius seems to have been familiar with this pretty experiment."
+The above sentence being shown to the Aesthetic Editor aforesaid, he
+acknowledges that he sees nothing more absurd than common in it, and
+that the theory seems to him as worthy of trial as Hedgecock's quadrant,
+which he took with him once on a journey to New York, arriving safely
+with a single observation of the height of the steamer's funnel.
+
+[Footnote A: MISS-INFORMATION. A higgledy-piggledy want of intelligence
+acquired by young misses at boarding-schools.--_Supplement to Johnson's
+Dictionary._]
+
+This premised, it naturally follows that the Aesthetic Editor (the July
+number falling to his turn) must take advantage of the absence of
+his Guardian Man of Science to publish an article on Meteorology. A
+condition of things in which the _omne scibile_ was left entirely at his
+disposal, to be knocked about as he pleased, appeared to him no small
+omen of a near millennium; and what subject could be more suitable to
+begin with than the weather, a topic of general interest, (since we have
+no choice of weather or no,) in which exact knowledge is comfortably
+impossible, and in which he felt himself at home from his repeated
+experiments in raising the wind in order to lower the due-point? (See
+_The Weathercock, an Essay on Rotation in Office, by Sir Airy Vane._)
+
+Meanwhile, after the mischief was all done and a Provisional Government
+of Chaos Redux comfortably established in Physics, the Man of Science
+turns up suddenly in the following communication. [A council was called
+on the spot, the Autocrat in the chair, and it was decided, with only
+one dissenting voice, that the communication should be printed as a
+lesson to the peccant Editor, who, for the future, was laid under a
+strict interdict in respect of all and singular the onomies and ologies,
+and directed to consider the weather a matter altogether unprophetable,
+except to almanac-makers,--the said Editor to superintend such
+publication, and to be kept on a diet of corn-cob for the body and
+Sylvanus Cobb (or his own works, at his option) for the mind, till it
+be done. The chairman added, that for a second offence he should do
+penance, according to ancient usage, in a blank sheet of the Magazine,
+(a contribution of his own being to that end suppressed,)--a form of
+punishment likely to be as irksome to himself as grateful to the readers
+of that incomparable miscellany.]
+
+"_Abercwmdwddhwm Mine_, 28th July, 1860.
+
+"WELL-MEANING, BUT MISGUIDED, FRIEND!
+
+"An unexpected opportunity of personally investigating a highly nauseous
+kind of mephitic vapor drew me and Jones suddenly hither without time
+to say farewell or make explanations. I made the journey in--10' by
+electric telegraph, and am delighted that I came, for anything more
+unpleasant never met my nostrils, and I am almost sure of adding a new
+element to the enjoyment of the scientific world.
+
+"I have already secured several bottles-full, and shall exhibit it at the
+next meeting of the Association: of course you shall have a sniff in
+advance. I should have returned before this, but unhappily the chain by
+which we descended gave way a few days ago near the top, in hoisting
+out the first series of my observations, and as yet there has been no
+opportunity of replacing it. Communication with the upper world is kept
+up by means of a small cord, however, and in this way we are supplied
+with food for body and mind. As good luck would have it, our butter came
+down wrapped in a half-sheet of your last volume of poems, containing my
+old favorites, 'Modern Greece,' and the 'Ode to a Deserted Churn.' These
+I read aloud several times to the miners, and their longing to return
+sooner to a world where they could get the rest of the volume became so
+strong, that, as I was about to begin my fifth reading, they consented
+to an expedient of escape which I had already proposed once or twice in
+vain. This was to blow us out by means of the fire-damp. The result of
+the experiment I cannot yet fully report, as some confusion ensued.
+Jones has disappeared, having been, as I hope and believe, discharged
+upward, and I have found the remains of only one miner, so that it seems
+to have been a tolerable success, though I myself was blown inward,
+owing to the premature explosion of the train. In one respect the result
+was highly satisfactory to me personally. Jones had all along insisted
+that the vapor was antiphlogistic. Whichever way he went, I think
+(fair-minded as he is) he must be by this time convinced of his error,
+and I shall accordingly enter him in my Report as discharged cured.
+I may add, as an interesting scientific fact, that his ascent was
+accompanied by such a sudden and violent fall of the barometer (which he
+had in his lap) that the instrument was broken. This would seem to prove
+a considerable decrease in the weight of the atmosphere at the moment
+of explosion. The darkness was oppressive at first; but a happy thought
+occurred to me. You know Jones's poodle, and how obese he is? Well, he
+was shot into my lap, where he lay to all appearance dead. I had some
+matches in my pocket and at once kindled the end of his tail, which
+makes a very good candle, quite as good as average dips, _tales,
+quales_. By the light of this I proceed to note down my first series
+of comments as a tail-piece to your meteorological article in the July
+'Atlantic,' of which we received a copy in due course, as the magazine
+has a large circulation among our friars miner down here.
+
+"METEOROLOGY 'MADE EASY.'
+
+"In glancing at the article on 'Meteorology' in the July number of the
+'Atlantic Monthly,' I was so struck by the dashing style in which the
+writer presents what he calls the 'leading principles' of the science,
+that, in spite of portentous errors, I was tempted to follow his
+diversified flight to its very close. Reading pencil in hand, I gathered
+up a long list of mistakes in fact and in philosophy, of which the
+following specimens, although but the first fruits of a not very
+critical examination, may serve to illustrate the carelessness--shall
+I not say ignorance?--of the writer on the topics in regard to which he
+proposes to enlighten the general reader.
+
+"1. According to our essayist, the weight of the atmosphere is about
+43/1000ths that of the globe,--in other words, 1/23d part. Now a simple
+calculation, or a reference to one of the standard works on Physics,
+should have taught him that the weight of the entire air is less than
+one-millionth part of that of the earth,--that is, _fifty thousand times
+less than he states it to be_."
+
+[We are quite sure that our (tor-)Mentor is mistaken in assuming a
+uniform weight for the atmosphere. It differs in different places.
+During our lecturing-tours, we have frequently observed an involuntary
+depression of the eyelids (producing _almost_ an appearance of sleep) in
+a part of the audience, which we were at a loss to attribute to anything
+but the weight of the atmosphere. Water varies in the same way. It is
+hardly necessary to say that Lake Wetter derives its name from the
+superior quality of its dampness.]
+
+"2. Of the specific gravity of the air he seems to be amusingly
+uncertain,--making it first 833 times and afterwards 770 times less than
+that of water; and in the same connection he says, in chosen
+phrase, that 'density, or _closeness_, is another quality of the
+atmosphere,'--as if it were its characteristic, and not common to all
+ponderable matter."
+
+[A very neat way of arriving at specific gravity in its densest form is
+to distil the "funny column" of a weekly newspaper. To arrive at the
+desired result in the speediest way, let the operation be performed in
+what is known among bucolic journalists as a "humorous retort." Density
+and closeness should not be spoken of as equivalent terms. The former is
+a common quality of the human skull, rendering it impervious; whereas a
+man may be very close and yet capable of being stuck,--with bad paper,
+for example.]
+
+"3. In mentioning the _constituents of the atmosphere_, he adopts
+without explanation the loose statement of some of the books, placing
+carburetted hydrogen on the same footing as to constancy and amount with
+carbonic acid, and making no allusion to nitric acid. Yet chemistry has
+shown, that, except in special localities, carburetted hydrogen occurs
+only as a slight trace, the existence of which in most cases is rather
+inferred than actually demonstrated, and that it has no important
+office to perform,--while nitric acid shares with ammonia in the grand
+function of the nourishment of plants. In a later paragraph the error is
+aggravated by the assertion, that 'no chemical combination of oxygen and
+nitrogen has ever been detected in the atmosphere, and it is presumed
+none will be,'--as if every flash of lightning did not produce a notable
+quantity of this compound, which, washed down by the rain, may be
+detected in almost every specimen of rain-water we meet. What would
+Johnstone, Boussingault, Liebig, and the other agricultural chemists say
+to this?"
+
+[For complete proof on this head, be struck by lightning. For
+ourselves, we are convinced, and would rather have some other head
+taken for an experiment by way of illustration. But any of our
+readers who is unsatisfied has only to place himself in front of a
+lightning-express-train with an ordinary conductor. To insure being
+struck, let the experimenter provide himself amply with patent
+safety-rods. At least, this result is pretty sure in houses, and is
+worth trying out of doors.]
+
+"In the same connection he characterizes nitrogen as a substance 'not
+condensible under fifty atmospheres,' leaving the reader to infer
+that the preceding ingredient on the list, oxygen, is condensible
+(liquefiable) within that limit of pressure, and that nitrogen becomes
+liquid at or above it; whereas neither oxygen nor nitrogen has ever yet
+been compressed into a liquid, although a force of more than _fifty
+times fifty_ atmospheres has been brought to act upon them."
+
+[We consider an experiment requiring twenty-five hundred atmospheres,
+when the thermometer marks 93° in the shade, indictable at common law.
+To desire more than one, under such circumstances, is unreasonable, and
+even wicked.]
+
+"4. In referring to the Thermo-barometer as a means of measuring
+heights, the writer confounds the late Professor Edward Forbes with
+Professor James D. Forbes, recently of Edinburgh, but now Provost of
+the University of St. Andrews. The former was a great Zoölogist and
+Botanist, and did not occupy himself with investigations in Physics;
+the latter is an eminent Physicist, the author of the viscous theory of
+Glaciers; and it is he who made the observations here ascribed to the
+'Professor Forbes, whose untimely death the friends of science have
+had so much reason to deplore.' The author adds the further mistake
+of supposing that the numerical constant, 549 feet for each degree,
+determined by James Forbes for Scotland, is equally correct for all
+latitudes."
+
+[This hardly needed confutation. No university requires any numerical
+constant of height as qualification for a degree; and if they did, 549
+feet would be excessive, unless, perhaps, at Warsaw, where everybody is
+tall enough to end in _ski_.]
+
+"5. Our essayist discloses but an imperfect inkling of knowledge on the
+subject of capillarity in barometers, when he speaks of this complex
+action as equivalent to _the attraction between the mercury and the
+glass tube_; and he commits a yet graver mistake, practically speaking,
+in reiterating the long exploded error, that 'the weight of the
+atmosphere at the level of the sea is the same all over the world.' No
+fact in Meteorology is better established than that the mean pressure at
+the sea-level is different for different latitudes. In the vicinity of
+Cape Horn the barometer is three-fourths of an inch lower than at the
+Equator, and according to Schouw the pressure increases from the Equator
+up to a certain latitude (38°) in both hemispheres, and diminishes
+thence towards the Poles."
+
+[The connection between capillarity and the fat of the common bear is
+well known to all manufacturers of trycoverus compounds, and they are
+probably right in advertising that grease of this description restores
+tone to the hair,--of course a fine beary tone. As the weight of the
+bear depends on his fat, the inference to a bear-ometer is obvious. It
+is a familiar fact that the bear supports life during hibernation by
+sucking his paws; but it may not be so generally known that the waste
+thus induced in the anterior extremities is restored by the moral
+consciousness of the animal that the fat he is so carefully hoarding is
+to confer a posthumous blessing on mankind. This is a touching example
+of the adaptation of means to end, and Shakspeare, the great natural
+philosopher, has made use of it for one of his most striking metaphors,
+where he says, "that the thought of something after death must give us
+paws."]
+
+"6. Discoursing on the elasticity of the air, the writer styles it
+'the most compressible of bodies,'--as if it had any advantage in this
+respect over the numerous other species of gaseous matter. As to the
+illustration which he gives, namely, that 'a glass vessel full of air,
+placed under a receiver and then exhausted by the air-pump, will burst
+into atoms,' we can only say, what every schoolboy knows, that the
+_bursting_ would be _inwards_, unless, indeed, our meteorologist means
+that the external receiver was to be exhausted, and in that case he
+should so have expressed himself."
+
+[The theory of exhausted receivers is, in our opinion, worthy only of
+the childhood of science, when chemistry and astronomy were alchemy and
+astrology, and people would believe anything. In this enlightened age of
+the universal subscription-paper, exhausted givers are familiar objects,
+but a receiver who finds the labors of his calling excessive is as
+non-existent as the harpy, his mythological prototype.]
+
+"7. In regard to the extent to which the compression of air has been
+actually carried, he tells us that 'Brockhaus says that air has as yet
+been compressed only into _one-eighth of its original bulk_.' Is
+it possible that a writer on Meteorology is unacquainted with the
+well-known experiments of Dulong and Arago, and the more recent ones
+of Regnault, in which the compression was three times the amount here
+stated, or that he requires to be referred to those of Natterer, who, by
+a powerful condensing apparatus, has lately compressed _seven hundred
+and twenty-six volumes of air into a single volume_?"
+
+[Any man who has succeeded in condensing seven hundred and twenty-six
+volumes into one deserves the applause of the reading public. We
+trust M. Natterer will extend his benevolent labors to all the great
+libraries. With the most perfect apparatus of compression, however, we
+doubt if contemporary literature will yield anything like so high an
+average as 1 in 726.]
+
+"8. In the paragraphs devoted to the optical relations of the
+atmosphere, our author has shown a happy faculty for making his subject
+obscure. After suggesting that the refraction of the rays in the
+atmosphere may be due to what he calls its 'lenticular outline,' he
+defines refraction to be 'the bending of a ray passing obliquely from a
+rarer into a denser medium,'--a good enough popular definition, but for
+its sad defectiveness. Is he not aware that the light is also bent in
+penetrating obliquely from a denser into a rarer medium, as in passing
+from the surface of a low plain to the eye of a spectator on a
+neighboring mountain, and that the bending is just as great in this
+direction of its motion as in the other? And does he not know that it
+changes its course whenever it passes from a vacuum into any ponderable
+medium or in the opposite direction? In future attempts to make
+science easy, let him remember that these are all equally instances of
+refraction, and should be included in its definition.
+
+"Under the same head, we are led to infer that it is only in 'the warm
+and moist nights of summer,' that 'the moon, as she rises above the
+horizon, appears much larger than when at the zenith'; and we are
+taught, in connection with the origin of the mirage and the spectre
+of the Bracken, that 'rainbows are due to this condition of the
+atmosphere.' If, instead of rainbows, we may be allowed to read _halos_,
+we can understand the writer, who, instead of thinking of summer
+showers, appears to have had a _haze_ in his mind while penning this and
+other paragraphs."
+
+[The _dictum_ of our correspondent in regard to light passing from
+a ponderable medium into a vacuum requires some qualification. An
+exception should be made of "Spiritual Mediums," who, being flesh and
+blood, are of course ponderable. Now, if we represent the Medium by A,
+and the head of any one consulting her by B, there can be no doubt that
+the latter is an absolute vacuum; but it is demonstrable that nothing
+like light ever passed from the former to the latter. There is a
+closer analogy between refracted light and a Brocken spectre than our
+scientific friend seems willing to admit. For what follows we refer our
+readers to the remarkable essay of Alderman Moon, "On the Identity of
+Halocination and Lunacy."]
+
+"9. As our author advances in this branch of his subject, he grows far
+too profound for our scientific apprehension. Giving him all credit for
+_wishing to be clear_, we confess to a sad mystification as to what he
+calls the 'Polarity of Light,' where a beam is described as 'revolving
+around poles peculiar to itself' and as producing 'beautiful
+_spectres_,' and we want new illumination from him as to his theory of
+colors. We agree to the statement that 'each object has a particular
+reflecting surface of its own,' as we cannot see how _its_ particular
+surface could be the property of another,--but why this should make the
+surface 'throw back light at its own angle' we do not exactly fathom,
+and we are puzzled to know _which is the owner of the said angle_,
+the light or the surface. No one doubts that 'the modest blush which
+crimsons the cheek of beauty,' to use the author's words, is caused by a
+rush of blood to the skin; but how this produces 'a corresponding change
+in its angle of reflection,' and what such a change has to do with the
+result, are problems too transcendental for the _exact_ sciences."
+
+[On all questions relating to the Poles we reserve our opinion till the
+return of Dr. Hayes's expedition. But we think they have little to hope
+from any future attempt at revolution, especially with such insufficient
+weapons as their axes, which, though they keep up a constant stir about
+them, have been long superseded by the improvements of modern military
+science. We think our correspondent hasty in admitting that "each object
+has a particular reflecting surface of its own." A little inquiry among
+his neighbors would have satisfied him that the human brain seldom
+possesses anything of the kind.]
+
+"But these specimens must suffice as indications of the general
+character of this attempt at _popularizing science_. To do this without
+misleading and confounding the general reader is a task which claims
+the largest and most exact knowledge, and the greatest perspicuity of
+statement, no less than a flowing style and felicitous illustration.
+It is a task in which true success, though apparently frequent, is in
+reality extremely rare."
+
+"P.S. I had written thus far, when the fire suddenly penetrating, I
+suppose, to the nervous system of the poodle, he ran off, leaving me
+in total darkness and with no hope that his tail (like too many in the
+'Atlantic') would be continued. By the brief candle of a match I manage
+to add this, and to subscribe myself
+
+"Yours ever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+
+Ida Randolph, of Virginia. A Poem in Three Cantos. Philadelphia. Hazard.
+16mo. pp. 60. 50 cts.
+
+Science a Witness for the Bible. By Rev. W.N. Pendleton, D.D.
+Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 16mo. pp. 350. $1.00.
+
+Map of the Mountain and Lake Region of New Hampshire. Concord. E.C.
+Eastman. 32mo. 25 cts.
+
+Lichen Tufts, from the Alleghanies. By Elizabeth C. Wright. New York.
+Doolady. 12mo. pp. 328. 75 cts.
+
+The Rock of Ages; or, Scripture Testimony to the One Eternal Godhead
+of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. By Edward Henry
+Bickersteth, M.A., Incumbent of Christ Church, Hampstead. With an
+Introduction by the Rev. F.D. Huntington, D.D., Late Preacher to the
+University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in Harvard College;
+Rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston. Boston. Dutton & Co. 16mo. pp. 214.
+75 cts.
+
+The Words of Jesus. By the Author of "The Morning and Night Watches,"
+"The Faithful Promiser," etc. Boston. Dutton & Co. 18mo. pp. 128. 25
+cts.
+
+How to Enjoy Life; or, Physical and Mental Hygiene. By William M.
+Cornell, M.D. Philadelphia. Challen & Son. 12mo. pp. 360. 75 cts.
+
+God, Religion, and Immortality. An Oration delivered at the Paine
+Celebration in Cincinnati, January 29th, 1860. By Joseph Weat.
+Cincinnati. Published for the Author. 8vo. paper, pp. 63. 25 cts.
+
+Books and Reading. A Lecture. By W.P. Atkinson. Published by Request.
+Boston. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 16mo. paper, pp. 60. 20 cts.
+
+Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists. A Medley. By Geoffrey Crayon. Gent.
+Author's Revised Edition. Complete in One Volume. New York. Putnam. 8vo.
+pp. 465. $1.50.
+
+The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear
+Hunter, of California. By Theodore S. Hittell. Illustrated. Boston.
+Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 12mo. pp. 378. $1.25.
+
+Course of Ancient Geography. Arranged with Special Reference to
+Convenience of Recitation. By H.J. Schmidt, D.D., Professor in Columbia
+College, Author of "History of Education," "Plan of Culture and
+Instruction," etc. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. xii., 328. $1.00.
+
+Count Filippo; or, The Unequal Marriage. A Drama in Five Acts. By the
+Author of "Saul." Montreal. Printed for the Author. 8vo. pp. 153. 50
+cts.
+
+Memorials of Thomas Hood. Collected, arranged, and edited by his
+Daughter. With a Preface and Notes by his Son. Illustrated with Copies
+from his own Sketches. In Two Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
+pp. xviii., 310; viii., 327. $1.75.
+
+The Lady of Lyons. A Drama in Five Acts. By Sir K. Bulwer Lytton. With
+Introductory Notes, etc., by O.J. Victor. New York. J. Emmons & Co.
+18mo. paper, pp. 59. 10 cts.
+
+Appleton's Companion Hand-Book of Travel: Containing a full Description
+of the Principal Cities, Towns, and Places of Interest, together with
+Hotels and Routes of Travel, throughout the United States and the
+Canadas. With Colored Maps. Edited by T. Addison Richards. New York.
+Appleton & Co. 16mo. paper, pp. 288. 50 cts.
+
+Ethica; an Outline of Moral Science for Students and Reflecting Men. By
+John H. Stinson. New York. A.B. Kitson. 16mo. pp. 102. 50 cts.
+
+History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph. By George B.
+Prescott. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 468. $1.75.
+
+La Question Irlandaise. By Jean de Paris. Boston. P. Donahoe. 8vo.
+paper, pp. 12. 10 cts.
+
+A Journey in the Back Country. By Frederick Law Olmsted. New York. Mason
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. 492. $1.25.
+
+Studies in Animal Life. By George Henry Lewes. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 16mo. pp. 146. 40 cts.
+
+The Queens of Society. By Grace and Philip Wharton. Illustrated by
+Charles Altamont Doyle and the Brothers Dalziel. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. 488. $1.50.
+
+A Run through Europe. By Erastus C. Benedict. New York. Appleton & Co.
+12mo. pp. 552. $1.26.
+
+Centennial Anniversary of the Foundation of Germantown Academy. 1860.
+Philadelphia. C. Sherman & Son. 8vo. paper, pp. 58. 25 cts.
+
+Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science. An Address delivered
+before the Massachusetts Medical Society at their Annual Meeting, May
+30, 1860. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 8vo.
+paper, pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Chambers's Encyclopaedia; a Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for
+the People. On the Basis of the Latest Edition of the German
+Conversations-Lexicon. Illustrated with Wood Engravings and Maps. Parts
+XVI. and XVII. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. [each part] pp. 64. 15 cts.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, ISSUE
+35, SEPTEMBER, 1860***
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35,
+September, 1860, by Various
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2004  [eBook #11087]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, ISSUE
+35, SEPTEMBER, 1860***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. VI--SEPTEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE TREES.
+
+
+In our studies of Trees, we cannot fail to be impressed with their
+importance not only to the beauty of landscape, but also in the economy
+of life; and we are convinced that in no other part of the vegetable
+creation has Nature done so much to provide at once for the comfort, the
+sustenance, and the protection of her creatures. They afford the wild
+animals their shelter and their abode, and yield them the greater part
+of their subsistence. They are, indeed, so evidently indispensable to
+the wants of man and brute, that it would be idle to enlarge upon the
+subject, except in those details which are apt to be overlooked. In a
+state of Nature man makes direct use of their branches for weaving his
+tent, and he thatches it with their leaves. In their recesses he hunts
+the animals whose flesh and furs supply him with food and clothing, and
+from their wood he obtains the implements for capturing and subduing
+them. Man's earliest farinaceous food was likewise the product of trees;
+for in his nomadic condition he makes his bread from the acorn and the
+chestnut: he must become a tiller of the soil, before he can obtain the
+products of the cereal herbs. The groves were likewise the earliest
+temples for his worship, and their fruits his first offerings upon the
+divine altar.
+
+As man advances nearer to civilization, trees afford him the additional
+advantage which is derived from their timber. The first houses were
+constructed of wood, which enables him by its superior plastic
+nature, compared with stone, to progress more rapidly in his ideas of
+architecture. Wood facilitates his endeavors to instruct himself in
+art, by its adaptedness to a greater variety of purposes than any
+other substance. It is, therefore, one of the principal instruments of
+civilization which man has derived from the material world. Though the
+most remarkable works of the architect are constructed of stone, it
+was wood that afforded man that early practice and experience which
+initiated him into the laws of mechanics and the principles of art, and
+carried him along gradually to perfection.
+
+But as man is nomadic before he is agricultural, and a maker of tents
+and wigwams before he builds houses and temples,--in like manner he is
+an architect and an idolater before he becomes a student of wisdom; he
+is a sacrificer in temples and a priest at their altars, before he is a
+teacher of philosophy or an interpreter of Nature. After the attainment
+of science, a higher state of mental culture succeeds, causing the mind
+to see all Nature invested with beauty and fraught with imaginative
+charms, which add new wonders to our views of creation and new dignity
+to life. Man now learns to regard trees in other relations beside their
+capacity to supply his physical and mechanical wants. He looks upon them
+as the principal ornaments of the face of creation, and as forming the
+conservatories of Nature, in which she rears those minute wonders of
+her skill, the flowers and smaller plants that will flourish only under
+their protection, and those insect hosts that charm the student with
+their beauty and excite his wonder by their mysterious instincts.
+Science, too, has built an altar under the trees, and delivers thence
+new oracles of wisdom, teaching man how they are mysteriously wedded
+to the clouds, and are thus made the blessed instruments of their
+beneficence to the earth.
+
+Not without reason did the ancients place the Naiad and her fountain in
+the shady arbor of trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven
+into her fount and preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping
+shades she distributes the waters, which she has garnered from the
+skies, over the plain and the valley: and the husbandman, before he has
+learned the marvels of science, worships the beneficent Naiad, who draws
+the waters of her fountain from heaven, and from her sanctuary in the
+groves showers them upon the arid glebe and adds new verdure to the
+plain. After science has explained to us the law by which these supplies
+of moisture are furnished by the trees, we still worship the beneficent
+Naiad: we would not remove the drapery of foliage that protects her
+fountain, nor drive her into exile by the destruction of the trees,
+through whose leaves she holds mysterious commerce with the skies and
+saves our fields from drought.
+
+It is in these relations, leaving their uses in economy and the arts
+untouched, that I would now speak of trees. I would consider them as
+they appear to the poet and the painter, as they are connected with
+scenery, and with the romance and mythology of Nature, and as serving
+the purposes of religion and virtue, of freedom and happiness, of poetry
+and science, as well as those of mere taste and economy. I am persuaded
+that trees are closely connected with the fate of nations, that they are
+the props of industry and civilization, and that in all countries from
+which the forests have disappeared the people have sunk into indolence
+and servitude.
+
+Though we may not be close observers of Nature, we cannot fail to have
+remarked that there is an infinite variety in the forms of trees, as
+well as in their habits. By those who have observed them as landscape
+ornaments, trees have been classified according to their shape and
+manner of growth. They are round-headed or hemispherical, like the Oak
+and the Plane; pyramidal, like the Pine and the Fir; obeliscal, like the
+Arbor-Vitae and Lombardy Poplar; drooping, like the White Elm and the
+Weeping Willow; and umbrella-shaped, like the Palm. These are the
+natural or normal varieties in the forms of trees. There are others
+which may be considered accidental: such are the tall and irregularly
+shaped trees which have been cramped by growing in a dense forest that
+does not permit the extension of their lateral branches; such also are
+the pollards which have been repeatedly cut down or dwarfed by the axe
+of the woodman.
+
+Of the round-headed trees, that extend their branches more or less at
+wide angles from their trunk, the Oak is the most conspicuous and the
+most celebrated. To the mind of an American, however, the Oak is far
+less familiar than the Elm, as a way-side tree; but in England, where
+many
+
+  "a cottage-chimney smokes
+  From betwixt two aged Oaks,"
+
+this tree, which formerly received divine honors in that country, is now
+hardly less sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants, on account of their
+familiarity with its shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its
+usefulness to the human family. The history of the British Isles is
+closely interwoven with circumstances connected with the Oak, and the
+poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a theme of inspiration.
+
+The Oak is remarkable for the wide spread of its lower branches and its
+broad extent of shade,--for its suggestiveness of power, and consequent
+expression of grandeur. It is allied with the romance of early history;
+it is celebrated by its connection with the religion and religious rites
+of the Druids,--with the customs of the Romans, who formed of its
+green leaves the civic crown for their heroes, and who planted it to
+overshadow the temple of Jupiter; and many ancient superstitions give
+its name a peculiar significance to the poet and the antiquary. From its
+timber marine architecture has derived the most important aid, and it
+has thereby become associated with the grandeur of commerce and the
+exploits of a gallant navy, and is regarded as the emblem of naval
+prowess. The Oak, therefore, to the majority of the human race, is,
+beyond all other trees, fraught with romantic interest, and invested
+with classic and historical dignity.
+
+The American continent contains a great many species of Oak in its
+indigenous forest. Of these the White Oak bears the most resemblance to
+the classical tree, in its general appearance, in the contorted growth
+of its branches, and in the edible quality of its fruit. But the Red
+Oak, the most northerly species, exceeds all others in size. No other
+attains so great a height, or spreads its branches so widely, or
+surpasses it in regularity of form. As we advance south, the White Oak
+is conspicuous until we arrive at North Carolina, where the forests and
+way-sides exhibit the beautiful Evergreen Oak, which, with its slender
+undivided leaves, the minute subdivisions of its branches, and its
+general comeliness of form, would be mistaken by a stranger for a
+Willow. A close inspection, however, would soon convince him that it has
+none of the fragility of the Willow. On the contrary, it is the most
+noted of all the genus for its hardness and durability, being the
+identical Live Oak which has supplied our navy with the most valuable
+of timber. At the South the Evergreen Oak is a common way-side tree,
+mingling its hues with the lighter green of the Cypress and the sombre
+verdure of the Magnolia.
+
+The Oak exceeds all other trees, not only in actual strength, but also
+in that outward appearance by which this quality is manifested. This
+expression is due to the general horizontal spread of its principal
+boughs, the peculiar angularity of the unions of its small branches, the
+want of flexibility in its spray, and its great size when compared with
+its height, all manifesting its power to resist the wind and the storm.
+Hence it is regarded as the monarch of trees, surpassing all in those
+qualities that indicate nobleness and capacity. It is the emblem of
+strength, dignity, and grandeur: the severest hurricane cannot overthrow
+it, and, by destroying some of its branches, leaves it only with
+more wonderful proofs of its resistance. Like the rock that rises in
+mid-ocean, it becomes in its old age a just symbol of fortitude, parting
+with its limbs one by one, as they are broken by the gale or withered by
+decay; but still retaining its many-centuried existence, when, like an
+old patriarch, it has seen all its early companions removed.
+
+Standard Oaks are comparatively rare in the New England States, and not
+many adorn our way-sides and inclosures, which are mostly shaded by
+Elms, Limes, Maples, and Ash-trees. The scarcity of Oaks in these places
+is attributable in some degree to the peculiar structure of their roots,
+which extend downwards to a great depth in the soil, causing them to be
+difficult of transplantation. It is owing in still greater measure to
+the value of Oak-wood for ship-timber,--especially as those full-grown
+trees which have sprung up by the road-sides, and the noble pasture
+Oaks, contain the greatest number of those joints which are in special
+demand for ship-building. Year after year, therefore, has witnessed the
+gradual disappearance of these venerable trees, which the public should
+have protected from the profane hands of the "timberer," by forcing him
+to procure his materials from the forest. The community needs to be
+taught that a standard tree of good size and well-developed proportions
+is of more value for its shade, and as an object in the landscape, than
+a whole acre of trees in the middle of a wood.
+
+One of the most majestic trees in the American forest is the Chestnut,
+remarkable, like the Oak, for its broad extent of shade. In some parts
+of the country it is one of the most common standards in the field and
+pasture, having been left unmolested on account of the value of its
+fruit and the comparative inferiority of its timber. The foliage of this
+tree is dense and flowing, and peculiar in its arrangement. The leaves
+are clustered in stars of from five to seven, on short branches that
+grow from one of greater length. Hence, at a little distance, the whole
+mass of foliage seems to consist of tufts, each containing a tassel of
+long pointed leaves, drooping divergently from a common centre. The
+flowers come out from the centre of these leaves in the same manner,
+and by their silvery green lustre give a pleasing variety to the darker
+verdure of the whole mass. "This is the tree," says Gilpin, "which
+graces the landscapes of Salvator Rosa. In the mountains of Calabria,
+where Salvator painted, the Chestnut flourished. There he studied it
+in all its forms, breaking and disposing of it in a thousand beautiful
+shapes, as the exigencies of his composition required."
+
+The Beech is one of the same class of trees, but does not equal the
+Chestnut in magnitude. It is distinguished by the beauty of its clean,
+smooth shaft, which is commonly ribbed or fluted in a perceptible
+degree; and in a wood, where there is an assemblage of these columns,
+rising without a branch to the height of thirty feet or more, they are
+singularly beautiful. A peculiarity often observed in the Beech is a
+sort of double head of foliage. This is produced by the habit of the
+tree of throwing out a whorl of imperfect branches just below the union
+of the main branches with the trunk. The latter, taking more of an
+upward direction, cause an observable space a little below the middle
+of the height of the tree. This double tier of branches and foliage has
+been noticed by painters in the European Beech. I have observed it in
+several instances in the American tree.
+
+Standard Beech-trees are not numerous in this part of the country;
+indeed, they are seldom seen except in a wood, or in clumps which have
+originated from the root of some tree that has perished. I think they
+appear to better advantage in groups and small assemblages than when
+single, as there is nothing greatly attractive in the form of a standard
+Beech; but there is a peculiar sweep of the lateral branches, when they
+are standing in a group, which the student of trees cannot fail to
+admire. They send out their branches more in right lines than most other
+trees, and, as their leaves and the extremities of their spray all have
+an upright tendency, they give a beautiful airy appearance to the edge
+of a wood. The foliage of other deciduous trees, even when the branches
+tend upward, is mostly of a drooping character. The Beech forms a
+pleasing exception to this habit, having leaves that point upward and
+outwardly, instead of hanging loosely. In most other trees the foliage
+is so heavy and flowing, that the courses of their branches are
+concealed under their drapery of leaves; but in the Beech all the
+lines produced by the branches and foliage are harmonious, and may be
+distinctly traced.
+
+By taking note of these peculiarities in their arborescent growth, one
+greatly magnifies his capacity for enjoying the beauties of trees.
+Without this observation, their general appearance forms the chief
+object of his attention: he observes them only as a person of taste who
+cannot distinguish tunes would listen to music. He feels the agreeable
+sensation which their forms and aspects produce; but, like one who
+thinks without adequate language for his thoughts, his ideas are vague
+and indefinite. The Beech is particularly worthy of study, as in many
+points it differs characteristically from most other trees. I am
+acquainted with no tree in the forest that equals it, when disrobed of
+its foliage, in the gracefulness of its spray. There is an airiness
+about its whole appearance, at all seasons, that gives an expression of
+cheerfulness to the scene it graces, whether it skirt the banks of a
+stream or spread out its courteous arms over a sunny knoll or little
+sequestered nook.
+
+There are some trees which are peculiarly American, being confined to
+the Western continent, and unknown in other parts of the world. Among
+these is the Hickory, a well-known and very common tree, celebrated
+rather for its usefulness than its beauty. The different trees of this
+family make an important feature in our landscape: they are not abundant
+in the forest, but they are conspicuous objects in the open plain, hill,
+and pasture. Great numbers of them have become standards; we see them
+following the lines of old stone walls that skirt the bounds and avenues
+of the farm, in company with the Ash and the Maple. In these situations,
+where they would not "cumber the ground," they have been allowed to
+grow, without exciting the jealousy of the proprietor of the land.
+Accident, under these circumstances, has reared many a beautiful tree,
+which would in any other place have been cut down as a trespasser. Thus
+Nature is always striving to clothe with beauty those scenes which man
+has despoiled; and while the farmer is hoeing and grubbing, and thinking
+only of his physical wants, unseen hands are draping all his fences with
+luxuriant vinery, and bordering his fields with trees that shall gladden
+the eyes of those who can understand their beauties.
+
+The Hickory is not a round-headed tree; it approaches a cylindrical
+form, somewhat flattened at the top, but seldom attaining any strict
+regularity of shape. It does not expand into a full and flowing head,
+but is often divided into distinct masses of foliage, separated by
+vacant spaces of considerable size, and presenting an appearance as if
+a portion of the tree had been artificially removed. These gaps do not
+extend all round the tree; they are irregularly disposed, some trees
+having several of them, others none or only one; and they seem to have
+been caused, when the tree was young, by the dwindling of some principal
+branch. The Hickory throws out its branches at first very obliquely from
+the shaft; afterwards the lower ones bend down as the tree increases in
+size, and acquire an irregular and contorted shape; for, notwithstanding
+their toughness, they bend easily to the weight of their fruit and
+foliage.
+
+This tree is celebrated in the United States for the toughness of its
+wood; and the term Hickory is used as emblematical of a sturdy and
+vigorous character. It possesses some of the ruggedness, without the
+breadth and majesty of the Oak, though it exceeds even this tree
+in braving the force of a tempest. It is one of our most common
+pasture-trees, and its deep-green foliage makes amends for the general
+want of comeliness in its outline.
+
+As we are journeying through the older settlements of New England,
+the melancholy forms of the ill-fated Plane-trees tower above the
+surrounding objects, and attract our attention not only by their
+magnitude, but also by the marks of decay which are stamped upon all.
+This appearance is chiefly remarkable in the early part of summer: for
+the trees are not dead; but their vitality is so far gone that they are
+tardy in putting out their leaves, and seldom before July are they fully
+clad in verdure. When they are not in leaf, we may observe an unnatural
+growth of slender twigs in tufts at the ends of their branches. This
+is caused by the failure of the tree in perfecting its wood before the
+growth of the branches is arrested by the autumnal frosts; and this
+accident has been repeated annually ever since the trees began to
+be affected with their malady. The Plane was formerly a very common
+way-side tree in New England, until the fatality occurred which has
+caused the greater number of them to perish. It is a fact worthy of
+notice, that all the trees of this species below the latitude of Long
+Island have escaped the malady.
+
+The Chenar-tree, or Oriental Plane, is celebrated in history, having had
+a place in all the public and private grounds of the Greeks and Romans,
+as well as of the Eastern nations. The American, or Western Plane,
+called in New England the Buttonwood, is not less remarkable for its
+size and grandeur. It is one of the loftiest trees, and its lateral
+branches, being of great length, give it extraordinary breadth. It also
+runs up to an unusual height, compared with other trees, before it forms
+a head, so that its lower branches are sometimes elevated above the
+roofs of the houses of common height Hence it would be a valuable tree
+for road-sides, if it were healthy, as it would allow the largest
+vehicles to pass freely under its boughs.
+
+A far more beautiful tree, gracing equally the forest and the way-side,
+is the Ash, charming our sight with the gracefulness of its proportions
+in winter, with its flowing drapery of verdure in summer, and its
+variety of glowing tints in autumn. The Ash has been styled in Europe
+"the painter's tree,"--a fact which is worthy of notice, inasmuch as
+those writers who have theorized concerning the nature of beauty have
+generally regarded trees of broken and irregular shapes, like the
+Hickory, as more picturesque than those of prim and symmetrical habit,
+like the Ash. The practice of the great masters in painting seems
+adverse to this idea, since they have introduced the Ash more frequently
+than other trees into their pictures; and it shows the futility of the
+attempt to draw a distinction between picturesque and beautiful
+trees. All trees, indeed, of every natural shape, may be considered
+picturesque, as, in one situation or another, every species may be
+introduced to heighten the character of a picture or a landscape.
+
+The Ash never fails to attract attention by the peculiar beauty of its
+outlines, the regular subdivision of its branches, its fair proportions
+and equal balance without any disagreeable formality. Nothing can exceed
+the gracefulness of its pinnate foliage, hanging loosely from its
+equally divergent spray, easy of motion, but not fluttering, and always
+harmonizing in its tints with the season of the year. Notwithstanding
+the different character, in regard to symmetry, of the Ash and the
+Hickory, the two trees are often mistaken for each other, and, when the
+latter is evenly formed, it is sometimes difficult at first sight to
+distinguish it. They differ, however, in all cases, in the opposite
+arrangement of the leaves and small branches of the Ash, and their
+alternate arrangement in the Hickory. One of these branches invariably
+becomes abortive, as the tree increases in size, so that their opposite
+character is apparent only in the spray.
+
+In wet places which have never been subjected to the plough, in grounds
+partly inundated a great portion of the year, luxuriating in company
+with the Northern Cypress, over an undergrowth of Dutch Myrtles and
+Button-bushes, we find the singular Tupelo-tree. This tree is the
+opposite of the Ash in all its characteristics. There is no regularity
+in any part of its growth, and no tree in the forest sports in such a
+variety of grotesque and fantastic shapes. Sometimes it spreads out its
+branches horizontally, forming a perfectly flat top, as if it had grown
+under a platform; again it forms an irregular pyramid, most commonly
+leaning from an upright position. It has usually no definable shape,
+often sending out one or two branches greatly beyond the rest, some
+directed obliquely downwards, others twisted and horizontal. This tree,
+if it had no other merit, would be prized for its eccentricities; but it
+is not without beauty. It possesses a fine glossy foliage, unrivalled in
+its verdure, and every branch is fully clothed with it; and, whatever
+may be the age of the tree, it never shows the marks of decrepitude.
+
+The pyramidal trees are included chiefly among the coniferous
+evergreens, embracing the Pine, the Fir, the Spruce, and the Cypress.
+Though many of the deciduous trees assume more or less of this outline,
+it is the normal and characteristic form of the Pines and their kindred
+species. It is a peculiarity of the pyramidal trees, with a few
+exceptions, to remain always disfigured, after the loss of an important
+branch, having no power to fill the vacant space by a new growth. Other
+trees readily fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of a branch, and
+may suffer considerable mutilation without losing their beauty, because
+an invariable proportion is not necessary to render them pleasing
+objects of sight. On account of the symmetry of their forms, the
+pyramidal trees are made ugly by the loss of a limb, as the porch of a
+temple would be ruined by the removal of one of its pillars. Hence we
+may understand the charm of that irregularity that prevails in the forms
+of vegetation. If we remove a branch from an Elm or an Oak, or even from
+an Ash, we destroy no positive symmetry; it is like removing a stone
+from a loose stone wall; we do but slightly modify its disproportions.
+
+The White Pine may be selected as the American representative of the
+pyramidal trees, being the most important as well as the most striking
+in its appearance. It is a Northern tree, not extending so far south as
+the region of the Cypress and Magnolia, and attaining perfection only on
+the northeastern part of the continent. In the New England States, it
+contributes more than any other species to the beauty of our landscapes,
+where it is commonly seen in scattered groups, but not often as a
+solitary standard. We see it in our journeys, projecting over eminences
+that are skirted by old roads, shading the traveller from the sun and
+protecting him from the wind. We have sat under its fragrant shade, in
+our pedestrian tours, when, weary with heat and exercise, we sought its
+gift of coolness, and blessed it as one of the benign deities of the
+forest. We are familiar with it in all pleasant and solitary places; and
+in our afternoon rambles we have listened, underneath its boughs, to the
+plaintive note of the Green Warbler, who selects it for his abode, and
+who has caught a melancholy tone from the winds that from immemorial
+time have tuned to soft music its long sibilant leaves.
+
+The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude
+and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds
+grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to
+the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting
+cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow
+ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts
+nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its
+terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements.
+Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of
+Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast,
+elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate
+Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of
+Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy
+of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm.
+
+Such are its picturesque aspects: but in a figurative light it may be
+regarded as a true symbol of benevolence. Under its outspread roof,
+thousands of otherwise unprotected animals, nestling in the bed of dry
+leaves which it has spread upon the ground, find shelter and repose. The
+squirrel subsists upon the kernels obtained from its cones; the rabbit
+browses upon the Trefoil and the spicy foliage of the Hypericum which
+are protected in its conservatory of shade; and the fawn reposes on its
+brown couch of leaves, unmolested by the outer tempest. From its green
+arbors the quails may be roused in midwinter, when they resort thither
+to find the still sound berries of the Mitchella and the Wintergreen.
+Nature, indeed, seems to have designed this tree to protect the animal
+creation, both in summer and winter, and I am persuaded that she has not
+conferred upon them a more beneficent gift.
+
+As an object of sight, the White Pine is free from some of the defects
+of the Fir and Spruce, having none of their stiffness of foliage and
+inflexibility of spray, that cause them to resemble artificial objects.
+It has the symmetry of the Fir, joined with a certain flowing grace that
+assimilates it to the deciduous trees. With sufficient amplitude to
+conceal a look of primness that often arises from symmetry, we observe a
+certain negligent flowing of its leafy robes that adds to its dignity a
+grace which is apparent to all. It seems to wear its honors like one who
+feels no constraint under their burden; and when smitten by a tempest,
+it bids no defiance to the gale, bending to its wrath, but securely
+resisting its power.
+
+Of the American coniferous trees, the Hemlock is of the next importance,
+being, perhaps, in its perfection, a more beautiful tree than the White
+Pine, or than any other known evergreen. It is far less formal in its
+shape than other trees of the same family. Its branches, being slender
+and flexible, do not project stiffly from the shaft; they bend slightly
+at their terminations, and are easily moved by the wind; and as they are
+very numerous, and covered with foliage, we behold in the tree a dense
+mass of glittering verdure, not to be seen in any other tree of the
+forest.
+
+The Hemlock is unknown as a shade-tree; it is seldom seen by the
+road-side, except on the edge of a wood, and not often in cultivated
+grounds. The want of success usually attending the transplantation of it
+from the woods has prevented the general adoption of it as an ornamental
+tree. The Hemlock, when transplanted from the wood, is almost sure to
+perish; for Nature will not allow it to be desecrated by any association
+with Art. She reserves it for her own demesnes; and if you would possess
+one, you must go to its native spot and plant your garden around it,
+and take heed, lest, by disturbing its roots, you offend the deity
+who protects it. Some noble Hemlocks are occasionally seen in rude
+situations, where the cultivator's art has not interrupted their
+spontaneous growth; and the poet and the naturalist are inspired with a
+more pleasing admiration of their beauty, because they have seen them
+only where the solitary birds sing their wild notes, and where the heart
+is unmolested by the crowding tumult of human settlements.
+
+The Pitch Pine has neither grace nor elegance, and though it is allied
+botanically to the pyramidal trees, it approaches the shape of the
+round-headed trees. There is a singular ruggedness about it; and when
+bristling all over with the stiff foliage that sometimes covers it from
+the extremities of the branches down almost to the roots, it cannot fail
+to attract observation. Trees of this species, for the most part too
+rough and homely to please the eye, are not generally valued as objects
+in the landscape; but there is a variety in their shape that makes
+amends for their want of comeliness, and gives them a marked importance.
+We do not in general sufficiently appreciate the value of homely objects
+among the scenes of Nature,--which are, indeed, the ground-work of all
+charming scenery, and set off to advantage the beauty of more comely
+things. They prepare us, by increasing our susceptibility, to feel more
+keenly the force of beauty in other objects. They give rest and relief
+to the eye, after it has experienced the stimulating effects of
+beautiful forms and colors, which would soon pall upon the sense; and
+they are interesting to the imagination, by leaving it free to dress the
+scene with the wreaths of fancy.
+
+It is from these reflections that I have been led to prize many a homely
+tree as possessing a high value, by exalting the impressions of beauty
+which we derive from other trees, and by relieving Nature of that
+monotony which would attend a scene of unexceptional beauty. This
+monotony is apparent in almost all dressed grounds of considerable
+extent. We soon become entirely weary of the ever-flowing lines of
+grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors
+introduced by art. On the same principle we may explain the difficulty
+of reading with attention a whole volume on one subject, written in
+verse. We are soon weary of luxuries; and when we have been strolling in
+grounds laid out with gaudy flower-beds, the tired eye, when we go out
+into the fields, rests with serene delight upon rough pastures bounded
+by stone walls, and hills clothed with lichens and covered with
+boulders.
+
+The homely Pitch Pine serves this important purpose of relief in the
+landscapes of Nature. Trees of this species are abundant in sandy
+levels, in company with the slender and graceful White Birch, "The Lady
+of the Woods," as the poet Coleridge called it. From these Pines proceed
+those delightful odors which are wafted to our windows by a mild south
+wind, not less perceptible in winter than in summer, and which are in a
+different manner as charming as a beautiful prospect.
+
+The Juniper, or Red Cedar, known in some places as the Savin, is another
+homely tree that gives character to New England scenery. It is one of
+the most frequent accompaniments of the bald hills near certain parts
+of our coast, giving them a peculiar aspect of desolation. This tree
+acquires larger dimensions and a fuller and fairer shape in the Middle
+and Southern States. There the Junipers are beautiful trees, having a
+finer verdure than they ever acquire at the North. But the Juniper, with
+all its imperfections, its rugged form, and its inferior verdure, is not
+to be contemned; and it possesses certain qualities and features which
+ought to be prized hardly less than beauty. Its sombre ferruginous green
+adds variety to our wood-scenery at all times, and by contrast serves to
+make the foliage of other trees the more brilliant and conspicuous.
+In the latter part of summer, when the woods have acquired a general
+uniformity of verdure, the Junipers enliven the face of Nature by
+blending their duller tints with the fading hues of the fully ripened
+foliage. Thus will an assemblage of brown and gray clouds soften and at
+the same time enliven the deep azure of the heavens.
+
+In this sketch, I have omitted to describe many important trees,
+especially those which have but little individuality of character,
+leaving them to be the subject of another essay concerning Trees in
+Assemblages. I have likewise said nothing here of those species which
+are commonly distinguished as flowering trees. But I must not omit,
+while speaking of the pyramidal trees, to say a word concerning the
+Larch, which has some striking points of form and habit. Like the
+Southern Cypress, it differs in its deciduous character from other
+coniferous trees: hence both are distinguished by the brilliancy of
+their verdure in the early part of summer, when the other evergreens are
+particularly sombre; but they are leafless in the winter. The Larch is
+beautifully pyramidal in its shape when young. In the vigor of its years
+it tends to uniformity, and to variety when it is old. Indeed, an aged
+Larch is often as rugged and fantastic as an old Oak. The American and
+European Larches differ only in the longer flowing foliage and the
+larger cones of the latter. Among the minor beauties of both species may
+be mentioned the bright crimson cones that appear in June and resemble
+clusters of fruit. The Larch is a Northern tree, being in its perfection
+in the latitude of Maine. It seems to delight in the coldest situations,
+and, like the Southern Cypress, is found chiefly in low swamps.
+
+There are not many trees that assume the shape of an obelisk, or a long
+spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of
+forms as well as hues, in the objects of her creation, has given us the
+figure of the obelisk in the Chinese Juniper, in the Balsam Fir, in the
+Arbor-Vitae, and lastly in the Lombardy Poplar, which may be offered to
+exemplify this class of forms. The Lombardy Poplar is interesting to
+thousands who were familiar with it in their youth, as an ornament
+to road-sides and village inclosures. It was formerly a favorite
+shade-tree, and still retains its privileges in many old-fashioned
+places. A century ago great numbers of Poplars were planted on the
+village way-sides, in front of dwelling-houses, on the borders of public
+grounds, and particularly on the sides of lanes and avenues leading to
+houses situated at a short distance from the high-road. Hence a row
+of these trees becomes suggestive at once of the approach to some old
+mansion or country-seat, which has now, perhaps, been converted into a
+farm-house, having exchanged its proud honors of wealth for the more
+simple and delightful appurtenances of rustic independence.
+
+Some of these ancient rows of Poplars are occasionally seen in old
+fields, where almost all traces of the habitation which they were
+intended to grace are obliterated. There is a melancholy pleasure
+in surveying these humble ruins, whose history would illustrate the
+domestic habits of our ancestors. The cellar of the old house is now
+a part of the pasture-land, and its form can be traced by the simple
+swelling of the turf. Sumachs and Cornel-bushes have usurped the
+place of the exotic shrubbery in the old garden; and the only ancient
+companions of the Poplars, now remaining, are here and there a
+straggling Lilac or Currant-bush, a tuft of Houseleek, and perhaps,
+under the shelter of some dilapidated wall, the White Star of Bethlehem
+is seen meekly glowing in the rude society of the wild-flowers.
+
+The Lombardy Poplar, which was formerly a favorite way-side ornament,
+a sort of idol of the public, and, like many another idol, exalted to
+honors that exceeded its merits, fell suddenly into unpopularity and
+disgrace. After having been admired and valued as if its leaves were all
+emeralds and its buds apples of gold, it was spurned and ridiculed and
+everywhere cut down as a cumberer of the ground. The faults attributed
+to it did not belong to the tree, but were the effects of the climate
+into which it had been removed. It was brought from the sunny vales of
+Italy, where it had been delicately reared by the side of the Orange and
+the Myrtle, and transplanted into the cold climate of New England. The
+tender constitution of this tree could not endure our rude winters;
+and every spring witnessed the decay of a large portion of its small
+branches. Hence it became prematurely aged, and in its decline carried
+with it the marks of its infirmities.
+
+But, with all these imperfections, the Lombardy Poplar was more worthy
+of the honors it received from our predecessors than of its present
+disrepute. It is one of the fairest of trees, in the vigor of its health
+and the greenness of its youth. But nearly all the old Poplars are
+extirpated, and but few young trees are coming up to supply their
+places. While I am now writing, I see from my window the graceful spire
+of one solitary tree, towering above the surrounding objects in the
+landscape, and yielding to the view something of an indescribable charm.
+There it stands, the symbol of decayed reputation, in its old age still
+retaining the primness of its youth; neither drooping in its infirmities
+under the weight of their burden, nor losing in its desertedness the
+fine lustre of its foliage; and in its disgrace still bearing itself
+proudly, as if conscious that its former honors were deserved, and
+not forgetting that dignity which becomes one who has fallen without
+dishonor.
+
+There is no other tree that so pleasantly adorns the sides of narrow
+lanes and avenues, or so neatly accommodates itself to limited
+inclosures. Its foliage is dense and of the liveliest green, tremulous,
+and making delicate music to the light fingers of every breeze; its
+terebinthine odors scent the soft vernal wind that enters your open
+windows with the morning sunshine; its branches, always tending upward,
+closely gathered together, and slenderly formed, afford a harbor to the
+singing-birds, who revel among them as a favorite resort; and its long
+tapering spire, that points to heaven, gives an air of cheerfulness and
+religious tranquillity to village scenery.
+
+Of the drooping trees, the Weeping Willow is the most conspicuous
+example, unless we except the American Elm; but a remarkable difference
+may be observed in the drooping character of these two trees. In the Elm
+we perceive a general arching or curvature of all its branches, from
+their points of junction with the tree to their extremities; so that two
+rows of Elms, meeting over an avenue, would represent, more nearly than
+any other trees disposed in the same manner, the vault of a Gothic arch.
+A double row of Weeping Willows would make no such figure by the meeting
+of their branches. The Weeping Willow extends its long arms in lines
+more nearly straight, not originating, as in the Elm, for the most part,
+from one common centre of junction, but joining the shaft of the tree at
+different points;--hence the drooping character of this tree is observed
+only in its long, slender, and terminal spray.
+
+The Weeping Willow is one of the most poetical of trees, being
+consecrated to the Muse by the part which has been assigned it in many
+a scene of romance, and by its connection with events recorded in
+Holy Writ. It is invested with a poetical interest by its symbolical
+representation of sorrow in the pendulous character of its spray, by
+its fanciful uses as a garland for disappointed lovers, and by the
+employment of it in burying-grounds, and in pictures as drooping over
+graves. We remember it in sacred history by its association with the
+rivers of Babylon, with the tears of the Children of Israel, and with
+the forsaken harps of their sorrowing minstrels, who hung them upon its
+branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines,
+its light-green delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its gently
+waving spray, all in sweet accordance with its picturesque, poetic, and
+Scriptural associations.
+
+Hence the Weeping Willow never fails to give pleasure to the sight even
+of the most insensible observer. There are not many whose minds are so
+obtuse as to be blind to its peculiarly graceful attitude and motions,
+and every one is familiar with its history, as recorded in poetry and
+romance, all the incidents of which have served to elevate it above any
+association with fashion or vulgarity. When we see it waving its long
+branches neatly over some private inclosure, overshadowing the gravelled
+walk and the flower-garden,--or watching pensively over the graves of
+the dead, where the light hues of its foliage help to soften the glowing
+fancies which are apt to arise from our meditations among the tombs,--or
+on some wide common, giving solace to the passing traveller, and
+inviting the playful children to its shade,--or trailing its sweeping
+spray, like the tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery pond or gently
+flowing stream,--it is in all cases a delightful object, always
+picturesque, always soothing, inspiring, and sacred to memory, and
+serving, by its alliance with what is hallowed in literature, to bind us
+more closely to Nature.
+
+Above all the trees of the New World, the Elm deserves to be considered
+the sovereign tree of New England. It is abundant both in field and
+forest, and forms the most remarkable feature in our cleared and
+cultivated grounds. Though the Elm is found in almost all parts of the
+country, in no other is it so conspicuous as in the Northeastern States,
+where, from the earliest settlement of the country, it has been planted
+as a shade-tree, and has been valued as an ornament above the proudest
+importations from a foreign clime. It is the most remarkable of the
+drooping trees except the Willow, which it surpasses in stateliness and
+in the variety of its growth.
+
+When I look upon a noble Elm,--though I feel no disposition to contemn
+the studies of those who examine its flowers and fruit with the
+scrutinizing eye of science, or the calculations of those who consider
+only its practical use--it is to me an object of pleasing veneration. I
+look upon it as the embodiment of some benign intention of Providence,
+who has adapted it in numerous ways to the wants of his creatures. While
+admiring its grace and its majesty, I think of the great amount of human
+happiness and of comfort to the inferior animals of which it has been
+the blessed instrument. How many a happy assemblage of children and
+young persons has been, during the past century, repeatedly gathered
+under its shade, in the sultry noons of summer! How many a young
+May-queen has been crowned under its roof, when the greensward was just
+daisied with the early flowers of spring! And how many a weary traveller
+has rested from his journey in its benevolent shade, and from a state of
+weariness and vexation, when o'erspent by heat and length of way, has
+subsided into one of quiet thankfulness and content!
+
+Though the Elm has never been consecrated by the Muse, or dignified
+by making a figure in the paintings of the old masters, the native
+inhabitant of New England associates its varied forms with all that is
+delightful in the scenery of his own land or memorable in its history.
+He has beheld many a noble avenue formed of Elms, when standing in rows
+in the village, or by the rustic road-side. He has seen them extending
+their broad and benevolent arms as a protection over many a spacious old
+farm-house and many an humble cottage, and equally harmonizing with all.
+They meet his sight in the public grounds of the city, with their ample
+shade and flowing spray, inviting him to linger under their pleasant
+umbrage in summer; and in winter he has beheld them among the rude hills
+and mountains, like spectral figures keeping sentry among their passes,
+and, on the waking of the year, suddenly transformed into towers of
+luxuriant verdure and beauty. Every year of his life has he seen the
+beautiful Hang-Bird weave his pensile habitation upon the long and
+flexible branches of the Elm, secure from the reach of every living
+creature. From its vast dome of interwoven branches and foliage he has
+listened to the songs of the earliest and the latest birds; and under
+its shelter he has witnessed many a merry-making assemblage of children,
+employed in the sportive games of summer.
+
+To a native of New England, therefore, the Elm has a value more nearly
+approaching that of sacredness than any other tree. Setting aside the
+pleasure derived from it as an object of visual beauty, it is intimately
+associated with the familiar scenes of home and the events of his
+early life. In my own mind it is pleasingly allied with those old
+dwelling-houses which were built in the early part of the last century,
+and form one of the marked features of New England home architecture
+during that period. They are known by their broad and ample, but
+low-studded rooms, their numerous windows with small panes, their single
+chimney in the centre of the roof that sloped down to the lower story in
+the back part, and in their general unpretending appearance, reminding
+one vividly of that simplicity of life which characterized our people
+before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is delightful, by leaving
+the imagination free to dwell upon their pleasing suggestions. Not many
+of these charming old houses are now extant: but whenever we see one,
+we are almost sure to find it accompanied by its Elm, standing upon the
+green open space that slopes up to it in front, and waving its long
+branches in melancholy grandeur over the venerable habitation which it
+seems to have taken under its protection, while it droops with sorrow
+over the infirmities of its old companion of a century.
+
+The Elm is remarkable for the variety of forms which it assumes in
+different situations. Often it has a drooping spray only when it has
+attained a large size; but it almost invariably becomes subdivided
+into several equal branches, diverging from a common centre, at a
+considerable elevation from the ground. One of these forms is that of a
+vase: the base being represented by the roots of the tree that project
+above the soil and join the trunk,--the middle by the lower part of
+the principal branches, as they swell out with a graceful curve, then
+gradually diverge, until they bend downward and form the lip of the
+vase, by their circle of terminal branches. Another of its forms is that
+of a vast dome, as represented by those trees that send up a single
+shaft to the height of twenty feet or more, and then extend their
+branches at a wide divergency and to a great length. The Elms which are
+remarkable for their drooping character are usually of this shape.
+At other times the Elm assumes the shape of a plume, presenting a
+singularly fantastical appearance. It rises upwards, with an undivided
+shaft, to the height of fifty feet or more, without a limb, and bending
+over with a gradual curve from about the middle of its height to its
+summit, which is sometimes divided into two or three terminal branches.
+The whole is covered from its roots to its summit with a fringe
+of vine-like twigs, extremely slender, twisted and irregular, and
+resembling a parasitic growth. Sometimes it is subdivided at the usual
+height into three or four long branches, which are wreathed In the same
+manner, and form a compound plume.
+
+These fantastic forms are very beautiful, and do not impress one with
+the idea of monstrosity, as we are affected by the sight of a Weeping
+Ash. Though the Elm has many defects of foliage, and is destitute of
+those fine autumnal tints which are so remarkable in some other trees,
+it is still almost without a rival in the American forest. It presents a
+variety in its forms not to be seen in any other tree,--possessing the
+dignity of the Oak without its ruggedness, and uniting the grace of the
+slender Birch with the lofty grandeur of the Palm and the majesty of the
+Cedar of Lebanon.
+
+Of the parasol-trees the North furnishes no true examples, which are
+witnessed only in the Palms of the tropics. Not many of our inhabitants
+have seen these trees in their living beauty; but all have become so
+familiar with them, as they are represented in paintings and engravings,
+that they can easily appreciate their effect in the sunny landscapes of
+the South. There they may be seen bending over fields tapestried with
+Passion-Flowers and verdurous with Myrtles and Orange-trees, and
+presenting their long shafts to the tendrils of the Trumpet Honeysuckle
+and the palmate foliage of the Climbing Fern. But the slender Palms,
+when solitary, afford but little shade. It is when they are standing in
+groups, their lofty tops meeting and forming a uniform umbrage, that
+they afford any important protection from the heat of the sun.
+
+In pictures of tropical scenery we see these trees standing on the
+banks of a stream, or in the vicinity of the sea, near some rude hut
+constructed of Bamboo and thatched with the broad leaves of the Fan
+Palm. In some warm countries Nature affords the inhabitants an almost
+gratuitous subsistence from the fruit of the different Palms,--a
+plantation of Dates and Cocoa-nuts supplying the principal wants of the
+owner and his family, during the life of the trees. But the Palm is not
+suggestive of the arts, for the South is not the region of the highest
+civilization. Man's intelligence is greatest in those countries in which
+he is obliged to struggle with difficulties sufficient to require the
+constant exercise of the mind and body to overcome them. Science and Art
+have built their altars in the region of the Oak, and in valleys which
+are annually whitened with snow, where labor invigorates the frame, and
+where man's contention with the difficulties presented by the elements
+sharpens his ingenuity and strengthens all his facilities. Hence, while
+the Oak is the symbol of hospitality and of the arts to which it has
+given its aid, the Palm symbolizes the voluptuousness of a tropical
+clime and the indolence of its inhabitants.
+
+I have said that the North produces no parasol-trees; but it should be
+remarked that all kinds of trees occasionally approximate to this shape,
+when they have grown compactly in a forest. The general shape which they
+assume under these conditions is what I have termed accidental, because
+that shape cannot be natural which a growing body is forced to take
+when cramped in an unnatural or constrained position. Trees when thus
+situated become greatly elongated; their shafts are despoiled of the
+greater part of their lateral branches, and the tree has no expansion
+until it has made its way above the level of the wood. The trees that
+cannot reach this level will in a few years perish; and this is the
+fate of the greater number in the primitive forest. But after they have
+attained this level, they spread out suddenly into a head. Many such
+trees are seen in recent clearings; and when their termination is a
+regular hemisphere of branches and foliage, the tree exhibits a shape
+nearly approaching that of a parasol.
+
+The Elm, under these circumstances, often acquires a very beautiful
+shape. Unlike other trees that send up a single undivided shaft, the
+Elm, when growing in the forest as well as in the open plain, becomes
+subdivided into several slightly divergent branches, running up almost
+perpendicularly until they reach the level of the wood, when they
+suddenly spread themselves out, and the tree exhibits the parasol shape
+more nearly even than the Palm. When one of these forest Elms is left by
+the woodman, and is seen standing alone in the clearing, it presents
+to our sight one of the most graceful and beautiful of all arborescent
+forms.
+
+The rows of Willows, so frequent by the way-side where the road passes
+over a wet meadow, afford the most common examples of the pollard forms.
+Some of these willows, having escaped the periodical trimming of the
+woodcutter, have become noble standards, emulating the Oak in the sturdy
+grandeur of their giant arms extending over the road. Most of them,
+however, from the repeated cropping which they have suffered, exhibit a
+round head of long, slender branches, growing out of the extremity of
+the beheaded trunk.
+
+My remarks thus far relate to trees considered as individual objects;
+but I must not tire the patience of the reader by extending them
+farther, though there are many other relations in which they may be
+treated. In whatever light we regard them, they will be found to deserve
+attention as the fairest ornaments of Nature, and as objects that should
+be held sacred from their importance to our welfare and happiness. The
+more we study them, the more desirous are we of their preservation, and
+the more convinced of the necessity of using some active means to
+effect this purpose. He takes but a narrow view of their importance who
+considers only their value in the economy of animal and vegetable life.
+The painter has always made them a particular branch of his study; and
+the poet understands their advantage in increasing the effect of his
+descriptions, and believes them to be the blessed gifts of Providence to
+render the earth a beautiful abode and sanctify it to our affections.
+The heavenly bodies affect the soul with a deeper sense of creative
+power; but trees, like flowers, serve to draw us more closely to the
+bosom of Nature, by exemplifying the beauties of her handiwork, and the
+wonders of that Wisdom that operates unseen, and becomes, in our search
+for it, a source of perpetual delight.
+
+
+
+
+VICTOR AND JACQUELINE.
+
+[Concluded.]
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+The three days passed away. And every hour's progress was marked as it
+passed over the citizens of Meaux. Leclerc, and the doctrines for which
+he suffered, filled the people's thought; he was their theme of speech.
+Wonder softened into pity; unbelief was goaded by his stripes to
+cruelty; faith became transfigured, while he, followed by the hooting
+crowd, endured the penalty of faith. Some men looked on with awe that
+would become adoring; some with surprise that would take refuge in study
+and conviction. There were tears as well as exultation, solemn joy as
+well as execration, in his train. The mother of Leclerc followed
+him with her undaunted testimony, "Blessed be Jesus Christ and His
+Witnesses!"
+
+By day, in the field, Jacqueline Gabrie thought over the reports she
+heard through the harvesters, of the city's feeling, of its purpose, of
+its judgment; by night she prayed and hoped, with the mother of Leclerc;
+and wondrous was the growth her faith had in those days.
+
+On the evening of the third day, Jacqueline and Elsie walked into Meaux
+together. This was not invariably their habit. Elsie had avoided too
+frequent conversation with her friend of late. She knew their paths were
+separate, and was never so persuaded of the fact as this night, when, of
+her own will, she sought to walk with Jacqueline. The sad face of her
+friend troubled her; it moved her conscience that she did not deeply
+share in her anxiety. When they came from Domremy, she had relied on
+Jacqueline: there was safety in her counsel,--there was wisdom in it:
+but now, either?
+
+"It made me scream outright, when I saw the play," said she; "but it is
+worse to see your face nowadays,--it is more terrible, Jacqueline."
+
+Jacqueline made no reply to this,--and Elsie regarded the silence as
+sufficient provocation.
+
+"You seem to think I have no feeling," said she. "I am as sorry about
+the poor fellows as you can be. But I cannot look as if I thought the
+day of judgment close at hand, when I don't, Jacqueline."
+
+"Very well, Elsie. I am not complaining of your looks."
+
+"But you are,--or you might as well."
+
+"Let not that trouble you, Elsie. Your face is smooth, at least; and
+your voice does not sound like the voice of one who is in grief.
+Rejoice,--for, as you say, you have a right to yourself, with which I
+am not to interfere. We are old friends,--we came away from Lorraine
+together. Do not forget that. I never will forget it."
+
+"But you are done with me. You say nothing to me. I might as well be
+dead, for all you care."
+
+"Let us not talk of such things in this manner," said Jacqueline,
+mildly. But the dignity of her rebuke was felt, for Elsie said,--
+
+"But I seem to have lost you,--and now we are alone together, I may say
+it. Yes, I have lost you, Jacqueline!"
+
+"This is not the first time we have been alone together in these
+dreadful three days."
+
+"But now I cannot help speaking."
+
+"You could help it before. Why, Elsie? You had not made up your mind.
+But now you have, or you would not speak, and insist on speaking. What
+have you to say, then?"
+
+"Jacqueline! Are you Jacqueline?"
+
+"Am I not?"
+
+"You seem not to be."
+
+"How is it, Elsie?"
+
+"You are silent and stern, and I think you are very unhappy,
+Jacqueline."
+
+"I do not know,--not unhappy, I think. Perhaps I am silent,--I have been
+so busy. But for all it is so dreadful--no! not unhappy, Elsie."
+
+"Thinking of Leclerc all the while?"
+
+"Of him? Oh, no! I have not been thinking of him,--not constantly. Jesus
+Christ will take care of him. His mother is quiet, thinking that. I,
+at least, can be as strong as she. I'm not thinking of the shame and
+cruelty,--but of what that can be worth which is so much to him, that
+he counts this punishment, as they call it, as nothing, as hardly pain,
+certainly not disgrace. The Truth, Elsie!--if I have not as much to say,
+it is because I have been trying to find the Truth."
+
+"But if you have found it, then I hope I never shall,--if it is the
+Truth that makes you so gloomy. I thought it was this business in
+Meaux."
+
+"Gloomy? when it may be I have found, or _shall_ find"--
+
+Here Jacqueline hesitated,--looked at Elsie. Grave enough was that look
+to expel every frivolous feeling from the heart of Elsie,--at least,
+so long as she remained under its influence. It was something to trust
+another as Jacqueline intended now to trust her friend. It was a
+touching sight to see her seeking her old confidence, and appearing
+to rely on it, while she knew how frail the reed was. But this girl,
+frivolous as was her spirit, this girl had come with her from the
+distant native village; their childhood's recollections were the same.
+And Jacqueline determined now to trust her. For in times of blasting
+heat the shadow even of the gourd is not to be despised.
+
+"You know what I have looked for so long, Elsie," she said, "you ought
+to rejoice with me. I need work for that no longer."
+
+"What is that, Jacqueline?"
+
+Even this question, betraying no such apprehension as Jacqueline's words
+seemed to intimate, did not disturb the girl. She was in the mood when,
+notwithstanding her show of dependence, she was really in no such
+necessity. Never was she stronger than now when she put off all show
+of strength. Elsie stood before her in place of the opposing world. To
+Elsie's question she replied as readily as though she anticipated the
+word, and had no expectation of better recollection,--not to speak of
+better apprehension.
+
+"To bring him out of suffering he has never been made to endure, as
+surely as God lives. As if the Almighty judged men so! I shall send back
+no more money to Father La Croix. It is not his prayer, nor my earnings,
+that will have to do with the eternity of John Gabrie.--Do you hear me,
+Elsie?"
+
+"I seem to, Jacqueline."
+
+"Have I any cause for wretched looks, then? I am in sight of better
+fortune than I ever hoped for in this world."
+
+"Then don't look so fearful. It is enough to scare one. You are not a
+girl to choose to be a fright,--unless this dreadful city has changed
+you altogether from what you were. You would frighten the Domremy
+children with such a face as that; they used not to fear Jacqueline."
+
+"I shall soon be sailing on a smoother sea. As it is, do not speak of my
+looks. That is too foolish."
+
+"But, oh, I feel as if I must hold you,--hold you!--you are leaving
+me!"
+
+"Come on, Elsie!" exclaimed Jacqueline, as though she almost hoped this
+of her dear companion.
+
+"But where?" asked Elsie, not so tenderly.
+
+"Where God leads. I cannot tell."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"You would not think the Truth worth buying at the price of your life?"
+
+"My life?"
+
+"Or such a price as he pays who--has been branded to-day?"
+
+"It was not the truth to your mother,--or to mine. It was not the truth
+to any one we ever knew, till we came here to Meaux."
+
+"It is true to my heart, Elsie. It is true to my conscience. I know that
+I can live for it. And it may be"--
+
+"Hush!--do not! Oh, I wish that I could get you back to Domremy! What is
+going to come of this? Jacqueline, let us go home. Come, let us start
+to-night. We shall have the moon all night to walk by. There is nothing
+in Meaux for us. Oh, if we had never come away! It would have been
+better for you to work there for--what you wanted,--for what you came
+here to do."
+
+"No, let God's Truth triumph! What am I? Less than that rush! But if His
+breath is upon me, I will be moved by it,--I am not a stone."
+
+Then they walked on in silence. Elsie had used her utmost of persuasion,
+but Jacqueline not her utmost of resistance. Her companion knew this,
+felt her weakness in such a contest, and was silent.
+
+On to town they went together. They walked together through the streets,
+passing constantly knots of people who stood about the corners and among
+the shops, discussing what had taken place that day. They crossed the
+square where the noonday sun had shone on crowds of people, men and
+women, gathered from the four quarters of the town and the neighboring
+country, assembled to witness the branding of a heretic. They entered
+their court-yard together,--ascended the stairway leading to their
+lodging. But they were two,--not one.
+
+Elsie's chief desire had been to get Jacqueline safely into the house
+ere she could find opportunity for expression of what was passing in her
+mind. Her fear was even greater than her curiosity. She had no desire to
+learn, under these present circumstances, the arguments and incidents
+which the knots of men and women were discussing with so much vehemence
+as they passed by. She could guess enough to satisfy her. So she had
+hurried along, betraying more eagerness than was common with her to get
+out of the street. Not often was she so overcome of weariness,--not
+often so annoyed by heat and dust. Jacqueline, without remonstrance,
+followed her. But they were two,--not one.
+
+Once safe in their upper room, Elsie appeared to be, after all, not so
+devoid of interest in what was passing in the street as her hurried
+walk would seem to betoken. She had not quite yet lost her taste for
+excitement and display. For immediately she seated herself by the
+window, and was all eye and ear to what went on outside.
+
+Jacqueline's demonstrations also were quite other than might have been
+anticipated. Each step she took in her chamber gave an indication that
+she had a purpose,--and that she would perform it.
+
+She removed from her dress the dust and stain of toil, arranged her
+hair, made herself clean and decent, to meet the sober gaze of others.
+Then she placed upon the table the remains of their breakfast,--but she
+ate nothing.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+It was nearly dark when Jacqueline said to Elsie,--
+
+"I am now going to see John and his mother. I must see with my own eyes,
+and hear with my own ears. I may be able to help them,--and I know they
+will be able to help me. John's word will be worth hearing,--and I want
+to hear it. He must have learned in these days more than we shall ever
+be able to learn for ourselves. Will you go with me?"
+
+"No," cried Elsie,--as though she feared she might against her will
+be taken into such company. Then, not for her own sake, but for
+Jacqueline's, she added, almost as if she hoped that she might prove
+successful in persuasion, "I remember my father and mother. What they
+taught me I believe. And that I shall live by. I shall never be wiser
+than they were. And I know I never can be happier. They were good and
+honest. Jacqueline, we shall never be as happy again as we were in
+Domremy, when the pastor blessed us, and we hunted flowers for the
+altar,--never!--never!" And Elsie Meril, overcome by her recollections
+and her presentiments, burst into tears.
+
+"It was the happiness of ignorance," said Jacqueline, after a solemn
+silence full of hurried thought. "No,--I, for one, shall never be as
+happy as I was then. But my joy will be full of peace and bliss. It will
+be full of satisfaction,--very different, but such as belongs to me,
+such as I must not do without. God led us from Domremy, and with me
+shall He do as seemeth good to Him. We were children then, Elsie; but
+now may we be children no longer!"
+
+"I will be faithful to my mother. Go, Jacqueline,--let me alone."
+
+Elsie said this with so much spirit that Jacqueline answered quickly,
+and yet very kindly,--
+
+"I did not mean to trouble you, dear,--but--no matter now."
+
+No sooner had Jacqueline left the house than Elsie went down to a church
+near by, where she confessed herself to the priest, and received such
+goodly counsel as was calculated to fortify her against Jacqueline in
+the future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jacqueline went to the house of the wool-comber, as of late had been her
+nightly custom,--but not, as heretofore, to lighten the loneliness
+and anxiety of the mother of Leclerc. Already she had said to the old
+woman,--
+
+"I need not work now for my father's redemption. Then I will work for
+you, if your son is disabled. Let us believe that God brought me here
+for this. I am strong. You can lean on me. Try it."
+
+Now she went to make repetition of the promise to Leclerc, if,
+perchance, he had come back to his mother sick and sore and helpless.
+For this reason, when she entered the humble home of the martyr, his
+eyes fell on her, and he saw her as she had been an angel; how serene
+was her countenance; and her courage was manifestly such as no mortal
+fear, no human affliction, could dismay.
+
+Already in that room faithful friends had gathered, to congratulate the
+living man, and to refresh their strength from the abounding richness of
+his.
+
+Martial Mazurier, the noted preacher, was there, and Victor Le Roy;
+besides these, others, unknown by name or presence to Jacqueline.
+
+Among them was the wool-comber,--wounded with many stripes, branded,
+a heretic! But a man still, it appeared,--a living man,--brave as any
+hero, determined as a saint,--ready to proclaim now the love of God, and
+from the couch where he was lying to testify to Jesus and his Truth.
+
+It was a goodly sight to see the tenderness of these men here gathered;
+how they were forgetful of all inequalities of station, such as
+worldlings live by,--meeting on a new ground, and greeting one another
+in a new spirit.
+
+They had come to learn of John. A halo surrounded him; he was
+transfigured; and through that cloud of glory they would fain penetrate.
+Perchance his eyes, as Stephen's, had seen heaven open, when men had
+tried their torments. At least, they had witnessed, when they followed
+the crowd, that his face, in contrast with theirs who tormented, shone,
+as it had been the face of an angel. They had witnessed his testimony
+given in the heroic endurance of physical pain. There was more to be
+learned than the crowd were fit to hear or _could_ hear. Broken strains
+of the Lord's song they heard him singing through the torture. Now they
+had come longing for the full burden of that divinest melody.
+
+Jacqueline entered the room quietly, scarcely observed. She sat down by
+the door, and it chanced to be near the mother of Leclerc, near Victor
+Le Roy.
+
+To their conversation she listened as one who listens for his life,--to
+the reading of the Scripture,--to the singing of the psalm,--that grand
+old version,--
+
+  "Out of the depths I cry to thee,
+  Lord God! Oh, hear my prayer!
+  Incline a gracious ear to me,
+  And bid me not despair.
+  If thou rememberest each misdeed,
+  If each should have its rightful meed,
+  Lord, who shall stand before thee?
+
+  "Lord, through thy love alone we gain
+  The pardon of our sin:
+  The strictest life is but in vain,
+  Our works can nothing win,
+  That man should boast himself of aught,
+  But own in fear thy grace hath wrought
+  What in him seemeth righteous.
+
+  "Wherefore my hope is in the Lord,
+  My works I count but dust;
+  I build not there, but on his word,
+  And in his goodness trust.
+  Up to his care myself I yield;
+  He is my tower, my rook, my shield,
+  And for his help I tarry."
+
+To the praying of the broken voice of John Leclerc she listened. In his
+prayer she joined. To the eloquence of Mazurier, whose utterances she
+laid up in her heart,--to the fervor of Le Roy, which left her eyes not
+dry, her soul not calm, but strong in its commotion, grasping fast the
+eternal truths which he, too, would proclaim, she listened.
+
+She was not only now among them, she was of them,--of them forevermore.
+Though she should never again look on those faces, nor listen to those
+voices, of them, of all they represented, was she forevermore. Their God
+was hers,--their faith was hers; their danger would she share,--their
+work would aid.
+
+Their talk was of the Truth, and of the future of the Truth. Well they
+understood that the spirit roused among the people would not be quieted
+again,--that what of ferocity in the nature of the bigot and the
+powerful had been appeased had but for the moment been satisfied. There
+would be unremitting watch for victims; everywhere the net for the
+unwary and the fearless would be laid. Blood-thirstiness and lust and
+covetousness would make grand their disguises,--broad would their
+phylacteries be made,--shining with sacred gems, their breast-plates.
+
+Of course it was of the great God's honor these men would be jealous.
+This heresy must needs be uprooted, or no knowing where would be the end
+of the wild growth. And, indeed, there was no disputing the fact that
+there was danger in open acceptance of such doctrines as defied the
+authority of priestcraft,--ay, danger to falsehood, and death to
+falsehood!
+
+Fanaticism, cowardice, cruelty, the spirit of persecution, the spirit
+of authority aroused, ignorance and vanity and foolishness would make
+themselves companions, no doubt. Should Truth succumb to these? Should
+Love retreat before the fierce onset of Hate? These brave men said not
+so. And they looked above them and all human aid for succor,--Jacqueline
+with them.
+
+When Mazurier and Victor Le Roy went away, they left Jacqueline with
+the wool-comber's mother, but they did not pass by her without notice.
+Martial lingered for a moment, looking down on the young girl.
+
+"She is one of us," said the old woman.
+
+Then the preacher laid his hand upon her head, and blessed her.
+
+"Continue in prayer, and listen to the testimony of the Holy Ghost,"
+said he. "Then shall you surely come deep into the blessed knowledge and
+the dear love of Jesus Christ."
+
+When he had passed on, Victor paused in turn.
+
+"It is good to be here, Jacqueline," said he. '"This is the house of
+God; this is the gate of heaven."
+
+And he also went forth, whither Mazurier had gone.
+
+Then beside the bed of the poor wool-comber women like angels
+ministered, binding up his wounds, and soothing him with voices soft as
+ever spoke to man. And from the peasant whose toil was in harvest-fields
+and vineyards came offers of assistance which the poor can best give the
+poor.
+
+But the wool-comber did not need the hard-earned pence of Jacqueline.
+When she said, "Let me serve you now, as a daughter and a sister, you
+two,"--he made no mistake in regard to her words and offer. But he had
+no need of just such service as she stood prepared to render. In his
+toil he had looked forward to the seasons of adversity,--had provided
+for a dark day's disablement; and he was able now to smile upon his
+mother and on Jacqueline, and to say,--
+
+"I will, indeed, be a brother to you, and my mother will love you as if
+you were her child. But we shall not take the bread from your mouth to
+prove it. Our daughter and our sister in the Lord, we thank you and love
+you, Jacqueline. I know what you have been doing since I went away.
+The Lord love you, Jacqueline! You will no longer be a stranger and
+friendless in Meaux, while John Leclerc and his mother are alive,--nay,
+as long as a true man or woman lives in Meaux. Fear not."
+
+"I will not fear," said Jacqueline.
+
+And she sat by the side of the mother of Leclerc, and thought of her
+own mother in the heavens, and was tranquil, and prepared, she said to
+herself, to walk, if indeed she must, through the valley of the shadow
+of death, and would still fear no evil.
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+Strengthened and inspired by the scenes of the last three days, Martial
+Mazurier began to preach with an enthusiasm, bravery, and eloquence
+unknown before to his hearers. He threw himself into the work of
+preaching, the new revelation of the ancient eternal Truth, with
+an ardor that defied authority, that scorned danger, and with a
+recklessness that had its own reward.
+
+Victor Le Roy was his ardent admirer, his constant follower, his
+loving friend, his servant. Day by day this youth was studying with
+indefatigable zeal the truths and doctrines adopted by his teacher.
+Enchanted by the wise man's eloquence, already a convert to the faith
+he magnified, he was prepared to follow wherever the preacher led. The
+fascination of danger he felt, and was allured by. Frowning faces had
+for him no terrors. He could defy evil.
+
+Jacqueline and he might be called most friendly students. Often in
+the cool of the day the young man walked out from Meaux along the
+country-roads, and his face was always toward the setting sun, whence
+towards the east Jacqueline at that hour would be coming. The girls were
+living in the region of the vineyards now, and among the vines they
+worked.
+
+It began to be remarked by some of their companions how much Jacqueline
+Gabrie and the young student from the city walked together. But the
+subject of their discourse, as they rested under the trees that fringed
+the river, was not within the range of common speculation; far enough
+removed from the ordinary use to which the peasants put their thought
+was the thinking of Le Roy and Jacqueline.
+
+Often Victor went, carefully and with a student's precision, over the
+grounds of Martial's arguments, for the satisfaction of Jacqueline.
+Much pride as well as joy had he in the service; for he reverenced his
+teacher, and feared nothing so much, in these repetitions, as that this
+listener, this animated, thinking, feeling Jacqueline, should lose
+anything by his transmission of the preacher's arguments and eloquence.
+
+And sometimes, on those special occasions which were now constantly
+occurring, she walked with him to the town, and hearkened for herself in
+the assemblages of those who were now one in the faith.
+
+Elsie looked on and wondered, but did not jest with Jacqueline, as girls
+are wont to jest with one another on such points as seemed involved in
+this friendship between youth and youth, between man and woman.
+
+Towards the conclusion of the girls' appointed labor in the vineyard, a
+week passed in which Victor Le Roy had not once come out from Meaux in
+the direction of the setting sun. He knew the time when the peasants'
+labor in the vineyard would be done; Jacqueline had told him; and with
+wonder, and with trouble, she lived through the days that brought no
+word from him.
+
+At work early and late, Jacqueline had no opportunity of discovering
+what was going on in Meaux. But it chanced, on the last day of the last
+week in the vineyard, tidings reached her: Martial Mazurier had been
+arrested, and would be tried, the rumor said, as John Leclerc had been
+tried; and sentence would be pronounced, doubtless, said conjecture,
+severe in proportion to the influence the man had acquired, to the
+position he held.
+
+Hearing this, oppressed, troubled, yet not doubting, Jacqueline
+determined that she would go to Meaux that evening, and so ascertain the
+truth. She said nothing to Elsie of her purpose. She was careful in all
+things to avoid that which might involve her companion in peril in an
+unknown future; but at nightfall she had made herself ready to set
+out for Meaux, when her purpose was changed in the first steps by the
+appearing of Victor Le Roy.
+
+He had come to Jacqueline,--had but one purpose in his coming; yet it
+was she who must say,--
+
+"Is it true, Victor, that Martial Mazurier is in prison?"
+
+His answer surprised her.
+
+"No, it is not true."
+
+But his countenance did not answer the glad expression of her face with
+an equal smile. His gravity almost communicated itself to her. Yet this
+rebound from her recent dismay surely might demand an opportunity.
+
+"I believe you," said she. "But I was coming to see if it could be true.
+It was hard to believe, and yet it has cost me a great deal to persuade
+myself against belief, Victor."
+
+"It will cost you still more, Jacqueline. Martial Mazurier has
+recanted."
+
+"He has been in prison, then?"
+
+"He has retracted, and is free again,--has denied himself. No more
+glorious words from him, Jacqueline, such as we have heard! He has sold
+himself to the Devil, you see."
+
+"Mazurier?"
+
+"Mazurier has thought raiment better than life. _He_ has believed a
+man's life to consist in the abundance of the things he possesseth,"
+said the youth, bitterly. He continued, looking steadfastly at
+Jacqueline,--"Probably I must give up the Truth also. My uncle is dead:
+must I not secure my possessions?--for I am no longer a poor man; I
+cannot afford to let my life fall into the hands of those wolves."
+
+"Mazurier retracted? I cannot believe it, Victor Le Roy!"
+
+"Believe, then, that yesterday the man was in prison, and to-day he is
+at large. Yes, he says that he can serve Jesus Christ more favorably,
+more successfully, by complying with the will of the bishop and the
+priests. You see the force of his argument. If he should be silenced, or
+imprisoned long, or his life should be cut off, he would then be able
+to preach no more at all in any way. He only does not believe that
+whosoever will save his life, in opposition to the law of the
+everlasting gospel, must lose it."
+
+"Oh, do you remember what he said to John,--what he prayed in that room?
+Oh, Victor, what does it mean?"
+
+"It means what cannot be spoken,--what I dare not say or think."
+
+"Not that we are wrong, mistaken, Victor?"
+
+"No, Jacqueline, never! it can never mean that! Whatever we may do with
+the Truth, we cannot make it false. We may act like cowards, unworthy,
+ungrateful, ignorant; but the Truth will remain, Jacqueline."
+
+"Victor, you could not desert it."
+
+"How can I tell, Jacqueline? The last time I saw Martial Mazurier, he
+would have said nobler and more loving words than I can command. But
+with my own eyes I saw him walking at liberty in streets where liberty
+for him to walk could be bought only at an infamous price."
+
+"Is there such danger for all men who believe with John Leclerc, and
+with--with you, Victor?"
+
+"Yes, there is danger, such danger."
+
+"Then you must go away. You must not stay in Meaux," she said, quickly,
+in a low, determined voice.
+
+"Jacqueline, I must remain in Meaux," he answered, as quickly, with
+flushed face and flashing eyes. The dignity of conscious integrity, and
+the "fear of fear," a beholder who could discern the tokens might have
+perceived in him.
+
+"Oh, then, who can tell? Did he not pray that he might not be led into
+temptation?"
+
+"Yes," Victor replied, more troubled than scornful,--"yes, and allowed
+himself to be led at last."
+
+"But if you should go away"----
+
+"Would not that be flying from danger?" he asked, proudly.
+
+"Nay, might it not be doing with your might what you found to do, that
+you might not be led into temptation?"
+
+"And you are afraid, that, if I stay here, I shall yield to them."
+
+"You say you are not certain, Victor. You repeat Mazurier's words."
+
+"Yet shall I remain. No, I will never run away."
+
+The pride of the young fellow, and the consternation occasioned by the
+recreancy of his superior, his belief in the doctrines he had confessed
+with Mazurier, and the time-serving of the latter, had evidently thrown
+asunder the guards of his peace, and produced a sad state of confusion.
+
+"It were better to run away," said Jacqueline, not pausing to choose the
+word,--"far better than to stay and defy the Devil, and then find that
+you could not resist him, Victor. Oh, if we could go, as Elsie said,
+back to Domremy,--anywhere away from this cruel Meaux!"
+
+"Have you, then, gained nothing, Jacqueline?"
+
+"Everything. But to lose it,--oh, I cannot afford that!"
+
+"Let us stand together, then. Promise me, Jacqueline," he exclaimed,
+eagerly, as though he felt himself among defences here, with her.
+
+"What shall I promise, Victor?" she asked, with the voice and the look
+of one who is ready for any deed of daring, for any work of love.
+
+"I, too, have preached this word."
+
+Her only comment was, "I know you preached it well."
+
+"What has befallen others may befall me."
+
+"Well."
+
+So strongly, so confidently did she speak this word, that the young man
+went on, manifestly influenced by it, hesitating no more in his speech.
+
+"May befall me," he repeated.
+
+"'Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,'"
+she answered, with lofty voice, repeating the divine word. "What is our
+life, that we should hold it at the expense of his Truth? Mazurier was
+wrong. He can never atone for the wrong he has done."
+
+"I believe it!" exclaimed Victor, with a brightening countenance. The
+clouds of doubt rose from his face and floated away, as we see the mists
+ascending from the heights, when we are so happy as to live in the wild
+hill-country. "You prize Truth more than life. Stand with me in this,
+Jacqueline. Speak of this Truth as it has come to me. You are all that
+I have left. I have lost Mazurier. Jacqueline, you are a woman, but you
+never,--yes! yes! though I dare not say as much of myself, I dare say
+it of you,--you never could have bought your liberty at such a price as
+Martial has paid. I know not how, even with the opportunity, he will
+ever gain the courage to speak of these things again,--those great
+mysteries which are hidden from the eyes of the covetous and worldly and
+unbelieving. Promise, stand with me, Jacqueline, and I will rely on you.
+Forsake me not."
+
+"Victor, has He not said, who can best say it, 'I will never leave you
+nor forsake you'?"
+
+"But, Jacqueline, I love you."
+
+Having said these words, the face of the young man emerged wholly from
+the eclipse of the former shadow.
+
+"What is this?" said the brave peasant from Domremy, manifestly doubting
+whether she had heard aright; and her clear pure eyes were gazing full
+on Victor Le Roy, actually looking for an explanation of his words.
+
+"I love you, Jacqueline," he repeated. "And I do not involve you in
+danger, oh, my friend! Only let me have it to believe that my life is
+dear to Jacqueline, and I shall not be afraid then to lose it, if that
+testimony be required of me. Shall we not stand side by side, soldiers
+of Christ, stronger in each other than in all the world beside? Shall it
+not be so, Jacqueline? True heart, answer me! And if you will not love
+me, at least say, say you are my friend, you trust me. I will hold your
+safety sacred."
+
+"I am your friend, Victor."
+
+"Say my wife, Jacqueline. I honored you, that you came from Domremy.
+You are my very dream of Joan,--as brave and as true as beautiful.
+Jacqueline, it is not all for the Truth's sake, but for my love's sake.
+Is not our work one, moreover? Are we not one in heart and purpose,
+Jacqueline? You are alone; let me protect you."
+
+He needed no other answer than he had while his eyes constantly sought
+hers. Her calm look, the dignity and strength of her composure, assured
+him of all he longed to learn,--assured him that their hearts, even as
+their purposes and faith, were one."
+
+"But speak one word," he urged.
+
+The word she spoke was, "I can be true to you, Victor."
+
+Won hardly by a word: too easily, you think? She loved the youth, my
+friends, and she loved the Truth for which he dared not say that he
+could sacrifice himself.
+
+"We are one, then," said Victor Le Roy. "It concerned me above all
+things to prove that, Jacqueline. So you shall have no more to do with
+these harvest-fields and vineyards henceforth, except to eat of the
+fruits, if God will. You have borne all the burden and heat of labor you
+shall ever bear. I can say that, with God's blessing. We shall sit under
+our own vine. Death in one direction has prepared for life in another.
+I inherit what my uncle can make use of no longer. We shall look out
+on our own fields, our harvests; for I think this city will keep us no
+longer than may he needful. We will go away into Picardy, and I will
+show you where our Joan was a prisoner; and we will go back to Domremy,
+and walk in the places she loved, and pray God to bless us by that
+fountain, and in the grave-yard where your father and mother sleep. Oh,
+Jacqueline, is it not all blessed and all fair?"
+
+She could hardly comprehend all the brightness of this vision which
+Victor Le Roy would fain bring before her. The paths he pointed out to
+her were new and strange; but she could trust him, could believe that
+together they might walk without stumbling.
+
+She had nothing to say of her unfitness, her unworthiness, to occupy the
+place to which he pointed. Not a doubt, not a fear, had she to express.
+He loved her, and that she knew; and she had no thought of depreciating
+his choice, its excellency or its wisdom. Whatever excess of wonder she
+may have felt was not communicated. How know I that _she_ marvelled at
+her lover's choice, though all the world might marvel?
+
+Then remembering Mazurier, and thinking of her strength of faith, and
+her high-heartedness, he was eager that Jacqueline should appoint their
+marriage-day. And more than he, perhaps, supposed was betrayed by this
+haste. He made his words profoundly good. Strong woman that she was, he
+wanted her strength joined to his. He was secretly disquieted, secretly
+afraid to trust himself, since this defection of Martial Mazurier.
+
+What did hinder them? They might be married on Sunday, if she would:
+they might go down together to the estate, which he must immediately
+visit.
+
+Through the hurry of thought, and the agitation of heart, and the rush
+of seeming impossibilities, he brought out at length in triumph her
+consent.
+
+She did consent. It should all be as he wished. And so they parted
+outside that town of Meaux on the fair summer evening.--plighted
+lovers,--hopeful man and woman. For them the evening sky was lovely with
+the day's last light; for them the serene stars of night arose.
+
+So they parted under the open sky: he going forward to the city,
+strengthened and refreshed in faith and holy courage; she, adorned with
+holy hopes which never until now had found place among her visions.
+Neither was she prepared for them; until he brought them to a heart
+which, indeed, could never be dismayed by the approach and claim of
+love.
+
+Love was no strange guest. Fresh and fair as Zephyrus, he came from the
+forest depths, and she welcomed him,--no stranger,--though the breath
+that bore him was all heavenly, and his aspiration was remote from
+earthly sources. Yes, she so imagined.
+
+She went back to the cottage where she and Elsie lodged now, to tell
+Elsie what had happened,--to thankfulness,--to gazing forward Into a
+new world,--to aspiration, expectation, joy, humility,--to wonder, and
+to praise,--to all that my best reader will perceive must be true of
+Jacqueline on this great evening of her life.
+
+
+X.
+
+
+That same night Victor Le Roy was arrested on charge of
+heresy,--arrested and imprisoned. Watchmen were on the look-out when the
+lover walked forward with triumphant steps to Meaux.
+
+"This fellow also was among the wool-comber's disciples," said they; and
+their successful dealing with Mazurier encouraged the authorities to
+hope that soon all this evil would be overcome,--trampled in the dust:
+this impudent insurrection of thought should certainly be stifled; youth
+and age, high station, low, should be taught alike of Rome.
+
+Tidings reached Martial Mazurier next day of what had befallen Victor Le
+Roy, and he went instantly to visit him in prison. It was an interview
+which the tender-hearted officials would have invited, had he not
+forestalled them by inviting himself to the duty. Mazurier had something
+to do in the matter of reconciling his conscience to the part he had
+taken, in his recent opportunity to prove himself equally a hero with
+Leclerc. He had recanted, done evil, in short, that good might come; and
+was not content with having done this thing: how should he be? Now that
+his follower was in the same position, he had but one wish,--that he
+should follow his example. He did not, perhaps, entirely ascertain his
+motive in this; but it is hardly to be supposed that Mazurier was so
+persuaded of the justice of his course that he desired to have it
+imitated by another under the same circumstances.
+
+No! he was forever disgraced in his own eyes, when he remembered the
+valiant John Leclerc; and it was not to be permitted that Victor Le Roy
+should follow the example of the wool-comber in preference to that
+he had given,--that politic, wise, blood-sparing, flesh--loving,
+truth-depreciating, God-defrauding example.
+
+Accordingly he lost no time in seeking Victor in his cell. It was the
+very cell in which he himself had lately been imprisoned. Within those
+narrow walls he had meditated, prayed, and made his choice. There he had
+stood face to face with fate, with God, with Jesus, and had decided--not
+in favor of the flogging, and the branding, and the glorious infamy.
+There, in spite of eloquence and fervor and devotion, in spite of all
+his past vows and his hopes, he had decided to take the place and part
+of a timeserver;--for he feared disgrace and pain, and the hissing
+and scoff and persecution, more than he feared the blasting anger of
+insulted and forsaken Truth.
+
+He found Victor within his cell, his bright face not overcast with
+gloom, his eyes not betraying doubts, neither disappointed, astonished,
+nor in deep dejection. The mood he deemed unfavorable for his special
+word,--poor, deceived, self-deceiving Mazurier!
+
+He was not merely surprised at these indications,--he was at a loss. A
+little trepidation, doubt, suspicion would have better suited him. Alas!
+and was _his_ hour the extremity of another's weakness, not in the
+elevation of another's spiritual strength? Once when he preached the
+Truth as moved by the Holy Ghost, it was not to the prudence or the
+worldly wisdom of his hearers he appealed, but to the higher feelings
+and the noblest powers of men. Then he called on them to praise God by
+their faith in all that added to His glory and dominion. But now his
+eloquence was otherwise directed,--not full of the old fire and
+enthusiasm,--not trustful in God, but dependent on prudence, as though
+all help were in man. He had to draw from his own experience now,
+things new and old,--and was not, by confession of the result of such
+experience, humiliated!
+
+"You are under a mistake," was his argument. "You have not gone deep
+into these matters; you have made acquaintance only with the agitated
+surface of them." And he proceeded to make good all this assertion, it
+was so readily proven! _He_ also had been beguiled,--ah, had he not? He
+had been beguiled by the rude eloquence, the insensibility to pain, the
+pride of opposition, the pride of poverty, the pride of a rude nature,
+exhibited by John Leclerc.
+
+He acknowledged freely, with a fatal candor, that, until he came to
+consider these things in their true light, when shut away from all
+outward influences, until compelled to quiet meditation beyond the reach
+and influence of mere enthusiasm, he had believed with Leclerc, even as
+Victor was believing now. He could have gone on, who might tell to what
+fanatical length? had it not been for that fortunate arrest which made a
+sane man of him!
+
+Leclerc was not quite in the wrong,--not absolutely,--but neither was
+he, as Mazurier had once believed, gloriously in the right. It was
+clearly apparent to him, that Victor Le Roy, having now also like
+opportunity for calm reflection, would come to like conclusions.
+
+With such confident prophecy, Mazurier left the young man. His visit was
+brief and hurried;--no duty that could be waived should call him away
+from his friend at such a time; but he would return; they would speak of
+this again; and he kissed Victor, and blessed him, and went out to bid
+the authorities delay yet before the lad was brought to trial, for he
+was confident, that, if left to reflection, he would come to his senses,
+and choose wisely--between God and Mammon? Mazurier expressed it in
+another way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the street, Elsie Meril heard of Victor's arrest, and she brought the
+news to Jacqueline. They had returned to Meaux, to their old lodging,
+and a day had passed, during which, moment by moment, his arrival was
+anticipated. Elsie went out to buy a gift for Jacqueline, a bit of fine
+apparelling which she had coveted from the moment she knew Jacqueline
+should be a bride. She stole away on her errand without remark, and
+came back with the gift,--but also with that which made it valueless,
+unmentionable, though it was a costly offering, purchased with the wages
+of more than a week's labor in the fields.
+
+It was almost dark when she returned to Jacqueline. Her friend was
+sitting by the window,--waiting,--not for her; and when she went in to
+her, it was silently, with no mention of her errand or her love-gift.
+Quietly she sat down, thankful that the night was falling, waiting for
+its darkness before she should speak words which would make the darkness
+to be felt.
+
+"He does not come," said Jacqueline, at length.
+
+"Did you think it was he, when I came up the stairs?" inquired Elsie,
+tenderly.
+
+"Oh, no! I can tell your step from all the rest."
+
+"His, too, I think."
+
+"Yes, and his, too. My best friends. Strange, if I could not!"
+
+"Oh, I'm glad you said that, Jacqueline!"
+
+"My best friends," repeated Jacqueline,--not merely to please Elsie.
+Love had opened wide her heart,--and Elsie, weak and foolish though
+she might be,--Elsie, her old companion, her playmate, her
+fellow-laborer,--Elsie, who should be to her a sister always, and share
+in her good-fortune,--Elsie had honorable place there.
+
+"Could anything have happened, Jacqueline?" said Elsie, trembling: her
+tremulous voice betrayed it.
+
+"Oh, I think not," was the answer.
+
+"But he is so fearless,--he might have fallen into--into trouble."
+
+"What have you heard, Elsie?"
+
+This question was quietly asked, but it struck to the heart of the
+questioned girl. Jacqueline suspected!--and yet Jacqueline asked so
+calmly! Jacqueline could hear it,--and yet how could this be declared?
+
+Her hesitation quickened what was hardly suspicion into a conviction.
+
+"What have you heard?" Jacqueline again questioned,--not so calmly as
+before; and yet it was quite calmly, even to the alarmed ear of Elsie
+Meril.
+
+"They have arrested Victor, Jacqueline."
+
+"For heresy?"
+
+"I heard it in the street."
+
+Jacqueline arose,--she crossed the chamber,--her hand was on the latch.
+Instantly Elsie stood beside her.
+
+"What will you do? I must go with you, Jacqueline."
+
+"Where will you go?" said Jacqueline.
+
+"With you. Wait,--what is it you will do? Or,--no matter, go on, I will
+follow you,--and take the danger with you."
+
+"Is there danger? For him there is! and there might be for you,--but
+none for me. Stay, Elsie. Where shall I go, in truth?"
+
+Yet she opened the door, and began to descend the stairs even while she
+spoke; and Elsie followed her.
+
+First to the house of the wool-comber. John was not at home,--and his
+mother could tell them nothing, had heard nothing of the arrest of
+Victor. Then to the place which Victor had pointed out to her as the
+home of Mazurier. Mazurier likewise they failed to find. Where, then,
+was the prison of Le Roy's captivity? That no man could tell them; so
+they came home to their lodging at length in the dark night, there to
+wait through endless-seeming hours for morning.
+
+On the Sunday they had chosen for their wedding-day Mazurier brought
+word of Victor to Jacqueline,--was really a messenger, as he announced
+himself, when she opened for him the door of her room in the fourth
+story of the great lodging-house. He had come on that day with a
+message; but it was not in all things--in little beside the love it was
+meant to prove--the message Victor had desired to convey. In want of
+more faithful, more trustworthy messenger, Le Roy sent word by this man
+of his arrest,--and bade Jacqueline pray for him, and come to him, if
+that were possible. He desired, he said, to serve his Master,--and, of
+all things, sought the Truth.
+
+To go to the prisoner, Mazurier assured Jacqueline, was impossible, but
+she might send a message; indeed, he was here to serve his dear friends.
+Ah, poor girl, did she trust the man by whom she sent into a prison
+words like these?--
+
+"Hold fast to the faith that is in you, Victor. Let nothing persuade you
+that you have been mistaken. We asked for light,--it was given us,--let
+us walk in it; and no matter where it leads,--since the light is from
+heaven. Do not think of me,--nor of yourself,--but only of Jesus Christ,
+who said, 'Whosoever would save his life shall lose it.'"
+
+Mazurier took this message. What did he do with it? He tossed it to the
+winds.
+
+A week after, Le Roy was brought to trial,--and recanted; and so
+recanting, was acquitted and set at liberty.
+
+Mazurier supposed that he meant all kindly in the exertion he made to
+save his friend. He would never have ceased from self-reproach, had he
+conveyed the words of Jacqueline to Victor,--for the effect of those
+words he could clearly foresee.
+
+And so far from attempting to bring about an interview between the pair,
+he would have striven to prevent it, had he seen a probability that it
+would be allowed. He set little value on such words as Jacqueline spoke,
+when her conscience and her love rose up against each other. The
+words she had committed to him he could account for by no supposition
+acceptable and reasonable to him. There was something about the girl he
+did not understand; she was no fit guide for a man who had need of clear
+judgment, when such a decision was to be made as the court demanded of
+Le Roy.
+
+Elsie Meril, between hope and fear, was dumb in these days; but her
+presence and her tenderness, though not heroic in action nor wise in
+utterance, had a value of which neither she nor Jacqueline was fully
+aware.
+
+When Jacqueline learned the issue of the trial, and that Victor had
+falsified his faith, her first impulse was to fly, that she might never
+see his face again. For, the instant she heard his choice, her heart
+told her what she had been hoping during these days of suspense. She had
+tried to see Martial Mazurier, but without success, since he conveyed,
+or promised to convey, her message to the prisoner. Of purpose he had
+avoided her. He guessed what strength she would by this time have
+attained, and he was determined to save both to each other, though it
+might be against their will.
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Victor Le Roy's first endeavor, on being liberated, was--of course to
+find Jacqueline? Not so. That was far from his first design. His impulse
+was to avoid the girl he had dared to love. Mazurier had, indeed,
+conveyed to his mind an impression that would have satisfied him, if
+anything of this character could do so. But this was impossible. The
+secret of his disquiet was far too profound for such easy removal.
+
+He had not in himself the witness that he had fulfilled the will of God.
+He was disquieted, humiliated, wretched. He could not think of Leclerc,
+nor upon his protestations, except with shame and remorse,--remorse,
+already. In his heart, in spite of the impression Mazurier had contrived
+to convey, he believed not that Jacqueline would bless him to such
+work as he could henceforth perform, no longer a free man,--no longer
+possessed of liberty of speech and thought.
+
+He had no sooner renounced his liberty than he became persuaded, by an
+overwhelming reasoning, as he had never been convinced before, of
+the pricelessness of that he had sacrificed. When he went from the
+court-room, from the presence of his judges, he was not a free man,
+though the dignitaries called him so. Martial Mazurier walked arm in arm
+with him, but the world was a den of horrors, a blackened and accursed
+world, to the young man who came from prison, free to use his
+freedom--as the priests directed!
+
+He went home from the prison with Mazurier. The world had conquered.
+Love had conquered,--Love, that in the conquest felt itself disgraced.
+He had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old
+pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his
+dungeon had looked so fair!--but now it seemed so worthless! This
+prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,--oh, the
+beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young
+Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir of liberty and
+life!
+
+Yes,--he went home with Mazurier. Where else should he go?
+Congratulations attended him. He was compelled to receive them with a
+countenance not too sombre, and a grace not all thankless, or--or--they
+would say it was of cowardice he had saved his precious body from the
+sentence of the judges, and given his precious LIFE up to the sentence
+of the JUDGE.
+
+Yes,--Martial took him home. There they might talk at leisure of those
+things,--and ask a blessing on the testimony of Jesus, made and kept by
+them!
+
+Victor Le Roy was too proud to complain now. He assented to all the
+preacher's sophistry. He allowed himself to be cheered. But this was
+no such evening as had been spent in the room of the wool-comber, when
+Leclerc's voice, strong, even through his weakness, called on God,
+and blessed and praised Him, and the spirit conquered the flesh
+gloriously,--the old mother of Leclerc sharing his joy, as she had also
+shared his anguish. Here was no Jacqueline to say to Victor, "Thou hast
+done well! 'Glory be to Jesus Christ, and His witnesses!'"
+
+Mazurier thanked God for the deliverance of His servant! He dedicated
+himself and Victor anew to the service of Truth, which they had shrunk
+from defending! And his eloquence and fervor seemed to stamp the words
+with sincerity. He seemed not in the least to suspect or fear himself.
+
+With Victor Le Roy such self-deception, such sophistry, was simply
+impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not of purpose did he meet Jacqueline that night. She had heard that Le
+Roy was at liberty, and alone now she applied at the door of Martial
+Mazurier for admittance, but in vain. The master had signified that his
+evening was not to be interrupted. Therefore she returned, from waiting
+near his door, to the street where she and Elsie lived.
+
+Should her woman's pride have led her to her lofty lodging, and kept her
+there without a sign, till Victor himself came seeking her? She knew
+nothing of such pride,--but much of love; and her love took her back to
+the post where she had waited many an hour since that disastrous arrest:
+she would wait there till morning, if she must,--at least, till one
+should enter, or come forth, who might tell her of Victor Le Roy.
+
+The light in the preacher's study she could see from the door-step in a
+court-yard where she waited. Should Mazurier come with Victor, she would
+let them pass; but if Victor came alone, she had a right to speak.
+
+It was after midnight when the student came down from the preacher's
+study. She heard his voice when the door opened,--by the street-lamp
+saw his face. And she recognized also the voice of Mazurier, who, till
+the last moment of separation, seemed endeavoring to dissuade his friend
+from leaving him that night.
+
+He heard footsteps following him, as he passed along the
+pavement,--observed that they gained on him. And could it be any other
+than Jacqueline who touched his arm, and whispered, "Victor"?
+
+His fast-beating heart told him it was she. He took her hand, and
+drew it within his arm, and looked upon her face,--the face of his
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Now where?" said he. "It is late. It is after midnight. Why are you
+alone in the street?"
+
+"Waiting for you, Victor. I heard you were at liberty, and I supposed
+you were with him. I was safe."
+
+"Yes,--for you fear nothing. That is the only reason. You knew I was
+with the preacher, Jacqueline. Why? Because--because I _am_ with him,
+of course."
+
+"Yes," she said. "I heard it was so, Victor."
+
+"Strange!--strange!--is it not? A prison is a better place to learn the
+truth than the pure air of liberty, it seems," said he, bitterly.
+
+"What is that?" she asked. She seemed not to understand his meaning.
+
+"Nothing. I am acquitted of heresy, you know. It seems, what we talked
+so bravely meant--nothing. Oh, I am safe, now!"
+
+"It was to preach none the less,--to hold the truth none the less. But
+if he lost his life, there was an end of all; or if he lost his
+liberty, it was as bad. But he would keep both, and serve God so," said
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Yes," cried Victor, "precisely what he said. I have said the same, you
+think?"
+
+"If you are quite clear that Leclerc and the rest of us are all wrong,
+Victor."
+
+"Jacqueline!"
+
+"What is it, Victor?"
+
+"'The rest of us,' you say. What would _you_ have done in my place?"
+
+"God knows. I pretend not to know anything more."
+
+"But 'the rest of us,' you said. You think that you at least are with
+Leclerc?"
+
+"That was the truth you taught me, Victor. But--I have not yet been
+tried."
+
+"That is safe to say. What makes you speak so prudently, Jacqueline? Why
+do you not declare, 'Though all men deny Thee, yet will I never deny
+Thee'? Ah, you have not been tried! You are not yet in danger of the
+judgment, Jacqueline!"
+
+"Do not speak so; you frighten me; it is not like you. How can I tell?
+I do not know but in this retirement, in this thought you have been
+compelled to, you have obtained more light than any one can have until
+he comes to just such a place."
+
+"Ah, Jacqueline, why not say to me what you are thinking? Have you lost
+your courage? Say, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.'"
+
+"No,--oh, no! How could I say it, my poor Victor? How do you know?"
+
+"Surely you cannot know, as you say. But from where you stand, that is
+what you are thinking. Jacqueline, confess! If you should speak your
+mind, it would be, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, poor
+coward!' Oh, Jacqueline, Mazurier may deceive himself! I speak not for
+him; but what will you do with your poor Victor, my poor Jacqueline?"
+
+She did not linger in the answer,--she did not sob or tremble,--he was
+by her side.
+
+"Love him to the end. As He, when He loved His own."
+
+"Your own, poor girl? No, no!"
+
+"You gave yourself to me," she answered straightway, with resolute
+firmness clinging to the all she had.
+
+"I was a man then," he answered. "But I will never give a liar and a
+coward to Jacqueline Gabrie. Everything but myself, Jacqueline! Take
+the old words, and the old memory. But for this outcast, him you shall
+forget. My God! thou hast not brought this brave girl from Domremy, and
+lighted her heart with a coal from Thine altar, that she should turn
+from Thee to me! If you love a liar and a coward, Jacqueline, you cannot
+help yourself,--he will make you one, too. And what I loved you for was
+your truth and purity and courage. I have given you a treasure which was
+greater than I could keep.--Where is it that you live now, Jacqueline? I
+am not yet such a poltroon that I am afraid to conduct you. I think that
+I should have the courage to protect you to-night, if you were in any
+immediate danger. Come, lead the way."
+
+"No," said Jacqueline. "I am not going home. I could not sleep; and
+a roof over my head--any save God's heaven--would suffocate me, I
+believe."
+
+"Go, then, as you will. But where?"
+
+Jacqueline did not answer, but walked quietly on; and so they passed
+beyond the city-borders to the river-bank,--far away into the country,
+through the fields, under the light of stars and of the waning moon.
+
+"If I had been true!" said Victor,--"if I had not listened to him! But
+him I will not blame. For why should I blame him? Am I an idiot? And his
+influence could not have prevailed, had I not so chosen, when I stood
+before my judges and they questioned me. No,--I acquit Mazurier. Perhaps
+what I have denied never appeared to him so glorious as it did once to
+me; and so he was guiltless at least of knowing what it was I did. But I
+knew. And I could not have been deceived for a moment. No,--I think it
+impossible that for a moment I should have been deceived. They would
+have made a notable example of me, Jacqueline. I am rich,--I am a
+student.--Oh, yes! Jesus Christ may die for me, and I accept the
+benefit; but when it comes to suffering for His sake,--you could not
+have expected that of such a poltroon, Jacqueline! We may look for it in
+brave men like Leclerc, whose very living depends on their ability to
+earn their bread,--to earn it by daily sweat; but men who need not
+toil, who have leisure and education,--of course you would not expect
+such testimony to the truth of Jesus from them! Bishop Briconnet
+recants,--and Martial Mazurier; and Victor Le Roy is no braver man, no
+truer man than these!"
+
+With bitter shame and self-scorning he spoke.--Poor Jacqueline had not
+a word to say. She sat beside him. She would help him bear his cross.
+Heavy-laden as he, she awaited the future, saying, in the silence of her
+spirit's dismal solitude, "Oh, teach us! Oh, help us!" But she called
+not on any name; her prayer went out in search of a God whom in that
+hour she knew not. The dark cloud and shadow of Satan that overshadowed
+him was also upon her.
+
+"Mazurier is coming in the morning to take me with him, Jacqueline,"
+said Victor. "We are to make a journey."
+
+"What is it, Victor?" she asked, quietly.
+
+There was nothing left for her but patience,--that she clearly
+saw,--nothing but patience, and quiet enduring of the will of God.
+
+"He is afraid of me,--or of himself,--or of both, I believe. He thinks
+a change of scene would be good for both of us, poor lepers that we
+are."
+
+"I must go with you, Victor Le Roy," said the resolute Jacqueline.
+
+"Wherefore?" asked he.
+
+"Because, when you were strong and happy, that was your desire, Victor;
+and now that you are sick and sorrowing, I will not give you to another:
+no! not to Mazurier, nor to any one that breathes, except myself, to
+whom you belong."
+
+"I must stay here in Meaux, then?"
+
+"That depends upon yourself, Victor."
+
+"We were to have been married. We were going to look after our estate,
+now that the hard summer and the hard years of work are ended."
+
+"Yes, Victor, it was so."
+
+"But I will not wrong you. You were to be the wife of Victor Le Roy.
+You are his widow, Jacqueline. For you do not think that he lives any
+longer?"
+
+"He lives, and he is free! If he has sinned, like Peter even, he weeps
+bitterly."
+
+"Like Peter? Peter denied his Lord. But he did weep, as you
+say,--bitterly. Peter confessed again."
+
+"And none served the Master with truer heart or greater courage
+afterward. Victor, you remember."
+
+"Even so,--oh, Jacqueline!"
+
+"Victor! Victor! it was only Judas who hanged himself."
+
+"Come, Jacqueline!"
+
+She arose and went with him. At dawn they were married. Love did lead
+and save them.
+
+I see two youthful students studying one page. I see two loving spirits
+walking through thick darkness. Along the horizon flicker the promises
+of day. They say, "O Holy Ghost, hast thou forsaken thine own temples?"
+Aloud they cry to God.
+
+I see them wandering among Domremy woods and meadows,--around the castle
+of Picardy,--talking of Joan. I see them resting by the graves they find
+in two ancient villages. I see them walk in sunny places; they are not
+called to toil; they may gather all the blossoms that delight their
+eyes. Their love grows beyond childhood,--does not die before it comes
+to love's best estate. Happy bride and bridegroom! But I see them as
+through a cloud whose fair hues are transient.
+
+From the meadow-lands and the vineyards and the dark forests of the
+mountains, from study and from rest, I see them move with solemn faces
+and calm steps. Brave lights are in their eyes, and flowers that are
+immortal they carry in their hands. No distillation can exhaust the
+fragrance of those blooms.
+
+What dost thou here, Victor? What dost thou here, Jacqueline?
+
+This is the place of prisons. Here they light again, as they have often
+lighted, torch and fagot;--life must pay the cost! Angry crowds and
+hooting multitudes love this dreary square. Oh, Jacqueline and Victor,
+what is this I behold?
+
+They come together from their prison, hand in hand. "The testimony
+of Jesus!" Stand back, Mazurier! Retire, Briconnet! Here is not your
+place,--this is not your hour! Yet here incendiaries fire the temples
+of the Holy Ghost!
+
+The judges do not now congratulate. Jacqueline waits not now at midnight
+for the coming of Le Roy. Bride and bridegroom, there they stand; they
+face the world to give their testimony.
+
+And a woman's voice, almost I deem the voice of Elsie Meril, echoes the
+mother's cry that followed John Leclerc when he fought the beasts at
+Meaux,--
+
+"Blessed be Jesus Christ, and His witnesses."
+
+So of the Truth were they borne up that day in a blazing chariot to meet
+their Lord in the air, to be forever with their Lord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ON A MAGNOLIA-FLOWER.
+
+
+  Memorial of my former days,
+  Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,
+  And on thy pallid beauty gaze,
+  I feel not far from death!
+
+  So much hath happened! and so much
+  The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!
+  Thy fragrance moves me with a touch
+  As from a hand divine:
+
+  So many dead! so many wed!
+  Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,
+  I pressed a gentle hand and said,
+  A word no more for me!
+
+  Lady, who sendest from the South
+  This frail, pale token of the past,
+  I press the petals to my mouth,
+  And sigh--as 'twere my last.
+
+  Oh, love, we live, but many fell!
+  The world's a wreck, but we survive!--
+  Say, rather, still on earth we dwell,
+  But gray at thirty-five!
+
+
+
+
+SOME NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+In 1849, the discovery by Mr. Payne Collier of a copy of the Works
+of Shakspeare, known as the folio of 1632, with manuscript notes and
+emendations of the same or nearly the same date, created a great and
+general interest in the world of letters.
+
+The marginal notes were said to be in a handwriting not much later
+than the period when the volume came from the press; and Shakspearian
+scholars and students of Shakspeare, and the far more numerous class,
+lovers of Shakspeare, learned and unlearned, received with respectful
+eagerness a version of his text claiming a date so near to the lifetime
+of the master that it was impossible to resist the impression that the
+alterations came to the world with only less weight of authority than if
+they had been undoubtedly his own.
+
+The general satisfaction of the literary world in the treasure-trove was
+but little alloyed by the occasional cautiously expressed doubts of
+some caviller at the authenticity of the newly discovered "curiosity of
+literature"; the daily newspapers made room in their crowded columns for
+extracts from the volume; the weekly journals put forth more elaborate
+articles on its history and contents; and the monthly and quarterly
+reviews bestowed their longer and more careful criticism upon the new
+readings of that text, to elucidate which has been the devout industry
+of some of England's ripest scholars and profoundest thinkers; while
+the actors, not to be behindhand in a study especially concerning their
+vocation, adopted with more enthusiasm than discrimination some of the
+new readings, and showed a laudable acquaintance with the improved
+version, by exchanging undoubtedly the better for the worse, upon the
+authority of Mr. Collier's folio, soon after the publication of which
+I had the ill-fortune to hear a popular actress destroy the effect
+and meaning of one of the most powerful passages in "Macbeth" by
+substituting the new for the old reading of the line,--
+
+  "What beast was it, then,
+  That made you break this enterprise to me?"
+
+The cutting antithesis of "What _beast_" in retort to her husband's
+assertion, "I dare do all that may become a _man_," was tamely rendered
+by the lady, in obedience to Mr. Collier's folio, "What _boast_ was
+it, then,"--a change that any one possessed of poetical or dramatic
+perception would have submitted to upon nothing short of the positive
+demonstration of the author's having so written the passage.
+
+Opinions were, indeed, divided as to the intrinsic merit of the
+emendations or alterations. Some of the new readings were undoubted
+improvements, some were unimportant, and others again were beyond all
+controversy inferior to the established text of the passages; and it
+seemed not a little difficult to reconcile the critical acumen and
+poetical insight of many of the corrections with the feebleness and
+prosaic triviality of others.
+
+Again, it was observed by those conversant with the earlier editions,
+especially with the little read or valued Oxford edition, that a vast
+number of the passages given as emendations in Mr. Collier's folio were
+precisely the same in Hanmer's text. Indeed, it seems not a little
+remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it
+worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the
+better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely
+printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed,
+these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but
+little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir
+Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have
+forestalled the _fiat_ of Mr. Collier's folio in so many instances. On
+the other hand, it may have been judged by others besides a learned
+editor of Shakspeare from whom I once heard the remark, that the fact of
+the so-called new readings being many of them in Rowe and Hanmer, and
+therefore well known to the subsequent editors of Shakspeare, who
+nevertheless did not adopt them, proved that in their opinion they were
+of little value and less authority. But, says Mr. Collier, inasmuch as
+they are in the folio of 1632, which I now give to the world, they are
+of authority paramount to any other suggestion or correction that has
+hitherto been made on the text of Shakspeare.
+
+Thus stood the question in 1853. How stands it in 1860? After a slow,
+but gradual process of growth and extension of doubt and questionings,
+more or less calculated to throw discredit on the authority of the
+marginal notes in the folio,--the volume being subjected to the careful
+and competent examination of certain officers of the library of the
+British Museum,--the result seems to threaten a considerable reduction
+in the supposed value of the authority which the public was called upon
+to esteem so highly.
+
+The ink in which the annotations are made has been subjected to chemical
+analysis, and betrays, under the characters traced in it, others made in
+pencil, which are pronounced by some persons of a more modern date than
+the letters which have been traced over them.
+
+Here at present the matter rests. Much angry debate has ensued between
+the various gentlemen interested in the controversy,--Mr. Collier not
+hesitating to suggest that pencil-marks in imitation of his handwriting
+had been inserted in the volume, and a fly-leaf abstracted from it,
+while in the custody of Messrs. Hamilton and Madden of the British
+Museum; while the replies of these gentlemen would go towards
+establishing that the corrections are forgeries, and insinuating that
+they are forgeries for which Mr. Collier is himself responsible.
+
+While the question of the antiquity and authority of these marginal
+notes remains thus undecided, it may not be amiss to apply to them the
+mere test of common sense in order to determine upon their intrinsic
+value, to the adequate estimate of which all thoughtful readers of
+Shakspeare must be to a certain degree competent.
+
+The curious point, of whose they are, may test the science of
+decipherers of palimpsest manuscripts; the more weighty one, of what
+they are worth, remains, as it was from the first, a matter on which
+every student of Shakspeare may arrive at some conclusion for himself.
+And, indeed, to this ground of judgment Mr. Collier himself appeals, in
+his preface to the "Notes and Emendations," in no less emphatic terms
+than the following:--"As Shakspeare was especially the poet of common
+life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense; and to the
+verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more material
+alterations recommended on the authority before me."
+
+I take "The Tempest," the first play in Mr. Collier's volume of "Notes
+and Emendations," and, while bestowing my principal attention on the
+inherent worth of the several new readings, shall point out where
+they tally exactly with the text of the Oxford edition, because that
+circumstance has excited little attention in the midst of the other
+various elements of interest in the controversy, and also because I have
+it in my power to give from a copy of that edition in my possession some
+passages corrected by John and Charles Kemble, who brought to the study
+of the text considerable knowledge of it and no inconsiderable ability
+for poetical and dramatic criticism.
+
+In the first scene of the first act of "The Tempest" Mr. Collier gives
+the line,--
+
+  "Good Boatswain, have care,"--
+
+adding, "It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is
+_have a care_, and _a_ is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio,
+1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all
+events, that the actor so delivered it."
+
+In the copy of Hanmer in my possession the _a_ is also inserted in the
+margin, upon the authority of one of the eminent actors above mentioned.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+  "The sky. it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
+  But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
+  Dashes the fire out."
+
+The manuscript corrector of the folio, 1632, has substituted _heat_
+for "cheek," which appears to me an alteration of no value whatever.
+Shakspeare was more likely to have written _cheek_ than _heat_; for
+elsewhere he uses the expression, "Heaven's face," "the welkin's face,"
+and, though irregular, the expression is poetical.
+
+At Miranda's exclamation,--
+
+  "A brave vessel,
+  Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
+  Dash'd all to pieces,"--
+
+Mr. Collier does Theobald the justice to observe, that he, as well as
+the corrector of the folio, 1632, adds the necessary letter _s_ to the
+word "creature," making the plural substantive agree with her other
+exclamation of, "Poor souls, they perished!"
+
+Where Mr. Collier, upon the authority of his folio, substitutes
+_pre_vision for "provision" in the lines of Prospero,--
+
+  "The direful spectacle of the wreck . . .
+  I have with such provision in mine art
+  So safely ordered," etc.,--
+
+I do not agree to the value of the change. It is very true that
+_pre_vision means the foresight that his art gave him, but _pro_vision
+implies the exercise of that foresight or _pre_vision; it is therefore
+better, because more comprehensive.
+
+Mr. Collier's folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens's
+reading of the passage,--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
+  A princess; no worse issued,"--
+
+the following:--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan,--thou his only heir
+  And princess no worse issued."
+
+Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the
+passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:--
+
+  "And thy father
+  Was Duke of Milan,--thou, his only heir
+  A princess--no worse issued."
+
+In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears
+to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading,
+which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely
+perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.
+
+  "He being thus _lorded_,
+  Not only with what my revenue yielded,
+  But what my power might else exact,--like one
+  Who having _unto truth_ by telling of it
+  Made such a sinner of his memory
+  To credit his own lie,--he did believe
+  He was indeed the Duke."
+
+The folio says,--
+
+"He being thus _loaded_."
+
+And to this change I object: the meaning was obvious before; "lorded"
+stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though
+the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word
+_loaded_. But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does
+immense service to the text, in reading
+
+  "Like one
+  Who having _to untruth_ by telling of it
+  Made such a sinner of his memory
+  To credit his own lie,--he did believe
+  He was indeed the Duke."
+
+This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.
+
+Of the passage,--
+
+  "Whereon,
+  A treacherous army levied, one midnight
+  Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
+  The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness
+  The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
+  Me and thy crying self,"--
+
+Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word "purpose," in the fourth
+line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio
+obviates by substituting the word _practice_ in the first line. I think
+this a manifest improvement, though not an important one.
+
+Mr. Collier gives Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to _boat_,
+and "have quit it" to _had quit it_, in the lines,--
+
+  "Where they prepar'd
+  A rotten carcase of a _butt_ not rigg'd,
+  Nor tackle, sail, nor mast,--the very rats
+  Instinctively _have quit it_."
+
+Adding, that in both changes he is supported by the corrector of the
+folio, 1632. Hanmer gives the passage exactly as the latter, and as Rowe
+does.
+
+We now come to the stage-directions in the folio, to which Mr. Collier
+gives, I think, a most exaggerated value. He says, that, where Prospero
+says,--
+
+  "Lend thy hand
+  And pluck my magic garment from me,--so
+  Lie there, my art,"--
+
+the words, "Lay it down," are written over against the passage. Now this
+really seems a very unnecessary direction, inasmuch as the text very
+clearly indicates that Prospero lays down as well as plucks off his
+"magic garment,"--unless we are to suppose Miranda holding it over her
+arm till he resumes it. But still less do I agree with Mr. Collier in
+thinking the direction, "Put on robe again," at the passage beginning,
+"Now I arise," any extraordinary accession to the business, as it is
+technically called, of the scene: for I do not think that his resuming
+his magical robe was in any way necessary to account for the slumber
+which overcomes Miranda, "in spite of her interest in her father's
+story," and which Mr. Collier says the commentators have endeavored to
+account for in various ways; but putting "_because_ of her interest in
+her father's story," instead of "_in spite_ of," I feel none of the
+difficulty which beset the commentators, and which Mr. Collier conjures
+by the stage-direction which makes Prospero resume his magic robe at
+a certain moment in order to put his daughter to sleep. Worthy Dr.
+Johnson, who was not among the puzzled commentators on this occasion,
+suggests, very agreeably to common sense, that "Experience proves that
+any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber." But Mr.
+Collier says, the Doctor gives this very reasonable explanation of
+Miranda's sleep only because he was not acquainted with the folio
+stage-direction about Prospero's coat, and knew no better. Now we are
+acquainted with this important addition to the text, and yet know no
+better than to agree with Doctor Johnson, that Miranda's slumbers were
+perfectly to be accounted for without the coat. Mr. Collier does not
+seem to know that a deeper and heavier desire to sleep follows upon the
+overstrained exercise of excited attention than on the weariness of a
+dull and uninteresting appeal to it.
+
+But let us consider Shakspeare's text, rather than the corrector's
+additions, for a moment. Within reach of the wild wind and spray of
+the tempest, though sheltered from their fury, Miranda had watched the
+sinking ship struggling with the mad elements, and heard when "rose from
+sea to sky the wild farewell." Amazement and pity had thrown her into a
+paroxysm of grief, which is hardly allayed by her father's assurance,
+that "there's no harm done." After this terrible excitement follows the
+solemn exordium to her father's story,--
+
+  "The hour's now come;
+  The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
+  Obey and be attentive."
+
+The effort she calls upon her memory to make to recover the traces
+of her earliest impressions of life,--the strangeness of the events
+unfolded to her,--the duration of the recital itself, which is
+considerable,--and, above all, the poignant personal interest of
+its details, are quite sufficient to account for the sudden utter
+prostration of her overstrained faculties and feelings, and the profound
+sleep that falls on the young girl. Perhaps Shakspeare knew this, though
+his commentators, old and new, seem not to have done so; and without a
+professed faith, such as some of us moderns indulge in, in the mysteries
+of magnetism, perhaps he believed enough in the magnetic force of the
+superior physical as well as mental power of Prospero's nature over
+the nervous, sensitive, irritable female organization of his child to
+account for the "I know thou canst not choose" with which he concludes
+his observation on her drowsiness, and his desire that she will not
+resist it. The magic gown may, indeed, have been powerful,--but hardly
+more so, we think, than the nervous exhaustion which, combined with
+the authoritative will and eyes of her lord and father, bowed down the
+child's drooping eyelids in profoundest sleep.
+
+The strangest of all Mr. Collier's comments upon this passage, however,
+is that where he represents Miranda as, up to a certain point of her
+father's story, remaining "standing eagerly listening by his side." This
+is not only gratuitous, but absolutely contrary to Shakspeare's text,--a
+greater authority, I presume, than even that of the annotated folio.
+Prospero's words to his daughter, when first he begins the recital of
+their sea-sorrow, are,--
+
+  "Sit down!
+  For thou must now know further."
+
+Does Mr. Collier's folio reject this reading of the first line? or does
+he suppose that Miranda remained standing, in spite of her father's
+command? Moreover, when he interrupts his story with the words, "Now I
+arise," he adds, to his daughter, "Sit still," which clearly indicates
+both that she was seated and that she was about to rise (naturally
+enough) when her father did. We say, "Sit _down_," to a person who is
+standing; and, "Sit _still_," to a person seated who is about to rise;
+and in all these minute particulars, the simple text of Shakspeare, if
+attentively followed, gives every necessary indication of his intention
+with regard to the attitudes and movements of the persons on the stage
+in this scene; and the highly commended stage-directions of the folio
+are here, therefore, perfectly superfluous.
+
+The next alteration in the received text is a decided improvement. In
+speaking of the royal fleet dispersed by the tempest, Ariel says,--
+
+  "They all have met again,
+  And are upon the Mediterranean _flote_
+  Bound sadly home for Naples";--
+
+for which Mr. Collier's folio substitutes,--
+
+  "They all have met again,
+  And all upon the Mediterranean _float_,
+  Bound sadly back to Naples."
+
+Mr. Collier notices, that the improvement of giving the lines,
+
+  "Which any print of goodness will not take,"
+
+to Prospero, instead of Miranda, dates as far back as Dryden and
+Davenant's alteration of "The Tempest," from which he says Theobald and
+others copied it.
+
+The corrected folio gives its authority to the lines of the song,--
+
+  "Foot it featly here and there,
+  And, sweet sprites, the burden bear,"--
+
+which stands so in Hanmer, and, indeed is the usually received
+arrangement of the song.
+
+This is the last corrected passage in the first act, in the course of
+which Mr. Collier gives us no fewer than sixteen, altered, emended, and
+commented upon in his folio. Many of the emendations are to be found
+_verbatim_ in the Oxford and subsequent editions, and three only appear
+to us to be of any special value, tried by the standard of common sense,
+to which we agreed, on Mr. Collier's invitation, to refer them.
+
+The line in Prospero's threat to Caliban,--
+
+  "I'll rack thee with old cramps,
+  Fill all thy bones with _aches_, make thee roar,"--
+
+occasioned one of Mr. John Kemble's characteristic differences with the
+public, who objected, perhaps not without reason, to hearing the word
+"aches" pronounced as a dissyllable, although the line imperatively
+demands it; and Shakspeare shows that the word was not unusually so
+pronounced, as he introduces it with the same quantity in the prose
+dialogue of "Much Ado about Nothing," and makes it the vehicle of a pun
+which certainly argues that it was familiar to the public ear as _ache_
+and not _ake_. When Hero asks Beatrice, who complains that she is sick,
+what she is sick for,--a hawk, a hound, or a husband,--Beatrice replies,
+that she is sick for--or of--that which begins them all, an _ache_,--an
+_H_. Indeed, much later than Shakspeare's day the word was so
+pronounced; for Dean Swift, in the "City Shower," has the line,--
+
+  "Old _aches_ throb, your hollow tooth will
+  rage."
+
+The opening of this play is connected with my earliest recollections. In
+looking down the "dark backward and abysm of time," to the period when
+I was but six years old, my memory conjures up a vision of a stately
+drawing-room on the ground-floor of a house, doubtless long since swept
+from the face of the earth by the encroaching tide of new houses
+and streets that has submerged every trace of suburban beauty,
+picturesqueness, or rural privacy in the neighborhood of London,
+converting it all by a hideous process of assimilation into more London,
+till London seems almost more than England can carry.
+
+But in those years, "long enough ago," to which I refer,--somewhere
+between Lea and Blackheath, stood in the midst of well-kept grounds a
+goodly mansion, which held this pleasant room. It was always light and
+cheerful and warm, for the three windows down to the broad gravel-walk
+before it faced south; and though the lawn was darkened just in front of
+them by two magnificent yew-trees, the atmosphere of the room itself,
+in its silent, sunny loftiness, was at once gay and solemn to my small
+imagination and senses,--much as the interior of Saint Peter's of Rome
+has been since to them. Wonderful, large, tall jars of precious old
+china stood in each window, and my nose was just on a level with the
+wide necks, whence issued the mellowest smell of fragrant _pot-pourri_.
+Into this room, with its great crimson curtains and deep crimson carpet,
+in which my feet seemed to me buried, as in woodland moss, I used to be
+brought for recompense of having been "very good," and there I used to
+find a lovely-looking lady, who was to me the fitting divinity of this
+shrine of pleasant awfulness. She bore a sweet Italian diminutive for
+her Christian name, added to one of the noblest old ducal names of
+Venice, which was that of her family.
+
+I have since known that she was attached to the person of, and warmly
+personally attached to, the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick, Princess
+of Wales,--then only unfortunate; so that I can now guess at the drift
+of much sad and passionate talk with indignant lips and tearful eyes, of
+which the meaning was then of course incomprehensible to me, but which I
+can now partly interpret by the subsequent history of that ill-used and
+ill-conducted lady.
+
+The face of my friend with the great Venetian name was like one of
+Giorgione's pictures,--of that soft and mellow colorlessness that
+recalls the poet's line,--
+
+  "E smarrisce 'l bel volto in quel colore
+  Che non e pallidezza, ma candore,"--
+
+or the Englishman's version of the same thought,--
+
+  "Her face,--oh, call it fair, not pale!"
+
+It seemed to me, as I remember it, cream-colored; and her eyes, like
+clear water over brown rocks, where the sun is shining. But though the
+fair visage was like one of the great Venetian master's portraits, her
+voice was purely English, low, distinct, full, and soft,--and in this
+enchanting voice she used to tell me the story of the one large picture
+which adorned the room.
+
+Over and over again, at my importunate beseeching, she told
+it,--sometimes standing before it, while I held her hand and listened
+with upturned face, and eyes rounding with big tears of wonder and pity,
+to a tale which shook my small soul with a sadness and strangeness
+far surpassing the interest of my beloved tragedy, "The Babes in the
+Wood,"--though at this period of my existence it has happened to me to
+interrupt with frantic cries of distress, and utterly refuse to hear,
+the end of that lamentable ballad.
+
+But the picture.--In the midst of a stormy sea, on which night seemed
+fast settling down, a helmless, mastless, sailless bark lay weltering
+giddily, and in it sat a man in the full flower of vigorous manhood.
+His attitude was one of miserable dejection, and, oh, how I did long to
+remove the hand with which his eyes were covered, to see what manner of
+look in them answered to the bitter sorrow which the speechless lips
+expressed! His other hand rested on the fair curls of a girl-baby of
+three years old, who clung to his knee, and, with wide, wondering blue
+eyes and laughing lips, looked up into the half-hidden face of her
+father.--"And that," said the sweet voice at my side, "was the good Duke
+of Milan, Prospero,--and that was his little child, Miranda."
+
+There was something about the face and figure of the Prospero that
+suggested to me those of my father; and this, perhaps, added to the
+poignancy with which the representation of his distress affected my
+childish imagination. But the impression made by the picture, the story,
+and the place where I heard the one and saw the other, is among the most
+vivid that my memory retains. And never, even now, do I turn the magic
+page that holds that marvellous history, without again seeing the lovely
+lady, the picture full of sad dismay, and my own six-year-old self
+listening to that earliest Shakspearian lore that my mind and heart ever
+received. I suppose this is partly the secret of my love for this,
+above all other of the poet's plays;--it was my first possession in the
+kingdom of unbounded delight which he has since bestowed upon me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE GREAT ARM-CHAIR.
+
+
+Shall I not to-day, Estelle, give you the history of this great
+arm-chair, the only historical piece of furniture in our house? The
+heavy oak frame was carved by an imprisoned poet. They took away his
+pen, and in larger lines he carved this chair. Heavily moulded Sphinxes
+form its arms; the strong legs and feet of some wild beast its support;
+the crest, a winged figure with bandaged eyes,--a Fate or Fortune
+we might call it,--that mild look not to be resisted in its gentle
+strength. But blind Fortune could not so master him: his prison made for
+him only a secure room, in which to study, to work out, the mysteries.
+
+The rich covering was wrought long years ago, in some ancient convent,
+by a saintly nun. Holy, pious tears dropped on it as she wrought. She
+pricked out brave bright flowers with her needle, though her own life
+was pale and sad. I cover this sacred work with housewifely care; but it
+makes our rest there more hallowed.
+
+This old chair we call our dreaming-chair,--to borrow a name, our
+Sleepy-Hollow. It is so simple and grand in workmanship, it should be
+the seat of honor in a king's palace; and yet it is in place in our
+small parlor. Perhaps some day I may tell you of the ancient dames and
+knights who once possessed it; but they have long since slept their last
+sleep,--no summer-afternoon's nap, but a sleep so long to last, now
+their long day's work is done.
+
+Not quite finished is the old man's work who this afternoon sat in the
+chair and quietly dreamed back his youth. I saw the hardened, withered
+face soften, as the bright light of childhood played around it; the
+meagre, hard old man forgot for a little the sharp want that pinched
+him; when he waked, he still babbled of green fields.
+
+"Did Robinson Crusoe ever come back to his father and mother?" he says
+to me. "Poor boy! poor boy! I went to sea when I was young. Father and
+mother didn't like it. Came back after a four-years' voyage, and off
+again, soon as the ship had unloaded, on another trip up the Channel:
+took all my money to fit out. Might have had the Custom-House, if there
+had been anybody to speak for me; would have done my work well, and
+maybe had kept it thirty or forty years. Should be glad to creep into a
+hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me. Wish old Uncle Jack was good for
+somethin' besides work, work,--nothin' but hard work! Wish he could talk
+and say somethin'.
+
+"Now that was good, sensible poetry you were reading, wasn't it? Good
+stuff? Couldn't hear a word of it: poor old fellow can't hear much now.
+Wish my father had lived longer; he would have told me things; he used
+to be different to me. I could have been a sight of comfort to him in
+mathematics." (His father died when the son was fifty years old; the
+thirty years he had lived since seemed a long life to the old man.)
+"Mayn't I look at the poetry?"
+
+I found the place for him,--"New England."
+
+"Yes, the farmer takes lots of comfort, walking on the road, foddering
+cattle, cutting wood."
+
+Uncle Jack believes heartily in New England corn, and in the planting
+and hoeing of Indian corn he takes great delight: not to corn-laws, but
+to Indian corn, the talk always drifts.
+
+"I hear you are going to plant a couple of acres of corn, Sir. Glad of
+it. This is an excellent dish of tea, Marm. This bread tastes like my
+mother's bread; baked in a bake-kettle. These mangoes are nice,--such as
+we used to have."
+
+Turning to Aunt Sarah, he says,--
+
+"Did you ever notice a difference in eggs, Marm?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt thinks there is a difference between fresh and stale eggs."
+
+"But I mean, Marm, that some are thin-shelled, some rough, some
+round, some peaked: a hen lays 'em just so all her life. Ever see a
+difference?"
+
+It is an open question.
+
+Then turning to the master of the house,--
+
+"Do you like choc'late, Sir? Well, how you going to fix it when you
+haven't got any milk? Well, you just beat up an egg, and pour on the
+choc'late, boiling hot, stirring all the time, and you won't want any
+milk, Sir. That was what kept me alive aboard the Ranger."
+
+Now comes the story of the Ranger. He was getting in years, he said, and
+wanted a home for his old age; so he built him a boat. He put a little
+open stove in it, because an open fire felt kind o' comfortable to his
+toes. He named it the Ranger; because when he was a little boy he took a
+long walk to the beach with his father, the little Iulus following with
+unequal steps, and they saw a shipwrecked vessel, named the Ranger, and
+he liked the name. He kept that name in his heart many years. When at
+last, by dint of much saving and scraping together, much hoeing of
+Indian corn, the old stocking-foot was at last filled, all the little
+odd bits, poured out and counted up, came to enough to speak to the
+ship-builder. Oh, the model! how the old man's brain worked over that!
+Then the timber,--each was a chosen piece; oak, apple, cherry, pine,
+each tree sent a stick. The home was builded, was launched, was
+christened: The Ranger. Alas, it was an ill-omened name to him! Brave
+and young was he in heart, and loved right well his tossing, rolling
+home; and many a hard gale did he ride out in her alone, old as he was.
+
+Too old was he to be trusted on the treacherous deep; and friends (?)
+advised and counselled, and the home of his old age was sold. (He never
+got the pay!) Now, with restless, wandering feet, he makes long tramps,
+trying to collect old debts. Kind-hearted old man that he is, thinking
+always he is hard on 'em when he gets a promise to pay! A wife has been
+sick; perhaps he had better not ask for it now. His ox has died; maybe
+he had better wait. Fumbling over old papers in his pocket-book,
+muttering something about a pension: he was on the list, but was never
+called out, or somebody took his place.
+
+Poor old Uncle Jack, with his dream of a pension, his dream of an
+office, his dream of a home in a boat! With him "many a dream has gone
+down the stream."
+
+May some friendly hand at last close his eyes to that last long sleep,
+when his turn comes to heave down!
+
+He is always finding Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He
+picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always
+dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats
+me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought
+it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had
+read in the newspaper, he stops suddenly and says, "Believe I won't tell
+you, dear!" "Did you hear the newspipe has broke?" when the Atlantic
+Telegraph Cable parted. He had plans for shoving off the Leviathan when
+it stuck.
+
+Shall I not tell you he brings me a little bunch of eels of his own
+spearing? that you must be careful at table he has enough to eat, he
+takes such small pieces? that he is altogether a sparse man? has rows of
+pins on his sleeve that he picks up?--an old-fashioned man, whose type
+is fast fading out from these "fast," "steep" times. He tells a story of
+a stream of black flies which came so thick and so fast pouring on, he
+looked as long as he darst to. Yet he can tell a good, big story yet,
+and when somebody was talking of turtles of good size, jumped up
+suddenly, "Did you ever see a terrapin, Sir?" and then walked round the
+long dining-table to tell how big he was and how high he stood on his
+feet. "When I was in the West Indies, Sir----Wish I could creep into a
+good English hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me!"
+
+Do you remember, Estelle, the story we read together once, out of the
+"Casket" or "Gem," one of those old annuals, where a certain princess
+was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones,
+once distinguished by their wonderful beauty? Her task was to discover
+each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and
+folly had heaped upon it; in each old, yellow, wrinkled hag to find
+the charm which had once adorned her: as she found the grace, it was
+transferred to her own youthful person. Slowly and patiently she unwound
+those wrapped-up mummies, and disclosed the gems hidden in those
+burial-clothes; and returned to her father's court enriched with all
+those long-buried graces, now revived to their former youthful beauty,
+and with the added charm which wisdom and patience give.
+
+My task is not so difficult,--as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs.
+We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that,
+checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city. We will
+read the story "that youth and observation copied there." Many sit in my
+chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have
+ploughed still deeper furrows.
+
+It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements,--this battle
+to keep the wolf Want outside the door,--the patient, laborious building
+up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of
+toil,--the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun,
+or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands. Is the face too thin and
+hard, the lips compressed? Would you turn away from so much patient
+endurance of a hard lot? Turn again, and read the story the clear eye
+tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the
+thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter
+has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the
+burden of life is lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those
+homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story
+of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor
+who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of
+a faithful life.
+
+Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the
+night,--says, "Other people can't find enough to do; for his part, he
+should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,--all worn out, used up.
+Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country
+round. Well, when you've got that, got the best of him,--likes variety
+too well,--goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship. Now,
+if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that's something. Don't
+believe 'Siah ever does it. So many notions in's head bothers him."
+(Uncle Jack is quite right; 'tis not economical to have notions;
+besides, they are revolutionary, they subvert the order of things.) "Got
+a cunning little heifer used to have some manners. Lost some of our
+lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose
+some lambs at times."--To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by
+Perkins's.
+
+"Had the rheumatism this winter,--guess Jack Frost pinched him."--Ah!
+dear old man, an older than Jack Frost has got hold of your aged limbs!
+Harder pinches old Time gives than any mortal man!
+
+"Used to get a little bird, Harris and me, and roast it, and mother
+would give us a little apple-sauce in a clam-shell, and we would go off
+back the island and eat it. Harris was sent to school up to Perkins's;
+couldn't stay; run away, and _borrowed_ a boat, and came home again;
+afraid of his father, and hid in the barn. Dug a well in the hay,
+and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in
+scooped-out water-melon rinds."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SONG OF FATIMA.
+
+
+  On, sad are they who know not love,
+  But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
+  Drift down a moonless sea, and pass
+  The silver coasts of fairy isles!
+
+  And sadder they whose longing lips
+  Kiss empty air, and never touch
+  The dear warm mouth of those they love,
+  Waiting, wasting, suffering much!
+
+  But clear as amber, sweet as musk,
+  Is life to those whose lives unite:
+  They walk in Allah's smile by day,
+  And nestle in his heart by night!
+
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.
+
+
+There is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so
+little from instinct as History. It seems the great resource of baffled
+ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men
+with pecuniary means and without professional obligations. Sympathy
+with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write
+criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and
+usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of
+fiction: but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not
+remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or
+dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire
+to be occupied eligibly, turn to History as the most available
+vantage-ground, busy themselves with wars and councils that happened
+ages ago,--with kings and soldiers, institutions and adventures,
+politics and dynasties, so far removed from the associations and
+interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition
+could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily
+assumed. It is this objective method and motive that chiefly accounts
+for the numberless inert and the few vital histories. Like any
+intellectual task assumed without special fitness therefor or motive
+thereto,--without a comprehensive grasp of mind that impels to
+historic exploration,--without a patriotic zeal that warms to national
+heroism,--without, especially, a love of some principle, a conviction
+of some truth, an admiration of some national development, irresistibly
+urging the cultivated and ardent mind to seek for the facts, to
+celebrate the persons, to evolve the truth involved in and manifest
+through public events,--the annals recorded are but dry chronology,--a
+monotonous, more or less authentic, perhaps quite respectable, but far
+from a very important or peculiarly interesting work. Thousands of
+such cumber the shelves of libraries and fill the pages of
+catalogues,--dusted once a year, perhaps, to verify a date, to
+authenticate the details of a treaty, or fix the statistics of a war,
+but never read consecutively and with zest, because there was no genuine
+relation between the writer and his book. He undertook the latter in
+the spirit of a mechanical job; industry and learning may be embodied
+therein, but no moral life, no human charm; yet the work is cited with
+respect, the author enrolled with honor;--whereas, had he sought
+in poetry or philosophy, in a novel or a drama, thus to occupy and
+celebrate himself with literature, the failure would have been signal,
+the attempt ignominious. There is, indeed, no safer investment for
+middling literary abilities than History; for, if it fail to yield any
+large harvest of renown, it is comparatively secure from the assaults
+of ridicule, such as make pretension in other spheres of writing
+conspicuous.
+
+Even in what are considered the successful exemplars in this department
+of literature, the errors incident to artificiality, the conventional
+forms of writing, are patent. Only in passages do we recognize that
+beauty or truth, that reality and genuineness, which so often wholly
+pervade a poem, a story, a memoir, or even a disquisition: at some
+point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes
+apparent;--ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere
+manifest themselves. It has been said that the chief element of Hume's
+mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts
+about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to
+his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of
+touching "situations," he displayed his own strength of intellect; but,
+with all this, did not write complete and authentic history. And when
+analyzed, what was the _animus_ of Gibbon's elaborate chronicle? He
+"spent his time, his life, his energy," says a severe, but just critic,
+"in putting a polished gloss on human tumult, a sneering gloss on human
+piety." And who has not felt, in following Macaulay's animated periods
+and thorough exposition and illustration of some event, trait, or
+economy,--in itself of little importance and limited value,--how much
+better it would have been to reserve his brilliant descriptive and keen
+analytical powers for the grand episodes, the prolific crises, and the
+leading characters of history, instead of indiscriminately devoting them
+to a consecutive account of national incidents and persons, both great
+and small, illustrious and insignificant?
+
+A popular British author of our own day, in order to demonstrate the
+law of compensation, as regards the literary vocation, cites its
+inexpensiveness,--arguing, that, whereas the artist must invest capital,
+however small, in colors, marble, canvas, and studio-hire, and the
+professional man occupy a costly locality, the author needs but a quire
+of foolscap and a pen and ink to set up in trade. While there is literal
+truth in this comparison, the fact is not applicable to historical
+writing, except in a very limited degree. The preparation of the most
+successful works in this department, in modern times, has been attended
+with an outlay impossible to the poor scholar. It has involved the
+examination and reproduction of voluminous manuscript authorities,
+distant travel, the purchase of rare books and family papers, and
+sometimes years of busy reference, observation, and study, lucrative
+only in prospect. The same amount of culture and facile vigor of
+composition which less prosperous authors expend on a masterly review
+would suffice to make them famous historians, if blessed with the
+pecuniary means to seek foreign sources of information, or gather about
+them scattered and rare materials wherewith to weave a chronicle of the
+past. Hence, not only has History become the chosen field of writers
+with no special gift for more individually inspired kinds of literature,
+but of the educated sons of fortune. Accordingly, it is curious to
+remark the contrast between the lives of historians and those of
+poets; and in the average circumstances of the former there is some
+justification for the title of an aristocratic guild in letters.
+Compare Cowper's humble home at Olney with Gibbon's elegant library at
+Lausanne,--the social environment of Hallam, Grote, or Macaulay with
+the rustic isolation of Wordsworth, the economies of Shelley, or the
+life-struggle of Jerrold. Of course, there can thence be inferred no
+general rule; and the very differences in temperament between inventive
+and reproductive writers suggest a consequent diversity of habits; but
+the very idea of historical composition, on an extensive scale and as a
+permanent occupation, implies the leisure which competency alone yields,
+the means indispensable for gradual literary achievement, and more or
+less of the luxury and social position which, when education obtains,
+usually attend upon these advantages.
+
+It results from these considerations that there is no sphere of
+literature which is so often the refuge of wealthy scholars, idle men of
+taste, baffled politicians of independent means, ambitious and well-read
+but not specially gifted citizens who have inherited comfortable
+estates. It is so dignified an employment, that it gratifies pride,--so
+possible without trenchant opinions, that it does not alarm the
+conservative,--so thoroughly respectable, safe, and capable of being
+made illustrious, so comparatively easy to the fluent but unoriginal
+mind, and practicable to follow, when methodically carried out, in
+a stated, regular manner, that we can scarcely be astonished at
+the alacrity with which such voluntary tasks are undertaken or the
+steadiness with which they are followed; at the same time, it may be
+because so few are able to command the means and opportunity, that
+historical writing is so highly estimated. As a test of intellectual
+power, a gauge of individual sentiment, an evidence of original genius,
+it is immeasurably inferior to dramatic, philosophical, or any of the
+more personal forms of literature, when inspired by deep convictions,
+original ideas, or creative imagination. It requires more knowledge
+than reflection, more patience than earnestness, more judgment than
+sentiment; and those who have raised it to a vital significance and
+profound beauty and interest have done so by virtue of endowments which,
+otherwise directed, would have placed them high and firm on the roll of
+genius: for it is possible to write history without this transcendent
+gift,--possible to write it respectably without the slightest grandeur
+or grace of mind,--by virtue of command of words, industry, care, and
+good sense. We cannot imagine Shakspeare tracing out his conception
+of Hamlet, or giving language to Lear or Miranda, without a soulful
+experience as far above mere intellectual assiduity as humanity is above
+mechanism; we cannot think of Milton elaborating his sublime epic,
+without, in fancy, taking in the studious years, the Italian nights
+of music, starlight, and high converse, the beautiful youth, the
+self-sacrificing prime, the blind old age, the religious patriotism,
+the pious loyalty, the learning and love, and the isolated meditation,
+cheered by grand symphonies and hoarded wisdom, through and by which,
+concentrated into melodious expression, the life of a noble mind thus
+majestically expressed itself: but we can easily fancy cold and cultured
+Gibbon returning from the Continent, full of classic lore, disgusted
+with his failure in public life, not sympathetic enough to enjoy
+heartily a career either of pleasure or of society, and so, in his
+dreams of scholarship, seizing upon the idea of a long, laborious,
+erudite, and elegant task; and we can also well imagine Hume, with his
+love of speculation, turning gratefully to the records of the past for
+subjects of reflection, analysis, and inference. In these and other
+notable instances, we feel it is more an accident than an inspiration,
+more from circumstances than from innate and absolute endowment and
+impulse, that the historic Muse is wooed.
+
+Within a brief period the grave has closed over one of the most
+irreproachable and assiduous of American writers of History,--whose
+career signally illustrates the blessing of such a resource to
+unoccupied and cultivated leisure, and at the same time the fortuitous
+circumstances which often originate and prolong this kind of literary
+labor. In a letter to a friend abroad, written by Prescott soon after
+he found himself thus congenially occupied, the case is most frankly
+stated. "Ennui crept over me, when I found myself a perfectly idle man,
+with nothing to do, and, what made it worse, with eyes so debilitated
+that I had no power of doing anything with them. However, 'necessity is
+the mother of invention,' and I resolved to turn author in spite of my
+eyes; and it is a great satisfaction to me to think that the volumes I
+have put together for my own amusement should have afforded some to my
+countrymen, and, above all, to my friends."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Letter of W. H. Prescott to Miss Preble, dated Boston,
+February 28, 1845. _Memoir of Harriet Preble_, by Professor R.H. LEE, p.
+285-6.]
+
+This modest and candid estimate of his vocation indicates how much more
+a thing of volition and opportunity, and how much less a work of special
+endowment and intuitive recognition is the literature of History than
+that of Poetry, Psychology, or Philosophy, notwithstanding all these may
+be fused therein. "Whatever may be the use of this sort of composition
+in itself and abstractedly," observes a judicious critic,[B] "it is
+certainly of great use relatively and to literary men. Consider the
+position of a man of that species. He sits beside a library-fire, with
+nice white paper, a good pen, a capital style, every means of saying
+everything, but nothing to say. What, again, if something would happen,
+and then one could describe it? Something has happened, and that
+something is History." To feel fully the difference between a formal,
+mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or
+artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle
+of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact,
+conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of
+which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by
+Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other
+bards and novelists. While the attempt, by intensity of description and
+brilliant generalities, to impart to veritable history the charm we
+accept in the historical romance, has caused many an old-school reader
+to place Macaulay's fascinating volumes, called "The History of
+England," on the same shelf with works of fiction,--Aytoun, Hugh
+Miller, and William Penn's champions have given special meaning to
+this principle or prejudice, whichever it may be, by challenging the
+delightful author to the test of fact.
+
+[Footnote B: Bagehot.]
+
+In statesmen, or those who have excelled in political writing, the
+ambition to write history, the desire to illustrate and record national
+events, is not only a natural, but an auspicious feeling; and so it is
+in educated poets in whom the sentiment of patriotism or the narrative
+art gives scope and glow to such an enterprise. That Fox and Bacon,
+Milton and Swift, Mackintosh, Schiller, and Lamartine, should have
+partially adventured in this field seems but a legitimate result of
+their endowments and experience, however fragmentary or inadequate may
+have been some of the fruits of their historic studies.
+
+When an enlightened and executive or speculative man is an obvious part
+of the history of his own times, his chronicle must have a certain
+significance and value. Raleigh, when he wrote the "History of the
+World" in prison, gave hints by which subsequent and less obsolete
+annalists have wisely profited. The scholar and the patriot coalesced in
+the mind of Camden, prompting him to rescue and conserve the materials
+of English history and note the fading traditions,--a purely antiquarian
+service, which only those can appreciate who seek authentic data of
+the far past. Such as cavil at the legal tone and crude arrangement
+of Clarendon are none the less his debtors for specific memoirs, the
+personal element of history; and while Burnet has been vigorously
+repudiated by standard historians, he continues, and justly, to be a
+prolific authority. It is conceded by all candid explorers, that, as far
+as it goes, the account of England by Rapin is the best. Franklin's
+old friend Ralph was commended and quoted by Fox. As the enterprise of
+historical writers enlarged and their style became elaborate, these and
+such as these lost in popularity what they gained in usefulness. The
+charm of rhetorical elegance and broad generalizations gradually usurped
+the place of simple narrative and detailed statement. In the very design
+of Gibbon there is a certain poetical attraction; his work may aptly
+be described as panoramic, unrolling a vast picture or succession of
+pictures, too vague in outline and too monotonous in color for minute
+impressions, yet, on this account, the more remarkable for general
+effect. What Europe was in the Middle Ages we find more specifically in
+Hallam; the Moors in Spain have been more vividly painted by subsequent
+writers, whose aim was less comprehensive: but how the imperial sway of
+Rome subsided into the Christian era, how a republican episode gleamed
+athwart her waning power in the casual triumph of Rienzi, the
+later emperors, and what occurred in their reign in Jerusalem and
+Constantinople, pass emphatically before us in the stately pages which
+once charmed readers of English as the model of historic eloquence, and
+now excite the admiration of scholars as a monument of erudition and
+elaborate but artificial writing. There was a new attraction in the
+pleasing style of Robertson and the characterization of Hume; the
+winsome language of the one and the transparent diction of the other
+made historical reading not so much a task to cumber the memory as a
+pastime to entertain the mind; in the one chronicle we followed events
+gracefully unfolded, and in the other discussed persons with acuteness;
+yet, when to either was subsequently applied the test of absolute
+accuracy and sound deduction, large allowances were demanded for
+inadequate research on the part of Robertson and partial inferences on
+that of Hume. The theories of the latter indicate why and how, with
+all his intellectual abilities, the sympathies of his readers were
+inevitably limited; in his view of humanity we find the true cause
+of all his deficiencies as an historian: "Human life," he somewhere
+remarks, "is more governed by fortune than by reason, is to be regarded
+more as a dull pastime than a serious occupation, and is more influenced
+by particular humor than by general principles." Yet, in a philosophical
+retrospect of English historians, we can trace a progressive development
+from the purely antiquarian researches of Camden to the personal memoirs
+of Clarendon and Burnet; thence to the comprehensive erudition and
+majestic narrative of Gibbon; onward to the reasoning, lucid record of
+Hume and the fascinating narrative of Robertson;--all of which qualities
+of industry, characterization, broad knowledge, taste, emphasis,
+and reflection blend, culminate, and intensify along the copious,
+rhetorical, and vivid page of Macaulay.
+
+The Italian historians prolong, in style at least, the method of their
+classic predecessors: _"La Storia del Guicciardini e considerata come
+opera classica,"_--we are told by one of the critics of that nation; who
+adds, "His descriptions are always accurate, clear, and expressed with
+eloquence; the causes of events and their consequences are enumerated
+with rare acuteness; and his personages are delineated in their true
+characters, the historian descending into the deepest penetralia of
+their hearts: but the most eminent merit of this History consists in the
+moral and political considerations with which it abounds; it is like
+Tacitus." In like manner, Machiavelli is compared to Thucydides; while
+Varchi's long periods, adulation of the Medici, and municipal details
+are condemned by the same authority: yet one familiar with modern
+literature in this department will, despite this general commendation of
+native critics, be apt to ascribe the conservative charm of the Italian
+historians to their style rather than their method or matter.
+
+It is remarkable how late the French writers won laurels in the field
+of historical composition, and how long France, with all her national
+vanity, has lacked a complete and classical chronicle,--brilliant and
+invaluable fragments whereof abound. According to the most esteemed
+French critics, until this century the nation actually knew nothing
+of its own history; and it is characteristic of their speculative
+and methodical mind and taste, that History became popular and
+philosophical, a novelty and a reform, simultaneously. Guizot, Thierry,
+Sismondi, and others, created a new era in this branch of letters;
+Thiers and Michelet enlarged its sphere and increased its charms; and
+yet, while the graphic simplicity of Froissart, the critical insight and
+ingenious generalizations of Guizot, and the poetical glow and richness
+of Michelet have made the history of France both highly suggestive as
+regards the development of civilization, and picturesque and dramatic as
+a narrative, the greatest allowance for brilliant theorizing, political
+sympathies, and an errant fancy are indispensable in order to attain to
+a clear view of genuine facts and absolute principles. It has been said
+that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these
+dominate in the minds of French philosophical annalists; while the more
+sympathetic class are fond of rhetorical display and fanciful episodes.
+A recent critic, after bestowing merited encomiums on Michelet, gives
+the following instance of his absurd generalizations, which occur in the
+midst of grave historical statements and descriptions: "Wool and flesh
+are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere
+becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a
+victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding
+and a pastoral people,--a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their
+freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: _their greatest man,
+Shakspeare, was originally a butcher_."
+
+Less prominent and more recent names on the roll of historic literature
+are as distinctly associated with special excellences and defects. Thus,
+Grote keeps attention more by the intelligence of his comments than by
+the flow of his narration; he is far more political than picturesque;
+and while he gives a masterly analysis of the Athenian system of
+government, so as to place it in a new light even to the scholar's
+apprehension, he discusses the arts and the literature so inspiring
+to most cultivated minds, when describing Greece, with comparative
+indifference. Those who would examine English annals unbiased by
+Protestant zeal, and realize how the events and characters look to a
+Roman Catholic vision, may gather from Lingard some views which may
+not disadvantageously modify their interpretation of familiar men and
+occurrences. Two English writers have hastily compiled her annals
+during certain epochs; but while they are equally chargeable with
+superficiality, the manner in which the work is done is by no means
+similar. Smollet's continuation of Hume was confessedly a bookseller's
+job: four octavo volumes in only ten times the number of months, even in
+our days of locomotive celerity, would be thought rather a suspicious
+piece of literary handiwork; and besides the indecent haste, so
+incompatible with thoroughness, the misrepresentations of Smollet are
+patent. Goldsmith, as unambitious in research as he was genial in
+expression, made so agreeable a story, that, with all its imperfection,
+his sketch still finds readers; while the rarely quoted work of Henry
+most conveniently enumerates, at the end of each reign, details
+economical and social which identify and illustrate both period and
+progress in Anglo-Saxon civilization. As a copious and consecutive
+record of the salient incidents in modern Continental history,--so
+needful now for reference, and the diverse phases of which are so widely
+chronicled in the memoirs, the journals, the diplomatic correspondence,
+and what may be called the incidental history of the period,--the plan
+of Alison's work might have achieved a triumph of industry and skill,
+valuable as well as interesting to general readers and professional
+writers: but the political opinions, with the partial feelings they
+engender, continually distort the view and influence the estimate of
+this positive yet pleasant historian; while his almost wilful blunders,
+like the errors of Lord Mahon in regard to the American War, have
+been repeatedly demonstrated. Mackintosh philosophized about events,
+measures, and men, better than he described either. Sharon Turner nobly
+illustrates the value of intrepid research and patient collation.
+Mitford represents the aristocratic as Grote the democratic element in
+Grecian history. Tytler wrote of the past in the life of nations with
+the exclusive reliance on written proof that a conveyancer places upon
+title-deeds, and beside the glowing and harmonious pictures of later
+annalists such writing now appears obsolete. Napier describes battles
+scientifically, and Carlyle revolutions melodramatically,--each with
+original power, in their respective methods,--while Miss Strickland
+brings to the record of queenly sorrows and duties a woman's sympathetic
+prepossessions.
+
+Since those quaintly simple and emphatic statements which, under the
+name of Froissart's Chronicles, seem to perpetuate the instinctive
+notion of History, as an honest and earnest, but unadorned and
+unelaborate narrative of military and political facts,--not only has
+there been a continual refinement of style and enlargement of scope and
+art, but a greater complexity and subdivision in the historian's labors.
+Abstract political ideas, purely intellectual phenomena, have found
+their annalists, as well as executive enterprise; events have been
+analyzed, as well as described,--characters discussed, as well as
+pictured,--the elements of society laid bare with as much zeal and
+scrutiny as its development has been traced and delineated. European
+historical students read anew the records of the past by the light
+of philosophy; more subtile divisions than the geographer indicates
+organize the record; events are narrated with reference to a dominant
+idea; governments are chronicled through their ultimate results, and
+not exclusively with regard to their locality; rulers are considered
+in groups; a faith is made the nucleus of an historical development,
+instead of a nation. Thus, we have Ranke's "Popes" and D'Aubigne's
+"Reformation," Hallam's "Middle Ages" and "English Constitution"; De
+Quincey treats of "The Caesars"; Vico demonstrates that History is a
+science with positive laws; Gervinus illustrates it as a development of
+certain inevitably progressive ideas; Niebuhr interprets it by fresh
+tests and ordeals; Dr. Arnold teaches it by an original method; Humboldt
+points out its naturalistic tendencies and origin; Herder and Hegel, De
+Tocqueville and Guizot, the eminent writers on Civilization, on Art, on
+Education, Political Economy, Literature, and Natural History, more
+and more exhibit the facts of humanity and of time under such new
+combinations, by so many parallel truths and principles, that it is
+difficult to conceive that History, as now understood by the educated
+and the reflective, is the same thing once crudely embodied in a ballad
+or mystically conserved by an inscription. To multiply relations is the
+destiny of our age, and to converge all that is discovered through the
+laws of Science upon the records and relics of the past is a process now
+habitual and pervasive.
+
+And yet how little positive satisfaction does the lover of truth, the
+aspirant for what is authentic and significant, find in current and even
+popular histories! Certain general notions of the character of nations
+we, indeed, distinctly and correctly attain: that Chinese civilization
+is stationary, the French instinctively a military race, the Swiss
+mercenary, and adventurous in engineering and religious reform,--that
+modern German literature was as sudden as simultaneous in its
+development,--that Holland redeemed her foundations from the sea,--that
+Italy owes to art, and England to manufactures, her growth and grandeur.
+These and such as these are problems which the history of the respective
+countries, however inadequately told, reveals with authenticity; but
+when we go beyond and below the patent facts of local civilization, to
+the analysis of character, and, through it, of destiny, few and far
+between are the satisfactory records whence we can draw legitimate
+materials for inference and conjecture. The most attractive method
+is apt to be that upon which least reliance can be placed. We seldom
+consult Sir Walter's essays at serious history, while the novels he
+created out of historic material are as familiar as they are endeared;
+but their imaginative charm is in the inverse ratio of their
+authenticity. With every new candidate for public favor in this sphere
+of literature, there arises a "mooted question" whereon the historian
+and his readers are irreconcilably divided. The character of Penn, of
+Marlborough, and of the facts of the Massacre at Glencoe are still
+vehemently discussed, whenever Macaulay's popular History is referred
+to. Froude advances a new and plausible theory of the character of Henry
+VIII.; few of Bancroft's American readers accept his estimate of John
+Jay, Sam Adams, or Dr. Johnson, or of the political character of the
+Virginia Colonists; and Palfrey and Arnold interpret quite diversely
+the influence and career of Roger Williams. Nor are such discrepancies
+surprising, when we remember how the history which transpires now and
+here fails of harmonious report. Every battle, diplomatic arrangement,
+political event, nay, each personal occurrence, which forms the staple
+of to-day's journalism and talk, is regarded from so many different
+points of view, and stated under so many modifying influences, that only
+judicial minds have a prospect of reaching the exact truth. Hence the
+true way to profit by History is eclectic.
+
+Let the erudition of the German, the genial animation of the French,
+the Saxon good sense, the Italian grace be enjoyed, and whatsoever of
+glamour or of inadequacy these charms hide be duly estimated; reflection
+and sympathy will often separate the gold of truth from the alloy of
+prejudice or fantasy. Above all, let this eclectic test be applied
+beyond nominal history,--to the geological data on the ancient
+rock,--the handwriting of the ages upon race, costume, language,--the
+incidental, but genuine history innate in all true literature, vivid
+elements whereof live in passages of Milton's controversial writings, in
+Petrarch's sonnets, De Foe's fictions, our Revolutionary correspondence,
+South's sermons, Swift's diaries, Burke's speeches, French memoirs,
+Walpole's letters, in the poems, plays, and epistles of the past, and
+every fact and person which society and life offer to our cognizance or
+sympathy.
+
+"When we are much attached to our ideas, we endeavor to attach
+everything to them," says Madame de Stael. "The secret of writing well,"
+observes a Scotch professor, "is to write from a full mind." These
+two maxims seem to us to illustrate the whole subject of historical
+composition; an earnest votary thereof will instinctively find material
+in every interest and influence that sways events or moulds character,
+and from the assimilation of all these will educe a vital and harmonious
+picture and philosophy. There is an historical as well as a judicial or
+poetic type of mind; and to such there is no object too trifling, no
+fact too remote, not directly or indirectly to minister to the unwritten
+history which vaguely shapes itself to his intelligence. In his reading
+and travel it is by no means to the ostensible monuments and trophies of
+the past that his observation and inquiry are confined: the Letters of
+Madame de Sevigne give him authentic hints for the social tendencies
+of France and their influence upon politics, as the blood-stains at
+Holyrood identify the place of Rizzio's murder; the "Edinburgh
+Review" reveals the spirit of the Reform movement as clearly as the
+Parliamentary records its letter; the South-Sea House and the Temple are
+as suggestive as Whitehall and the Abbey,--for trade and jurisprudence,
+in the retrospect, are as much a part of the by-gone life and present
+character of a nation, as the fate and the fame of her dead kings; and a
+Spanish ballad is as valuable an illustration as a Madrid state-paper;
+while the life of Harry Vane vindicates the Puritan nature as clearly
+as the letter of a Venetian ambassador exhibits the domestic life of a
+Pope.
+
+The redeeming influence of strong personal sympathy and earnest
+conviction, both in the choice of a subject and the method of its
+treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own.
+The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical
+scholars were at once enlisted by Motley's "Rise and Fall of the Dutch
+Republic." That work differs from and is superior to any American
+historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a
+certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an
+absolute relation between the author's mind and heart and his subject.
+Accordingly his record not only seizes upon the attention, but wins the
+sympathy of the reader, who recognizes a vital and genuine spirit in the
+work, which gives it unity, completeness, and a living style, whereby
+its incidents, characters, and philosophy are unfolded, not only with
+art, but with nature, and so made real, attractive, and significant.
+That we are right in ascribing these merits to the affinity between the
+author and his work is amply evidenced by his own confession in a letter
+called forth by the death of Prescott, in which he says,--
+
+"It seems to me but as yesterday, though it must be now twelve years
+ago, that I was talking with our ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my
+intention of writing a history upon a subject to which I have since that
+time been devoting myself. I had then made already some general studies
+in reference to it, without being in the least aware that Prescott had
+the intention of writing the history of Philip II. Stackpole had heard
+the fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the
+work, although 'Peru' had not yet been published. I felt, naturally,
+much disappointed. I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to myself
+of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before the public,
+with a work not at all similar in plan to 'Philip II.,' but which must,
+of necessity, traverse a portion of the same ground. My first thought
+was, inevitably as it were, only of myself. It seemed to me that I had
+nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to
+renounce authorship. _For I had not first made up my mind to write a
+history, and then cast about to take up a subject. My subject had taken
+up me, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for
+me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of,--even if
+it were destined to fall dead from the press,--and I had no inclination
+or interest to write any other_."
+
+The same inspiration is partially obvious in those portions of every
+history which come home to the writer's experience: as, for instance,
+some of the military episodes in Colletta's "History of Naples," he
+having been a soldier,--and the descriptive phases of Parkman's "History
+of Pontiac," the author having been a Prairie traveller, and familiar
+with the woods and the bivouac. In like manner, it is the idiosyncrasy
+of historians which gives original value to their labors: Botta's
+knowledge of American localities and civilization was meagre, but his
+sympathy with the patriots of the Revolution was strong, and this gave
+warmth and effect to his "Guerra Americana"; Niebuhr was specially
+gifted to develop what has been called the law of investigation, and
+hence he penetrates the Roman life, and lays bare much of its unapparent
+meaning and spirit. So apt and patient are the Germans in research, that
+they have been justly said to "quarry" out the past; while so native are
+rhetoric, theorizing, and fancifulness to the French, that they make
+history, as they do life and government, theatrical and picturesque,
+rather than gravely real and practically suggestive.
+
+A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research
+expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental
+and extraneous. The collation of archives, official correspondence, and
+state-papers is now but the rough basis of research; memoirs are equally
+consulted,--localities minutely examined,--the art and literature of a
+given era analyzed,--the geography, climate, and ethnology of the scene
+made to illustrate the life and polity,--social phases, educational
+facts estimated as not less valuable than statistics of armies and
+judicial enactments. Michelet has some charming rural pictures and
+female portraits in his History of France; Macaulay thinks no custom
+or economy of a reign insignificant in the great historical aggregate.
+Topography, botany, artistic knowledge are not less parts of the
+chronicler's equipment than philology, rhetoric, and philosophy; a
+newspaper is not beneath nor a traveller's gossip beyond his scope;
+architecture reveals somewhat which diplomacy conceals; an inscription
+is not more historical than the average temperature or the staple
+productions. Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever
+accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought
+into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book
+of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill
+yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary
+edicts, or the royal signatures; the popular poem, the social favorite,
+the _cause celebre_, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau, doctor and lady
+_a la mode_ do, say, and are, then and there, must coalesce with
+the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,--or these last are but
+technical landmarks, instead of human interests.
+
+Even our most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only
+through association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman
+dominion is deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive
+ranges of a theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region
+far distant from the Imperial centre,--as at Nismes or Chester! How
+complete becomes the idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the
+ramparts of a castle, in the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic
+chapel, or amid the obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What
+a distinct and memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or
+Apollo, a Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays
+on the French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts
+recorded in the Travels of Arthur Young. The equivocal action of
+Massena, when he commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in
+the recently published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his
+deficiency of muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's
+"Conquest of Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited
+that country. Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he
+said, "It is a peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance
+of the Seven Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last
+biographer, when he defines it as the "consummation politically and the
+attenuation spiritually of the movement begun in Europe by the Lutheran
+Reformation."
+
+Indeed, so intimate is the connection between private life and public
+events, between political and social phenomena, that the historical mind
+finds material in all literature, and the very attempt to keep to a high
+strain and to bend facts to theory limits the authenticity of professed
+annalists. What Macaulay says of an eminent party-leader is modified to
+those who have studied the character through his memoirs or writings.
+The charming narrative of Robertson, the characterization of Hume, the
+stately periods of Gibbon, fail to win implicit confidence, when the
+scene, the age, or the personages described are known to the reader
+through original authorities. When Bancroft declares a treaty of
+Colonial governors against Indian ravages the germ of democratic
+government, we know that it is his attachment to a theory, and not the
+actual circumstances, which leads to such an inference; for the very
+authority he cites merely indicates a defensive alliance among rulers,
+not a coalition of the ruled. And so when to an account of the Battle
+of Lexington he appends a rhetorical argument connecting that event, so
+meagre and simple in itself and so wonderful in its consequences, with
+the progress of truth and humanity in political science and reformed
+religion, we feel that the reasoning is forced and irrelevant,--more an
+experiment in fine writing than an evolution of absolute truth.
+
+Thus continually is the independent reader of history taught
+eclecticism: he makes allowance for the want of careful research in this
+writer, for the love of effect in that,--for the skepticism of one,
+and the credulity of another,--for enthusiasm here, and fastidiousness
+there,--and especially for the greater or less attachment to certain
+opinions, and the absence or presence of strong convictions and genuine
+sympathies. Hence, to read history aright, we must read human nature as
+well; we must bring the light of philosophy and of faith, the calmness
+of judgment and the insight of love, to the record; collateral
+revelations drawn from our own experience, modified acceptance of both
+statement and inference, superiority to the blandishments of style,
+are as needful for the right interpretation of a chronicle as of a
+scientific problem. Thus history is perpetually rewritten; fresh
+knowledge opens new vistas in the past as well as the future; the
+discovery of to-day may rectify, in important respects, the statement
+which has been unchallenged for centuries; one new truth leavens a
+thousand old formulas; and nothing is more gradual than the elucidation
+of historical events and characters. Even our own brief annals suggest
+how large must be the historian's faith in time: only within a year or
+two has it been possible to demonstrate the justice of Washington's
+estimate of Lee, and how completely the sagacious provision of Schuyler
+secured the capture of Burgoyne. Since the American Revolution, one of
+these men has been as much overrated as the other has failed of
+just appreciation--because the documentary wisdom requisite for an
+enlightened judgment has not until now been patent.[C]
+
+[Footnote C: See Lossing's _Life and Correspondence of General
+Schuyler_, and Professor Moore's paper on Charles Lee.]
+
+With the imposing array of professed histories and historians in view,
+it is curious to revert to the actual sources of our own historic
+ideas,--those which are definite and pervasive. The vast number of
+intelligent readers, who have made no special study of this kind
+of literature, probably derive their most distinct and attractive
+impressions of the past from poetry, travel, and the choicest works of
+the novelist; local association and imaginative sympathy, rather than
+formal chronicles, have enlightened and inspired them in regard to
+Antiquity and the great events and characters of modern Europe. This
+fact alone suggests how inadequate for popular effect have been the
+average labors of historians; and so fixed is the opinion among scholars
+that it is impossible for the annalist to be profound and interesting,
+authentic and animated, at the same time, that a large class of the
+learned repudiate as spurious the renown of Macaulay,--although his
+research and his minuteness cannot be questioned, and only in a few
+instances has his accuracy been successfully impugned. They distrust him
+chiefly because he is agreeable, doubt his correctness for the reason
+that his style fascinates, and deem admiration for him inconsistent with
+their own self-respect, because he is such a favorite as no historian
+ever was before, and his account of a parliament, a coinage, or a feud
+as winsome as a portraiture of a woman. In one of his critical essays,
+Macaulay himself gives a partial explanation of this protest of the
+minority in his own case. "People," he remarks, "are very loath to admit
+that the same man can unite very different kinds of excellence. It is
+soothing to envy to believe that what is splendid cannot be solid and
+what is clear cannot be profound." And it has been most justly said of
+his own method of writing history, "He must make _everything_ clear and
+bright, and bring it into the range of his analysis; his exaggeration
+chiefly applies to individual characters, not to general facts"; and the
+reason given for the decided preference manifested for his vivid record
+is not less true than philosophical,--"We learn so much from him
+_enjoyably_." It is precisely the lack of this pleasurable trait which
+makes the greater part of the annals of the past a dead letter to the
+world, and wins to romance, ballad, epic, fiction, relic, and poetry the
+keen attention which facts coldly "set in a note-book" never enlisted.
+How many of us unconsciously have adopted the portraits of the early
+English kings as Shakspeare drew them! To what a host of living souls is
+the history of Scotland what the author of "Waverley" makes it! Charles
+I. haunts the fancy, not as drawn by Hume, but as painted by Vandyck.
+The institutions of the Middle Ages are realized to every reflective
+tourist through the architecture of Florence more than by the municipal
+details of Hallam. Pyramids, obelisks, mummies have brought home
+Egyptian civilization; the "old masters," that of Europe in the
+fifteenth century; the ruins of the Colosseum, Roman art and barbarism,
+as they never were by Livy or Gibbon. Lady Russell's letters tell us of
+the Civil War in England,--Saint Mark's, at Venice, of Byzantine taste
+and Oriental commerce,--the Escurial and the Alhambra, Versailles, a
+castle on the Rhine, and a "modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac,"
+of their respective eras and their characteristics, social, political,
+religious,--more than the most elaborate register, muster-roll, or
+judicial calendar. For around and within these memorials lingers the
+life of Humanity; they speak to the eye as well as to memory,--to the
+heart as well as the intelligence; they draw us by human associations
+to the otherwise but technical statement; they lure us to repeople
+solitudes and reanimate shadows; and having become intimate with the
+scenes, the effigies, the monuments of the Past, we have, as it were, a
+vantage-ground of actual experience an impulse from personal observation
+and, perhaps, a sympathy born of local inspiration, whereby the phantoms
+of departed ages are once more clothed with flesh, and their sorrows and
+triumphs are renewed in the soul of enlightened contemplation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MY NEIGHBOR, THE PROPHET.
+
+
+The point of commencement for a story is altogether arbitrary. Some
+writers stick to Nature and go back to the Creation; others take a few
+dozen of the grandfatherly old centuries for granted; others seize Time
+by the forelock and bounce into the middle of a narrative; but, as I
+said before, the beginning is a mere matter of taste and convenience.
+I choose to open my tale with the day on which I took possession of my
+newly purchased country-house.
+
+It was a pretty little cottage, wooden, old-fashioned, a story and a
+half high, with a long veranda, a shady door-yard, and a sunny garden. I
+bought it as it was, furniture included, of a gentleman who was about
+to remove southward on account of his wife's health, or, to speak
+more exactly, on account of her want of it. I laugh here to think
+how surprised you will be when you learn that these matters have no
+connection with my story. All the important events which I propose
+to relate might have happened had this gentleman never sold nor I
+purchased; and, as a proof of it, I can adduce the fact that they
+actually did occur some years before we enjoyed the honor of each
+other's acquaintance. But I could not resist the temptation of the
+episode. I am as delighted at getting into my first house as was my
+little son when he poked his chubby legs into his first trousers.
+
+"Who is my nearest neighbor?" I asked of the former proprietor, when he
+made his parting call.
+
+"What, the occupant of the new house just below you? I can tell you very
+little of him. I haven't made his acquaintance, and don't know his name.
+We call him the Mormon."
+
+"Mercy on us! You don't mean to hint at anything in the way of polygamy,
+I hope. He doesn't keep an omnibus with seats for twenty, does he?"
+
+"No, not so bad as that. In fact, I don't know much about him. I thought
+you were aware of his--his style of living," stammered my friend. "Oh,
+I dare say he is respectable enough. But then we noticed three or four
+women about the house, and only one man; and so we clapped the title of
+Mormon on him. Nicknaming is funny work, you know,--a short and easy way
+to be witty. I believe, however, that he does pretend to be a prophet."
+
+"The Pilgrim Fathers protect us! Why, he may attempt to proselytize us
+by force. He may declare a religious war against us. It would be no
+joke, if he should invade us with the sword in one hand, and the Koran,
+or whatever he may call his revelation, in the other."
+
+"Oh, don't be alarmed. He is quite harmless, and even unobtrusive. A
+sad-faced, pale, feeble-looking, white-bearded old man. He won't attack
+you, or probably even speak to you. I will tell you all I know of
+him. The house was built under his direction about six months ago.
+I understand that the women own it, and that they are not relatives
+according to the flesh, but simply sisters in faith. They have some
+queer sort of religion which I am shamefully ignorant of. At all events,
+they believe this old gentleman to be a prophet, and consider it a duty
+or a pleasure to support him. That is the extent of my knowledge. I hope
+it doesn't disgust you with your neighborhood?"
+
+"By no means. May you find as pleasant a one, wherever you settle!"
+
+"Thank you. Well, it is nearly train-time, and I suppose I must leave
+you and my old place. I wish you every happiness in it."
+
+And so the old proprietor sighingly departed, leaving the new one
+smiling on the doorstep. I was just thinking how nicely the world is
+arranged, so that one man's trouble may turn out another man's blessing,
+(the illness in this gentleman's family, for instance, being the cause
+of my getting a neat country-house cheap,) when my attention was
+arrested by the appearance of a thin, feeble-looking, white-bearded old
+man, who passed down the street with head bent and hands joined behind
+him. I stared at him till he got by; then I ran down to the gate and
+looked after him earnestly; and at last I darted forward, hatless, in
+eager pursuit. He heard my approaching steps, and put his snowy beard
+against his right shoulder in the act of taking a glance rearward. I now
+recognized the profile positively, and began conversation.
+
+"Is it possible? My dear Doctor Potter, how are you? Don't you know me?
+Your old friend Elderkin."
+
+"Sir? Elderkin? Oh!--ah!--yes! How do you do, Mr. Elderkin?" he
+stammered, seeming very awkward, and hardly responding at all to my
+vigorous hand-shaking.
+
+"I am delighted to see you again," I continued. "I have had no news of
+you these five years. Do you live in this neighborhood?"
+
+"I--I reside in the next house, Sir," he replied, not looking me in the
+face, but glancing around uneasily, as if he wanted to run away.
+
+"What! are you the prophet?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.
+
+"I am, Mr. Elderkin," he said, blushing until I thought his white hair
+would turn crimson.
+
+We stared at each other in silence for ten seconds, each wishing himself
+or his interlocutor at the antipodes.
+
+"I congratulate you on your gift," I remarked, as soon as I could speak.
+"I will see you again soon, and have a talk on the subject. We have
+discussed similar matters before. Good day, Doctor."
+
+"Good day, Mr. Elderkin," he replied, drawing himself up with a poor
+pretence at self-respect.
+
+He was greatly changed. Heterodoxy had not been so fattening to him as
+Orthodoxy. When I knew him, six years before, as pastor of a flourishing
+church, Doctor of Divinity, and staunch Calvinist, he had a plump and
+rosy face, a portly form, and vigorous carriage. He was a great favorite
+with the ladies, as clergymen are apt to be, and consequently never
+lacked for delicate and appetizing sustenance. He was esteemed,
+self-respectful, and happy; and all these things tend to good health and
+good looks. I propose to make myself famous as the Gibbon of the decline
+and fall of this reverend gentleman, once so honorably established on
+the everlasting hills of Orthodoxy, and now so overthrown and trampled
+under foot by the Alaric of Spiritualism. I do not expect, indeed, that
+anybody will take warning by my friend's sad history; nor do I insist
+that people in general would find it advantageous to learn much wisdom
+from the experience of others; for it is very clear, that, if we
+attempted only what our neighbors or our fathers had succeeded in doing,
+we should kill all chance of variety or improvement. It would be a
+stupidly wise world; there would be no sins, and, very possibly, no
+virtues; instead of "Everything happens," it would be "Nothing happens."
+Believing and hoping, therefore, that Dr. Potter's calamities will not
+be the smallest check upon any person who shall feel disposed to follow
+in his footsteps, I present the story to the public, not at all as a
+lesson, but merely as an item of curious information.
+
+Oddly enough, it was on that day of delusions, the first of April, that
+I stumbled into the Doctor's revival of the age of miracles. I had been
+engaged for three months on a geological survey in a Western Territory,
+during which time I had received very brief and vague news from the
+little city which was then my place of abode, and had not even had
+a hint of the signs and wonders which there awaited my astonished
+observation. Reaching home, I made it my first business to call on my
+reverend friend; for the Doctor, it must be known, was one of my most
+valued intimates, had baptized me, had counselled me, had travelled with
+me in foreign lands; we had many interests, many sympathies in common,
+and no differences except with regard to the extent of the Flood, the
+date of the Creation, and other matters of small personal importance.
+I found him in his study, surrounded by those seven hundred and odd
+volumes, the learning and excellent spirit of which gave to his sermons
+such a body of venerable divinity, such a bouquet of savory eloquence.
+He was walking to and fro rapidly, studying a slip of manuscript with an
+air of serious ecstasy. He did not look up until I had seized his hand,
+and even then he stared at me as a man might be supposed to stare who
+had been passing a fortnight with angels or other spiritual existences
+and unexpectedly found himself among natural and reasonable beings
+again.
+
+"Ah, my dear Elderkin," he said at last, "I am glad to see you. How are
+you, and how have you been? Excuse me for not recognizing you at once. I
+had just lost myself in the consideration of a mystery which I believe
+to be of the sublimest importance. Oh, my dear friend, I hope you will
+be brought to attend to these things! They are above and beyond all your
+geologies; they preceded and will outlive them."
+
+"Indeed!" I replied. "Nothing in the way of chaos, I hope?"
+
+"Look here at this sheet of foolscap," he exclaimed, waving it
+excitedly. "Do you remember the belief which I have often expressed to
+you,--the belief that the dispensation of miracles has never yet ceased
+from earth,--that we have still a right to expect signs, wonders,
+instantaneous healings, and unknown tongues,--and that, but for our
+wretched incredulity, these things would constantly happen among us? You
+have disputed it and ridiculed it, but here I hold a proof of its truth.
+A month ago this blessing was vouchsafed to me. It was at one of our
+Wednesday-evening exercises. I had just been speaking of supernatural
+gifts, and of the duty which we lie under of expecting and demanding
+them. The moment I sat down, a stranger (a gentleman whom I had
+previously noticed at church) rose up with a strangely beaming look and
+broke out in a discourse of sounds that were wholly unintelligible. You
+need not smile. It was a true language, I am confident; it flowed forth
+with a moving warmth and fluency; and the gestures which accompanied it
+were earnest and most expressive."
+
+"That was fortunate," said I; "otherwise you must have been very little
+edified. But isn't it rather odd that the man should use earthly
+gestures with an unearthly language?"
+
+The Doctor shook his head reprovingly, and continued,--
+
+"Deacon Jones, the editor of the 'Patriot,' is a phonographer. He took
+down the close of the stranger's address, and next day brought it to me
+written out in the ordinary alphabet. Let me read it to you. As you are
+acquainted with several modern languages, perhaps you can give me a key
+to an interpretation."
+
+"I don't profess to know the modern languages of the other world," said
+I. "However, let us hear it."
+
+"Isse ta sopon otatirem isais ka rabatar itos ma deok," began the
+Doctor, with a gravity which almost made me think him stark mad. "De
+noton irbila orgonos ban orgonos amartalannen fi dunial maran ta
+calderak isais deluden homox berbussen carantar. Falla esoro anglas
+emoden ebuntar ta diliglas martix yehudas sathan val caraman
+mendelsonnen lamata yendos nix poliglor opos discobul vanitarok ken
+laros ma dasta finomallo in salubren to mallomas. Isse on esto opos fi
+sathan."
+
+And so he read on through more than a page and a half of closely written
+manuscript, his eyes flashing brighter at each line, and his right hand
+gesturing as impressively as if he understood every syllable.
+
+"Bless you, it's nothing new," said I. "There's an institution at
+Hartford where they cure people of talking that identical language."
+
+"Just what I expected you to say," he replied, flushing up. "I know
+you,--you scientific men,--you materialists. When you can't explain a
+phenomenon, you call it nonsense, instead of throwing yourselves with
+childlike faith into the arms of the supernatural. That is the sum and
+finality of your so-called science. But, come, be rational now. Don't
+you catch a single glimpse or suspicion of meaning in these remarkable
+words?"
+
+"I am thankful to say that I don't," declared I. "If ever I go mad, I
+may change my mind."
+
+"Well now, I _do_" he asseverated loudly. "There are words here that I
+believe I understand, and I am not ashamed to own it. Why, look at it,
+yourself," he added, pleadingly. "That word _sathan_, twice repeated,
+can it be anything else than _Satan_? _Yehudas_, what is that but
+_Jews?_ And then _homox_, how very near to the Latin _homo!_ I think,
+too, that I have even got a notion of some of the grammatical forms of
+the language. That termination of _en_, as in _deluden, salubren,_ seems
+to me the sign of the present tense of the plural form of the verb. That
+other termination of _tar_, as in _ebuntar, carantar_, I suppose to be
+the sign of the infinitive. Depend upon it that this language is one
+of absolute regularity, undeformed by the results of human folly and
+sorrow, and as perfect as a crystal."
+
+"But not as clear," I observed,--"at least, not to our apprehension.
+Well, how was this extraordinary revelation received by the audience?"
+
+"In dumb silence," said the Doctor. "Faith was at too low an ebb among
+us to reach and encircle the amazing fact. I had to call out the
+astonished brethren by name; and even then they responded briefly and
+falteringly. But the leaven worked. I went round the next day and
+talked to all my leading men. I found faith sprouting like a grain
+of mustard-seed. I found my people waking up to the great idea of a
+continuous, deathless, present miracle-demonstration. And these dim
+suspicions, these far-off longings and fearful hopes, were, indeed,
+precursors of such a movement of spirits, such a shower of supernatural
+mercies, as the world has not perhaps seen for centuries. Yes, there
+have been wonders wrought among us, and there are, I am persuaded,
+greater wonders still to come. What do you think must be my feelings
+when I see my worthiest parishioners rise in public and break out with
+unknown tongues?"
+
+"I should suppose you would rather see them break out with the
+small-pox," I answered.
+
+"Ah, Professor! wait, wait, and soon you will not laugh," said the
+Doctor, solemnly.
+
+"Perhaps not. I am a sincere friend of yours, and a tolerably
+good-hearted sort of man, I hope. I shall probably feel more like
+crying. But the world may laugh long and loud, Doctor. All who hate the
+true revelation may laugh to see it mocked and caricatured by those who
+profess and mean to honor it. Just consider, while it is yet time to
+mend matters, how imprudent you are. Why, what do you know of the man
+who has been your Columbus in this sea of wonders? Are you sure that he
+is not a sharper, or an impostor, or a lunatic?"
+
+"Impossible! He brought letters to three of our most respectable
+families. His name is Riley, John M. Riley, of New York; and he is
+son of the wealthy old merchant, James M. Riley, who has been such a
+generous donor to all good works. As for his being a lunatic, you shall
+hear his conversation."
+
+"I should be a very poor judge of it, if he always speaks in his unknown
+tongues."
+
+"English! English! he talks English as good as your own. A more
+gentlemanly person, a more intelligent mind, a meeker and more believing
+spirit, I have not met this many a day. He is still here, and he is my
+right hand in the work. I shall soon have the pleasure of making you
+acquainted with him."
+
+"Thank you; I shall be delighted," said I. "Only be good enough to hint
+to him that I like to understand what is said to me. If he comes at me
+with unknown tongues, I shall wish him in unknown parts. I can't stand
+mysteries. I am a geologist, and believe that there are rocks all the
+way down, and that we had much better stand on them than wriggle in mere
+chaotic space. Good morning, Doctor. I shall come again soon; I shall
+keep a lookout on you."
+
+"Good morning," he replied, kindly. "I hope to see you in a better frame
+before many days."
+
+I hurried back to my hotel, and questioned the landlord about this
+revival of the age of miracles. He gave me a long account of the affair,
+and then every neighbor who strolled in gave me another, until by
+dinner-time I had heard wonders and absurdities enough to make a new
+"Book of Mormon." The lunacies of this Riley had entered into Dr. Potter
+and his parishioners, like the legion of devils into the herd of swine,
+and driven them headlong into a sea of folly. There had been more
+tongues spoken during the past month in this little Yankee city than
+would have sufficed for our whole stellar system. Blockheads who were
+not troubled with an idea once a fortnight, and who could neither write
+nor speak their mother English decently, had undertaken to expound
+things which never happened in dialects which nobody understood. People
+who hitherto had been chiefly remarkable for their ignorance of the
+past and the slowness of their comprehension of the present fell to
+foretelling the future, with a glibness which made Isaiah and Ezekiel
+appear like minor prophets, and a destructiveness which nothing would
+satisfy out the immediate advent of the final conflagration. Gouty
+brothers whose own toes were a burden to them, and dropsical sisters
+with swelled legs, hobbled from street to street, laying would-be
+miraculous hands on each other, on teething children, on the dumb and
+blind, on foundered horses and mangy dogs even, or whatsoever other
+sickly creature happened to get under their silly noses. The doctors
+lost half their practice in consequence of the reliance of the people on
+these spiritual methods of physicking. Children were taken out of school
+in order that they might attend the prophesyings and get all knowledge
+by supernatural intuition. Logic and other worldly methods of arriving
+at truth were superseded by dreams, discernings of spirits, and similar
+irrational processes. The public madness was immense, tempestuous, and
+unequalled by anything of the kind since the "jerks" which appeared in
+the early part of this century under the thundering ministrations of
+Peter Cartwright. That nothing might be lacking to make the movement a
+fact in history, it had acquired a name. As its disciples used the word
+"dispensation" freely, the public called them Dispensationists, and
+their faith Dispensationism, while their meetings received the whimsical
+title of Dispensaries.
+
+Amid this clamor of daft delusion, Dr. Potter congratulated his people
+on the resurrection of the age of miracles, and preached in furtherance
+of the work with a fervid sincerity and eloquence rarely surpassed by
+men who support the claims of true religion and right reason. Had he
+brought the same zeal to bear against mathematics, it seems to me he
+might have shaken the popular faith in the multiplication-table. The
+wonders transacting in his church being noised abroad, the town was soon
+crowded with curious strangers, mostly laymen, but several clergymen,
+some anxious to believe, others ready to sneer, but all resolute to see.
+As might have been expected, the nature of the excitement alarmed the
+wiser pastors of the vicinity for the cause of Orthodoxy. They saw that
+several of the asserted miracles were simply hoaxes or delusions; they
+suspected that the unknown tongues might be nothing but the senseless
+bubbling of overheated brainpans; they perceived that the Doctor in
+his enthusiastic flights was soaring clear into the murky clouds of
+Spiritualism; and they dreaded lest the scoffing world should make a
+weapon out of these absurdities for an attack upon the Christian faith.
+They began to preach against the fanaticism; and, of course, my friend
+denounced them as infidels. High war ensued among the principalities and
+powers of theology in all that portion of Yankeedom.
+
+The reaction roused by the unbelieving clergymen reached the Doctor's
+congregation, and emboldened all the sensible members to combine into
+an anti-miracle party. At a meeting of these persons a committee was
+appointed to wait upon the pastor and respectfully request him to
+dismiss Riley, to cease his efforts after the supernatural, and to
+return to his former profitable manner of ministration. Dr. Potter was
+amazed and indignant; he replied, that he should preach the truth as it
+was revealed to himself; he scouted the dictation of the committee, and
+fell back upon the solemn duty of his office; he ended by informing the
+gentlemen that they were unbelievers and materialists. Naturally the
+dissenters grew all the more fractious for this currying, and held
+another meeting, in which the reaction kicked up higher than ever. Being
+resolved now to proceed to extremities, and, if necessary, to form a new
+congregation, they drew up the following recantation and sent it to Dr.
+Potter,--not with any hope that he would put his name to it, but for the
+purpose of ridiculing his infatuation, and driving him to resign his
+pulpit.
+
+"I, the undersigned, pastor of the First Church in Troubleton, having
+been led far from the truth by the absurdities of modern miracleism
+and spiritualism, and having seen the error of my ways, do penitently
+subscribe to the accompanying articles.
+
+"1st. I promise to cease all intercourse with a blasphemous blockhead
+named John M. Riley, who has been the human cause of my downfall.
+
+"2d. I promise to avoid in future all rhapsodies, ecstasies, frenzies,
+and whimseys which throw ridicule on true religion by caricaturing its
+influences.
+
+"3d. I promise to regard with the profoundest contempt and indifference
+both my own dreams or somnambulisms and those of other people.
+
+"4th. I promise not to unveil the secret things of Infinity, nor to
+encourage others to unveil them, but to mind my own finite business, and
+to rest satisfied with the revelations that are contained in the Bible.
+
+"5th. I promise not to speak unknown tongues as long as I can speak
+English, and not to listen to other people who commit the like
+absurdity, unless I know them to be Frenchmen or Dutchmen or other
+foreigners of some human species.
+
+"6th. I promise not to heal the sick by any unnatural and miraculous
+means, but rather to call in for their aid properly educated physicians,
+giving the preference to those of the allopathic persuasion.
+
+"7th. I promise not to work signs in heaven nor wonders on earth, but
+to let all things take the course allotted to them by a good and wise
+Providence."
+
+Of course Dr. Potter looked upon this production as the height of
+irreverence and irreligion, and proposed to excommunicate the authors
+of it. Hence the dissenters declared themselves seceders, and took
+immediate steps to form a new society.
+
+It was at this stage of the excitement that I returned to Troubleton and
+made my call upon the Doctor. I felt anxious to save my old friend and
+worthy pastor. I saw, that, if he continued in his present courses,
+he would strip himself, one after the other, of his influence, his
+position, his religion, and his reason. That very evening, after the
+usual conference-meeting was over, I called again on him, and found him
+in a truly lyrical frame of spirit.
+
+"Ah, my dear friend, there is no end to it!" exclaimed he. "The doors
+are opening, one beyond another. Wonder shows forth after wonder,
+miracle after miracle. Behind the veil! behind the veil!"
+
+"Indeed!" said I, rather vexed. "You'll find yourself behind a grate
+some day."
+
+"There is now no question of the physical value as well as the spiritual
+sublimity of these revelations," he continued, without observing my
+sneer. "Life and death, the sparing of precious blood, the prevention of
+crime, the punishment of the guilty,--you can appreciate these things, I
+presume."
+
+"When I am in my senses," returned I. "But what is the row? if I may use
+that worldly expression. Has Mr. John M. Riley been brought to confess
+any state-prison offences?"
+
+"Ah, Elderkin!" sighed the Doctor, letting go my hand with a look of sad
+reproach. "But no: you cannot remain forever in this skepticism; you
+will be brought over to us before long. Let me tell you what has
+happened. But, remember, you must keep the secret until to-morrow, as
+you value precious lives. Mr. Riley has just left me. He has made me a
+revelation, a prophecy, which will be proof to all men of the origin
+of our present experiences. He has had a vision, thrice repeated. It
+foretold that this very night a robbery and murder would be attempted in
+the city of New Haven. The evil drama will open between two and three
+o'clock. There will be three burglars. The house threatened is situated
+in the suburbs, to the east of the city, and about a mile from the
+colleges."
+
+"Is it? And what are you going to do about it?--telegraph?"
+
+"No. We will be there in person. We will ourselves prevent the crime and
+seize the criminals. I shall have a word in season for that family, Sir.
+I wish to improve the occasion for its conversion to a full belief in
+these sublime mysteries. Mr. Riley, with three of my people, will meet
+me at the station. We shall be in New Haven by eleven, stay an hour or
+two in some hotel, and at half past one go to the house."
+
+"My dear Sir, I remonstrate," exclaimed I. "You will get laughed at. You
+will get shot at. You will get into disgrace. You will get into jail.
+For pity's sake, give up this quixotic expedition, and grant me an
+absolution before the fact for kicking Riley out of doors."
+
+The Doctor turned his face away from me and walked to a window. His air
+of profound, yet uncomplaining grief, struck me with compunction, and,
+following him, I held out my hand.
+
+"Come, excuse me," said I. "Look here,--if this comes true, I'll quit
+geology and go to working miracles to-morrow. I'll come over to your
+faith, if I have to wade through my reason."
+
+"Will you?" he responded, joyfully. "You will never repent it. There,
+shake hands. I am not angry. Your unbelief is natural, though saddening.
+To-morrow night, then, come and see me again and I will tell you the
+whole adventure. I must be off to the train now. Excuse me for leaving
+you. Would you like to sit here awhile and look at Humby's 'Modern
+Miracles'?"
+
+"No, thank you. Prefer to look at your miracles. I am going with you."
+
+"Going with me? Are you? I'm delighted!" he cried, not in the least
+startled or embarrassed by the proposition. "Now you shall see with your
+own eyes."
+
+"Yes, if it isn't too dark, I will,--word of a geologist. Well, shall we
+start?"
+
+"But won't you have a weapon? We go armed, of course, inasmuch as the
+scoundrels may show fight when we come to arrest them."
+
+"I don't want it," said I, gently pushing away a pocket-pistol, about as
+dangerous as a squirt. "All the burglars you see to-night may shoot at
+me, and welcome."
+
+We walked to the station, and found our party waiting for the Boston
+train. The Doctor introduced me, with much affectionate effusion and
+many particulars concerning my family and early history, to the man of
+unearthly lingoes. He was a tall, lean, flat-chested, cadaverous being,
+of about forty, his sandy hair nicely sleeked, thin yellow whiskers
+spattered on his hollow cheeks, his nose short and snub, his face
+small, wilted, and so freckled that it could hardly be said to have
+a complexion. In short, by its littleness, by its yellowness, by its
+appearance of dusty dryness, this singular physiognomy reminded me so
+strongly of a pinch of snuff, that I almost sneezed at sight of it. His
+diminutive green eyes were fringed with ragged flaxen lashes, and seemed
+to be very loose in their reddened lids, as if he could cry them out at
+the shortest notice. I observed that he never looked his interlocutors
+in the face, but stared chiefly at their feet, as if surmising whether
+they would kick, or gazed into remote distance, as if trying to see
+round the world and get a view of his own back. His dress was a full
+suit of black, fine in texture, but bagging about him in a way that made
+you wonder whether he had not lost a hundred-weight or so in training
+for his spiritual battles. His manners were quiet, and would not have
+been disagreeable, but for an air of uncomfortably stiff solemnity,
+which draped him from head to foot like a robe of moral oilcloth, and
+might almost be said to rustle audibly. Whether he was a practical
+joker, a swindler, a fanatic, or a madman, my spiritual vision was not
+keen enough to discover at first sight. Beside him and ourselves the
+party consisted of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick-maker,
+all members of the Doctor's church and indefatigable workers of
+miracles,--plain men and foolish, but respectable in standing and
+sincere in their folly. Mr. Riley was so commonplace as to address me in
+English, probably because he wanted an answer.
+
+"Do you accompany us, Sir, on this blessed crusade against crime and
+unbelief?" he asked.
+
+"My friend, Dr. Potter, has granted me that inestimable privilege,"
+responded I.
+
+"I hope--in fact, I firmly believe--that Providence will aid us," he
+continued.
+
+"I hope so, too," said I. "But wouldn't it be advisable to have a
+policeman, too?"
+
+"By no means! Certainly not!" he returned, with considerable excitement.
+"All we want is a band of saints, of justified souls, of men fitted for
+the martyr's crown."
+
+"Oh, that's all, is it, Sir? Well, shall we get into the cars? There
+they are."
+
+The train was full, and our party had to scatter, but Mr. Riley and I
+got seats together.
+
+"I have not seen you at our meetings, Sir," he continued. "Allow me to
+ask, are you a believer in Dispensationism?"
+
+"Not so strong as I might be. However, I have been absent from
+Troubleton for three months, and only returned yesterday."
+
+"Ah! you have lost precious opportunities. You must lose no more. Life
+is short."
+
+"And uncertain," I added. "Especially in railroad travelling."
+
+"My dear Sir, I hope this road is prudently conducted," he said, with a
+look of some little anxiety.
+
+"Not many accidents," I answered. "And then, you know, we are always
+in the hands of Providence. No fear of slipping through the fingers
+unnoticed."
+
+"No, Sir, certainly not," he remarked, wrapping his moral oilcloth about
+him again. "Have you felt any extraordinary spiritual impressions since
+you returned?"
+
+"Nothing lasting, I think. Nothing that a night's sleep wouldn't take
+off the edge of."
+
+"No desire to lay hands on some sin-stricken wretch and cure him of the
+evil that is in him?"
+
+Now I did feel a strong desire to lay hands on this very Riley and pull
+out his snub nose for him; but I forbore to say so, and simply shook my
+head despondently.
+
+"I know, that, if you would come to our Dispensaries and join in our
+exercises, you would be sensible of a softening," he observed.
+
+"Yes, in the brain," thought I; but I still remained silent.
+
+"You should meditate upon the value of manifestations, unknown tongues,
+the laying on of hands, visions, ecstasies, and such like matters," he
+continued.
+
+"So I have," said I.
+
+"And with no result?"
+
+"Nothing that particularly astonishes me. I think that I hate humbug
+more than I did."
+
+"That's a good sign," he replied, after a brief, sharp glance of inquiry
+at me. "This vain world is a humbug, as you phrase it. Dead Orthodoxy is
+a humbug. Human reason is a humbug. We are all humbugs, unless we are
+made true by Dispensation. This age will be a humbug, unless it can
+be wrought into an age of miracles. If you could be brought to hate
+earnestly all these things, it would be a hopeful sign."
+
+I was on the point of disputing the hypothesis, but prudently checked
+myself. Suddenly he removed my hat and put his broad, hard palm upon my
+organs with an impudent dexterity which made me doubt whether he had not
+been a pickpocket or a phrenological lecturer.
+
+"I lay my hand upon your head and desire you to note the effect," said
+he. "Can no life come into these dry bones? Shall they not live?
+Yea, they shall live! Do you feel no irrepressible emotion, Sir,--no
+shaking?"
+
+"Not a shake," replied I,--"unless it be from the bad grading."
+
+"Evil is mighty, but the good must eventually prevail," he observed,
+impertinently cocking his snub nose toward heaven.
+
+"I believe you are quite right in both propositions," I admitted.
+"Cardinal points of mine. But excuse me, Sir, if you could spare my hat,
+I should like to put it on my head."
+
+I had lost patience with the man, partly because it irks me to have
+strangers take liberties with my person, and also because I had reached
+the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In
+a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to
+question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of
+lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with
+his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers.
+Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on
+the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, which seemed to startle
+him as if it were the clutch of a skeleton.
+
+"There is my ticket," said he. "Where is yours? Have you one for the
+Holy City? None? Then you are lost, lost, lost!"
+
+The last words rose to a high, clear shriek, which pierced the heavy
+rumble of the train and rang throughout the car. The conductor, in spite
+of the coolness which becomes second nature to men of his profession,
+turned slightly pale and shrank back before this wild apostrophe, with
+a thrill of spiritual horror at the solemn meaning of the words, (I
+thought,) and not because he considered the man a maniac. The fanaticism
+of Troubleton had already flown far and cast a vague shadow of dread
+over a large community.
+
+Turning abruptly from the conductor, my companion flung out his long
+arms toward the staring passengers, and continued in his strident,
+startling tenor:--"I have warned him. I call you all to witness that I
+have warned this man of his fearful peril. His blood be on his own head!
+The blood of your souls will be upon your heads, unless you turn to
+Dispensationism. I have said it. Amen!"
+
+Before he had sat down again I was in the alley on my way to another
+car, not anxious to become known as the intimate of this extraordinary
+apostle. I found an empty seat by the Doctor, dropped into it, and told
+my story.
+
+"My dear friend, give the fellow up," I concluded. "He's as mad as he
+can possibly be."
+
+"So Festus thought of Paul," returned my poor comrade, with hopeless
+fatuity.
+
+"Festus be d----d!" said I, losing my temper, and swearing for the first
+time since I graduated.
+
+"I fear he was so," remarked the Doctor, severely. "Let me urge you to
+take warning from his fate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, and that of Festus," I apologized. "But when I see
+you losing your reason, I can't keep my patience, and don't wish to."
+
+"You will wonder at these feelings before many hours," he responded
+gently. "To-morrow you will be a believer."
+
+"That makes no difference with me now," said I. "I am just as skeptical
+as if I hadn't a chance of conversion. Why, Doctor,--well, come
+now,--I'll argue the case with you. In the first place, all Church
+history is against you. There isn't a respectable author who upholds the
+doctrine of modern miracles."
+
+"Mistake!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had you in my library. I could face
+you with writer on writer, fact on fact, all supporting my views. I can
+prove that miracles have not ceased for eighteen centuries; that they
+appeared abundantly in the days of the venerable Catholic fathers; that
+a stream of prophecies and healings and tongues ran clear through the
+Dark Ages down to the Reformation; that the superhuman influence flamed
+in the dreams of Huss, the ecstasies of Xavier, and the marvels of Fox
+and Usher. Look at the French Prophets, or Tremblers of the Cevennes,
+who had prophesyings and healings and discoverings of spirits and
+tongues and interpretations. Look at the ecstatic Jansenists, or
+Convulsionists of St. Medard, who were blessed with the same holy gifts.
+Look at the Quakers, from Fox downward, who have held it as a constant
+principle to expect powers, revelations, discernings of spirits, and
+instantaneous healings of diseases. Why, here we are in our own days;
+here we are with our chain of miracles still unbroken; here we are in
+the midst of this geological and unbelieving nineteenth century."
+
+"Yes, here we are," said I; "and we must make the best of it. It's a bad
+affair, of course, to live in scientific times; and it's a great pity
+that we were not born in the Dark Ages; but it is too late to try to
+help it."
+
+"Ah! you answer with a sneer; you are materialistic and infidel."
+
+"Stop, Doctor! Let me make a bargain with you. If you won't call me
+names, I won't call you names. You are not in the pulpit now, and you
+have no right to domineer over me."
+
+"But what do you say to all these signs and wonders which I have
+mentioned?"
+
+"What do you say to the Rochester knockings and the Stratford mysteries
+and the Mormon miracles?"
+
+"All deceptions, or works of the Devil," affirmed the Doctor, without a
+moment's hesitation.
+
+"Excuse me for smiling," I replied "It is pleasant to observe what a
+quick spirit you have for discerning the true wonders from the false."
+
+"You will see, you will see," he answered, and relapsed into a grave
+silence.
+
+We reached New Haven and took rooms at the New Haven Hotel. I had
+anticipated a little nap before going out on our expedition; but I had
+not made allowance for the proselyting zeal of Dispensationists. My poor
+bewildered friend Potter uttered something which he sincerely meant to
+be a prayer, but which sounded to me painfully like blasphemy. Next they
+sang a queer hymn of theirs in discordant chorus. After that, Mr. Riley
+rolled up his sleeves and his eyes, flung his arms about, wept and
+shrieked unknown tongues for twenty minutes. Then the butcher, the
+baker, and candlestick-maker had a combined convulsion on the floor,
+rolling over each other and upsetting furniture. By this time the hotel
+was roused and the landlord made us a call.
+
+"What the Old Harry are you about?" he demanded, angrily. "Don't you
+know it's after midnight?"
+
+"We are holding a Dispensary," said Mr. Riley, solemnly.
+
+"Well, I'll dispense with your company, if you don't stop it," returned
+mine host. "There's a nervous lady in the next room, and you've worried
+her into fits."
+
+"Let me see her," cried the Doctor, eagerly. "It may be that the power
+of our faith is upon her. Which is her door?"
+
+"You're drunk, Sir," returned the landlord, severely. "Keep quiet now,
+or I'll have you put to bed by the porters."
+
+So saying, he shut the door and went muttering down-stairs. This
+untoward incident put an end to our exercises. A whispered palaver on
+Dispensationism followed, during which I tilted my chair back against
+the wall and stole a pleasant little nap.
+
+It was about half past one when the Doctor shook me up and said, "It is
+time." We slipped down-stairs in our stockinged feet, got the front-door
+open without awakening the porter, shut it carefully after us, and put
+on our boots outside. Mr. Riley immediately started up College Street,
+which, as all the world is aware, runs northerly to the Canal Railroad,
+where it changes to Prospect Street and goes off in a half-wild state up
+country. At the end of College Street we left the city behind us, struck
+the rail-track, forsook that presently for a desert sort of road known
+as Canal Street, and kept on in a northwesterly direction for half a
+mile farther. It was a dark, cool, and blustering night, such as the New
+Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew
+violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if
+it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and
+screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or
+rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a
+few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I
+halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging
+us not far behind, but concluded that I had been deceived by the
+black-art of magical Night, and hastened on after my crazy comrades.
+Presently Riley stopped, pointed to a dark mass on our right which
+seemed about large enough to be a story-and-a-half cottage, and
+whispered, "Here we are, brethren."
+
+"No doubt about that," said I. "But what the mischief is to come of it?"
+
+"Oh! let's go back and call the police," urged the baker, in a tremulous
+gurgle.
+
+"Too late!" returned Riley. "It is given to me to see the burglars. They
+are inside. They are taking the silver out of the closet. There will be
+murder in five minutes."
+
+"If there must be murder, why, of course we ought to have a hand in it,"
+I suggested. "Our motives at least will be good."
+
+"Right!" said Riley. "Come on, brethren! We must prove our faith by our
+works."
+
+But the baker hung back in a most dough-faced fashion, while the butcher
+and the candlestick-maker encouraged him in his cowardice. At last it
+was agreed that this unheroic trio should wait in the yard as a reserve,
+while Riley, the Doctor, and I went in to worry the burglars. Leaving
+the weaker brethren in a clump of evergreen shrubbery, we, the
+forlorn-hope, stole around the house to get at a back-door which Prophet
+Riley had plainly seen in his dream, and which he foretold us we should
+find unlocked. I was not much amazed to discover a back-door, inasmuch
+as most houses have one, but I really was surprised to learn that it was
+unfastened. My astonishment at this circumstance, however, was over-
+balanced by my alarm at finding that the Doctor still persisted in his
+intention of entering; for I had hoped that at the last moment his
+faith would give way, and let him slide down from the elevation of his
+ridiculous and reckless purpose.
+
+"But you are not really going in?" I whispered, jerking at his
+coat-tails.
+
+"Certainly," he replied. "The robbers are surely there. The door was
+unlocked."
+
+"Mere carelessness of the servants. Stop! Come back! Nonsense! Madness!
+You'll get into a scrape. Respectable family. Good gracious, what a pack
+of fools!"
+
+While I was rapidly muttering these observations, he was pulling away
+from me and stealing into the house after his prophet. Finding that
+there was no stopping him, I followed, in obedience, perhaps, to that
+great and no doubt beneficent, but as yet unexplained, instinct which
+causes sheep to leap after their bellwether. We were in a basement, or
+semi-subterranean story. I felt the walls of a narrow passage on
+either side of me, and can swear to a kitchen near by, for I smelt its
+cooking-range. I walked on the foremost end of my toes, and would have
+paid five dollars for a pair of list slippers. Rather than take another
+such little promenade as I had in that passage, I would submit to be
+placed on the middle sleeper of a railroad-bridge, with an express-train
+coming at me without a cowcatcher. Presently I overtook the Doctor's
+coat-tails again, and found that they were ascending a staircase. At the
+top of the stairs was a door, and on the other side of the door was a
+room, the uses of which I won't undertake to swear to, for I never saw
+it, although I was in it longer than I wanted to be. All I know is
+that it seemed to be as full of chairs, and tables, and sofas, and
+sideboards, and stoves, and crickets, as if it had been a shop for
+second-hand furniture. I was just rubbing my shins after an encounter
+with a remarkably solid object, nature uncertain, when somebody near me
+fell over something with a crash and a groan. Immediately somebody else
+seized me by the cravat and began to throttle me. Whoever it was, I
+floored him with a right-hander, and sent him across the other person,
+as I judged by the combined grunt, and the desperate, though dumb
+struggle which followed. Now there were two of them down, and how many
+standing I could not guess. An instant afterward, a muffled voice, like
+that of a man only half awake, shouted from a room behind me, "Who's
+there? Get out! I'm a-coming!" This seemed to encourage the individuals
+who were having a rough-and-tumble on the carpet, for they commenced
+roaring simultaneously, "Help! murder! thieves! fire!" without, however,
+relaxing hostilities for a moment.
+
+The next pleasant incident was a pistol-shot, the ball of which whizzed
+so near my head that it made me dodge, although I have not the least
+notion who fired it or whom it was aimed at. Female screams and
+masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that
+I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this
+confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly
+walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I
+would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come
+to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of
+it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no
+chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether
+I would go in or not. A sudden rush of fighting, howling persons swept
+me along, jammed me against a pillar, pushed me over a table, and forced
+me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the
+darkness and the extraordinary amount of furniture. A tremendous punch
+in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper. Rising in a
+rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and
+never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would
+keep quiet during the rest of the _soiree_. I hope sincerely that this
+suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of
+stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.
+
+All this while the house resounded with outcries of, "Who's there?"
+"What's the matter?" "Father!" "Henry!" "Jenny!" "Maria!" "Thieves!"
+"Murder!" "Police!" and so forth. Of course I did not feel disposed to
+tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained
+what was the matter. Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people
+unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.
+Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person
+who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a
+passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light
+glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation
+to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive,
+whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a
+stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.
+The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her
+pulses. Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I
+rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the
+act of trying to run off in her nightgown. Upstairs I tumbled, resolved
+to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from
+a window. Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in
+a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female
+costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while
+on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl
+of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful. Right through my
+alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration. I
+tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair
+which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory
+with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of
+it. It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you
+will fall, nor whether you will not alight on iron pickets. Fortunately,
+I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a
+sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off. I had scarcely steadied
+myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near
+ambuscade and seized me by the collar. Supposing him to be one of our
+reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the
+point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and
+I knew that I was in the hands of a policeman.
+
+"Come in and help," said I. "The house is full of rascals."
+
+Thinking me one of the family, he loosed his hold on my broadcloth and
+hurried away to the back-door. Whoever reads this story has already
+taken it for granted that I did not follow him, but that I did, on the
+contrary, make for the city and never cease travelling until I had
+reached the hotel. Let no man reproach me with forsaking my friend, the
+Doctor, in his extremity. I was brought up to reverence the law and to
+entertain a virtuous terror of policemen; and, besides, what could I
+have effected in that horrible labyrinth of dark rooms and multitudinous
+furniture? I rang up the porter, went to bed, and lay awake alt the rest
+of the night, listening for the return of my companions. No one came:
+no Doctor, no Riley, no butcher, no baker, no candlestick-maker. I was
+apparently the sole survivor of our little army. In the morning I walked
+over to the police-station, peeped cautiously through the grated door of
+a long room where the night's gatherings are lodged, and discovered my
+five friends, tattered and bruised, but holding a lively Dispensary in
+one corner. From that moment I despaired of the Doctor and resolved to
+let him manage his own monomania. I was still peeping when two of the
+police and a sly-looking man in citizen's dress came up and stared
+boldly at the prisoners.
+
+"Well, Old Cock, do you see your game?" asked one of the "force."
+
+"Thaht's him," returned the Old Cock, speaking with the soft drawl of
+the New York cockney. "Tall fellah thah with thah black eye, thaht's
+a-goin' it now. Thundah, what a roarah!"
+
+"Well, what is he?" inquired the second of the New-Haveners.
+
+"Joseph Hull, 'ligious lunatic," said the Old Cock. "Was in thah
+Bloomingdale Asylum. Cut off one night about foah months ago and stole a
+suit o' clothes that belonged to John M. Riley, with a lot o' money and
+papahs and lettahs in thah pockets. How'd you get hold of him?"
+
+"Broke into a house eout here last night," related the first
+New-Havener. "He and them other fellers, and one more that we ha'n't
+found. I was on my beat 'bout one o'clock, and see 'em puttin' up
+College Street full chisel. I thought they looked kinder dangerous. So I
+called Doolittle here, and Jarvis, and Jacobs, and we after 'em. Chased
+'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout
+in the country. Three was in the yard and gin right up without doublin'
+a fist, though they had their pockets chuck full o' little pistols. We
+locked 'em into the cellar, and then, went upstairs, where there was a
+devil of a yellin' and fightin'. Hanged if I know what they come there
+for. They'd been pitchin' into one another and knockin' one another's
+heads off, besides smashin' furnichy and chimbly crockery, but hadn't
+stole a thing. The fat one and the long one--them two with white
+chokers--was lyin' on the floor pootty much used up. There was another
+that got up-stairs and jumped out a winder. Jarvis was outside and
+collared him, but thought he was Russell's son-in-law,--ho, ho, ho!--and
+let him off,--ho, ho, ho! Tell ye, Jarvis feels thunderin' small 'bout
+it. Ha'n't been reound this mornin'."
+
+"Well, I'll leave my warrant with your big-wigs, and come after my man
+when they've got through with him," said the New York detective, turning
+away.
+
+Fearing the return of the enlightened Jarvis, I now left, and,
+taking the first train to Troubleton, informed some of the leading
+Dispensationists concerning their pastor's calamity. By dint of heavy
+bail and strong representations they saved him, together with the
+butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, from the disgrace of prison and
+the lunatic asylum. But the adventure was the ruin of Dispensationism.
+Mr. Joseph Hull had to give up Mr. John M. Riley's valuables, and return
+to his seclusion at Bloomingdale. Deprived of the apostle who had set
+them on fire, and overwhelmed by public ridicule, the Dispensationists
+lost their faith, got ashamed of their minister, and turned him adrift.
+He disappeared in the great whirl of men and other circumstances which
+fills this wonderful country. From time to time, during five years, I
+had made inquiries concerning him of mineralogists, botanists, and
+other vagrant characters, without getting the smallest hint as to his
+whereabouts. At last he had turned up as the private prophet of three
+middle-aged widows.
+
+"Jenny," said I to my wife, "do you remember the night I frightened you
+so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?"
+
+"You always say you kissed me, but I don't believe it," returned that
+dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish. "Yes, I remember the night
+well enough."
+
+"Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion,
+and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my
+getting my houri,--I have heard from him. He is our next neighbor."
+
+"Mercy on us, Frederic! I hope not! What mischief won't he do to people
+who are so handy?"
+
+"Don't be worried, my dear," said I. "I sha'n't go over to his religion
+again,--unless, indeed, you should insist upon it. But here he is, and
+still a supernaturalist. I am anxious to know just how mad he is. I
+shall call on him in a day or two."
+
+So I did. One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and
+told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared. So he had. I think that he
+was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away. The widows thought
+not. They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before
+him, he had been translated. They cried for him a good deal more than he
+was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at
+a loss, and dispersed. I know nothing more of them. Neither do I know
+anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PILOT'S STORY.
+
+
+I.
+
+  It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,--
+  Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,
+  Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,
+  Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,
+  Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.
+
+II.
+
+  All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume
+  From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,--
+  Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses
+  In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.
+  Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered;
+  In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson
+  Floated in slumber serene, and the restless river beneath them
+  Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom.
+  Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress;
+  Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,--
+  Beautiful, wood-grown isles,--with the gleam of the swart inundation
+  Seen through the swaying boughs and slender trunks of their willows;
+  And on the shore beside its the cotton-trees rose in the evening,
+  Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the inscrutable sadness
+  Of the mute races of trees. While hoarsely the steam from her
+     'scape-pipes
+  Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted again to the silence,
+  Trembling through all her frame with the mighty pulse of her engines,
+  Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad Mississippi,
+  Bank-full, sweeping on, with nearing masses of drift-wood,
+  Daintily breathed about with hazes of silvery vapor,
+  Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow alighted,
+  And the belated blackbird paused on the way to its nestlings.
+
+III.
+
+  It was the pilot's story:--"They both came aboard there, at Cairo,
+  From a New Orleans boat, and took passage with us for Saint Louis.
+  She was a beautiful woman, with just enough blood from her mother,
+  Darkening her eyes and her hair, to make her race known to a trader:
+  You would have thought she was white. The man that was with her,--you
+     see such,--
+  Weakly good-natured and kind, and weakly good-natured and vicious,
+  Slender of body and soul, fit neither for loving nor hating.
+  I was a youngster then, and only learning the river,--
+  Not over-fond of the wheel. I used to watch them at _monte_,
+  Down in the cabin at night, and learned to know all of the gamblers.
+  So when I saw this weak one staking his money against them,
+  Betting upon the turn of the cards, I knew what was coming:
+  _They_ never left their pigeons a single feather to fly with.
+  Next day I saw them together,--the stranger and one of the gamblers:
+  Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair and moustaches,
+  Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes from his villanous forehead:
+  On together they moved, still earnestly talking in whispers,
+  On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman alone by the gangway.
+  Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and, beholding her master,
+  Greeted him with a smile that was more like a wife's than another's,
+  Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the dread apprehension
+  Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the face of the gambler,
+  Dark and lustful and fierce and full of merciless cunning.
+  Something was spoken so low that I could not hear what the words were;
+  Only the woman started, and looked from one to the other,
+  With imploring eyes, bewildered hands, and a tremor
+  All through her frame: I saw her from where I was standing, she shook so.
+  'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white lips of her master
+  Died a sickly smile, and he said,--'Louise, I have sold you.'
+  God is my judge! May I never see such a look of despairing,
+  Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast on her master,
+  Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her,
+  Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman,
+  Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old Pocahontas!
+  Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the throat of the dying,
+  Came back her voice, that, rising, fluttered, through wild incoherence,
+  Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while she answered:--
+  'Sold me? sold me? sold----And you promised to give me my freedom!--
+  Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in Saint Louis!
+  What will you say to our boy, when he cries for me there in Saint Louis?
+  What will you say to our God?--Ah, you have been joking! I see it!--
+  No? God! God! He shall hear it,--and all of the angels in heaven,--
+  Even the devils in hell!--and none will believe when they hear it!
+  Sold me!'--Fell her voice with a thrilling wail, and in silence
+  Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face with her fingers."
+
+IV.
+
+  In his story a moment the pilot paused, while we listened
+  To the salute of a boat, that, rounding the point of an island,
+  Flamed toward us with fires that seemed to burn from the waters,--
+  Stately and vast and swift, and borne on the heart of the current.
+  Then, with the mighty voice of a giant challenged to battle,
+  Rose the responsive whistle, and all the echoes of island,
+  Swamp-land, glade, and brake replied with a myriad clamor,
+  Like wild birds that are suddenly startled from slumber at midnight;
+  Then were at peace once more, and we heard the harsh cries of the
+     peacocks
+  Perched on a tree by a cabin-door, where the white-headed settler's
+  White-headed children stood to look at the boat as it passed them,
+  Passed them so near that we heard their happy talk and their laughter.
+  Softly the sunset had faded, and now on the eastern horizon
+  Hung, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star of the evening.
+
+  V.
+
+  Still with his back to us standing, the pilot went on with his story:--
+  "Instantly, all the people, with looks of reproach and compassion,
+  Flocked round the prostrate woman. The children cried, and their mothers
+  Hugged them tight to their breasts; but the gambler said to the
+     captain,--
+  'Put me off there at the town that lies round the bend of the river.
+  Here, you! rise at once, and be ready now to go with me.'
+  Roughly he seized the woman's arm and strove to uplift her.
+  She--she seemed not to heed him, but rose like one that is dreaming,
+  Slid from his grasp, and fleetly mounted the steps of the gangway,
+  Up to the hurricane-deck, in silence, without lamentation.
+  Straight to the stern of the boat, where the wheel was, she ran, and
+     the people
+  Followed her fast till she turned and stood at bay for a moment,
+  Looking them in the face, and in the face of the gambler.
+  Not one to save her,--not one of all the compassionate people!
+  Not one to save her, of all the pitying angels in heaven!
+  Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there before her!
+  Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence and horror.
+  Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of passion
+  Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in the night-time.
+  White, she stood, and mute, till he put forth his hand to secure her;
+  Then she turned and leaped,--in mid air fluttered a moment,--
+  Down, there, whirling, fell, like a broken-winged bird from a tree-top,
+  Down on the cruel wheel, that caught her, and hurled her, and
+     crushed her,
+  And in the foaming water plunged her, and hid her forever."
+
+  VI.
+
+  Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but we heard him
+  Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope to stop her. Then, turning,--
+  "This is the place where it happened," brokenly whispered the pilot.
+  "Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in the night-time."
+  Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay in the starlight,
+  Cheerful with lamps. Below we could hear them reversing the engines,
+  And the great boat glided up to the shore like a giant exhausted.
+  Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps to the eastward
+  Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling wake into silver.
+  All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath of the willows
+  Smote like the subtile breath of an infinite sorrow upon us.
+
+
+
+
+A DAY WITH THE DEAD.
+
+
+"Good morning!" said the old custodian, as he stood in the door of the
+lodge, brushing out with his knuckles the cobwebs of sleep entangled in
+his eyelashes, and ventilating the apartments of his fleshly tabernacle
+with prolonged oscitations. "You are on hand early _this_ time, a'n't
+you? You're the first live man I've seen since I got up."
+
+So saying, he vanished, and reappearing in a moment with a huge brass
+key, entered the arch, unlocked the gate which closed the aperture
+fronting the east like the cover of a porthole, and sent it with a heavy
+push wide open.
+
+Wading through the flood of sunlight which poured into the
+passage-way----But stop! I was about,--who knows?--in imitation of
+divers admired models, to tell the reader in choicest poetic diction how
+the City of the Dead, with its magnificent streets, shining palaces, and
+lofty monuments, burst upon my dazzled vision,--how I walked for half a
+mile along a spacious avenue, beneath an arcade of giant elms hung with
+wreaths of mist and vocal with singing, feathery fruit,--past marble
+tombs whose yards were filled with bright and fragrant flowers,--
+among waving grassy knolls spread with the silver nets of spiders and
+sparkling dew,--through vales of cool twilight and ravines of sombre
+dusk,--and so on for more than a page, until finally, step by step,
+through laboriously elegant sentences, I worked my way up to the top
+of a lofty hill, the view from which to be graphically described as a
+picture and a poem dissolved together into mingled glory and mirage, and
+inundating with a billowy sea of beauty the landscape below;--and then
+further depicting to the delighted fancy of the reader, how on one
+side was a most remarkable river,--such as was never heard of before,
+probably,--in fact, a web of water framed between the hills, its rushing
+warp-currents, as it rolled along, woven by smoking steam-shuttles with
+a woof of foam,--how, at the entrance of a bay, flocks of snowy sails,
+with black, shining beaks, and sleek, unruffled plumage, were swimming
+out to sea,--how another river, not quite so unique as the last, was
+also in sight, coiling among emerald steeps and crags and precipices
+and forest,--while beyond, green woodlands, checkered fields, groves,
+orchards, villages, hills, farms, and villas, all glowed in an
+exceedingly charming manner in the morning sun;--and then, still
+further, to say something as brilliant as possible about a certain
+city, designated as the Great Metropolis,--how it resembled, perhaps,
+a Cyclopean type-form, with blocks of buildings for letters, domes,
+turrets, and towers for punctuation-points, church-spires for
+interrogation and exclamation marks, and squares and avenues for
+division-spaces between the paragraphs, set up and leaded with
+streets into a vast editorial page of original matter on Commerce and
+Manufactures, rolled every morning with the ink of toil, and printing
+before night an edition of results circulated to the remotest quarters
+of the globe. And the tall chimneys yonder were to be called--let me
+see--oh, the smoking cathedral-towers of the Holy Catholic Church of
+Labor, islanding the air with clouds of incense more grateful to the
+Deity than the fume of priest-swung censers. All this, and much more of
+a similar nature, including an eloquent address to the ocean hard by,
+it is possible I was about to say. But, unwilling to smother the reader
+beneath a mountain of rhetorical flowers,--which accident might happen,
+should I resolve to be "equal to the occasion,"--I shall contain myself,
+and state, in the way of a curt preface, in plain prose, and directly to
+the point, that I entered a remarkably large and populous cemetery,
+no matter where, very early one morning,--in fact, you have the
+gate-keeper's word for it that I was the first person there,--that I
+climbed to the summit of a high hill and enjoyed the view of a beautiful
+landscape, just after sunrise; and with this finally said and done, let
+us proceed.
+
+As I stood listening to the music of the sea-breeze in the pine-forests
+below, and watching the ships sinking into the ocean from view or
+dropping through the sky into sight at the rim of the horizon, and the
+clouds changing their picturesque sunrise-dress for a uniform of sober
+white, forming into rank and file, marching and countermarching, sending
+off scouts into the far distance and foraging-parties to scour the
+yellow fields of air, pitching their tents and placing sentinels on
+guard around the camp,--amusing myself with fashioning quaint, arabesque
+fancies,--a sort of intellectual whittling-habit I have when idle,--I
+was roused from my reverie by the creaking of an iron gate.
+
+Descending a few steps into a cluster of trees, I saw through their
+leafy lattice-work, in an inclosure ornamented with rose-bushes and
+other flowering shrubs, a young woman, richly dressed in black, kneeling
+by the side of a new-made grave. The mound, evidently covering a
+full-grown person, was nicely laid at the top with carefully cut sods,
+the dark edges of which projected a little over the lighter-colored
+gravel that sloped gradually down to the greensward. I was not long in
+becoming satisfied that the person I saw was a young widow at the grave
+of her husband, now three or four weeks dead, hither on her accustomed
+morning visit to display her love and affection for his memory.
+
+Bowing her head, for a few moments she gave way to sobs and weeping, and
+then, removing the cover from a little willow basket, which stood by her
+side, she took from it handfuls of bright flowers, and began to adorn
+the table of sods upon the top of the mound.
+
+As I regard her thus employed, weaving the tokens of her affection into
+garlands, chaplets, and fanciful devices, arranging their symbolic
+characters into interpretable monograms and hieroglyphs, matching their
+colors and blending their hues and shades with the skill of an artist,
+she becomes more and more absorbed in her work, the tears disappear from
+her eyes, and the morning light flushes her pale and beautiful face. Is
+she thinking now, I wonder, of the dead husband, or of something else?
+What has she found among the flowers so consoling? Do they suggest
+pleasant fancies, or recall the memories of happy days? Have they,
+perhaps, a double meaning,--souvenirs of felicity as well as symbols
+of sorrow? Are they opiates obliterating actual suffering, or prophets
+uttering hopeful predictions? Or is it none of these things, and does
+she find her work pleasant only because duty makes its performance
+cheerful labor? I cannot say _what_ it is, but _something_ has assuaged
+her grief; for I see her smiling now, as she holds a rosebud in her
+fingers, and gazes at it abstractedly; and her thoughts and feelings,
+whatever they may be, are indubitably not of a mournful character;--in
+fact, I am sure that she never was happier in her life than she is at
+this moment.
+
+"Happy, do you say?"
+
+Yes, I say happy.
+
+The nature of woman, it is conceded by all men, is a curious,
+interesting, and perplexing, if not, in respect of positive practical
+results, a most unsatisfactory study. But nothing puzzles us so much
+to comprehend as the fact just alluded to. The tenderest female
+constitution will sustain a burden of grief which would crush a robust
+and iron-nerved man, and drive him to despair and suicide. A woman
+rarely succumbs to a calamity; however sudden and overwhelming the
+initial shock may be, she revives and grows cheerful and happy under it
+in a way and to a degree marvellous to behold. What singular secret is
+there among the psychological mysteries of her nature which is able to
+account for this phenomenon?--A gentle, timid girl of sixteen, whom the
+sight of a spider or a live snake would have frightened into hysterics,
+I had once an opportunity, on a tour through Italy, to observe, while
+she took little or no notice of other works of art, would gaze, as if
+fascinated, at the writhings of Laocooen and his sons in the folds and
+fangs of the serpents, at the sculptured death of the Gladiator, and
+even at the ghastly, repulsive pictures of martyrdoms and barbaric
+mutilations and tortures,--the hideous monstrosities of a diseased and
+degraded imagination found in the churches and convents of Rome, which
+made others turn their backs with a shivering of the bones and a
+creeping of the flesh. On expressing surprise at such a singular
+exhibition of taste, I received this innocent, unpremeditated
+reply:--"Why, I don't like them; the sight of them almost freezes my
+blood; but--somehow I do like to look at them, _for I always feel better
+after it_!" Now is there not involved in this artless answer a possible
+explanation of the above-mentioned fact? Has not woman, hidden somewhere
+among her other (of course angelic)--affections, a positive _love_ of
+sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, which man does not possess? Is
+not the pain they cause, in her case, qualified by actual pleasure?
+Do they not act as a stimulus upon her sensitive nervous system, and
+produce, somehow, a _delightfully intoxicated state of the feelings_?
+Would not this explain her otherwise unaccountable fondness for
+witnessing the execution of murderers, for the horrible in novels
+and the deaths and catastrophes in the newspapers, that she has a
+constitutional relish for such horrid things, and that she enjoys them,
+not because they are _in se_ productive of pleasure, but just, as is the
+case with her "crying," _because she feels better after it_? And I think
+it would be found, if an investigation of the subject were instituted,
+that a foreknowledge of this inevitable result, derived from intuition
+or experience, is the agent which breaks up the clouds of her sorrow:
+so that, while the grief of a man stricken down by misfortune is an
+equinoctial storm, dark and dismal, which lasts for weeks and months,
+the grief of woman is a succession of refreshing April showers, each of
+brief duration, and the spaces between them filled with sunshine and
+rainbows.
+
+But the sweets of that widow's present sorrow will be soon extracted.
+How many weeks will she find it a pleasure to make morning visits here
+and plait pretty flowers on the grave of her husband?--The grave in the
+next inclosure furnishes an answer to the question. A few months ago,
+it, too, was tended at sunrise by just such a tearful woman; but now the
+wreaths of evergreen are yellow, and the weeds are springing up among
+the withered garlands. The living partner has visited already the
+"mitigated grief" department of the mourning store, and the severed
+cords of her affections have been spliced and made almost as good as
+new. Not that I would not have it so; not that I believe the grief of
+woman to be less real and sincere than man's, though it _be_ enjoyed;
+not that I would have her thrum a long mournful threnody on the
+harpstrings of her heart, and waste on the dead, who need them not,
+affections which, Heaven knows, the living need too much.
+
+Retracing my steps, and descending the opposite slope of the hill, I
+entered a beautiful vale covered with stately tombs and containing a
+little lake, in the middle of which a fountain was springing high into
+the air. In a spot so much frequented at a later hour of the day only a
+single human being was in sight,--a young man, perhaps five-and-twenty
+years of age, jauntily dressed, and his upper lip adorned with a long
+moustache, who was leaning lazily upon a marble balustrade, and staring,
+with a stupid, vacant look, at the massive monument it surrounded. As
+nothing appeared at the moment more attractive to my eyes, I fixed them
+upon him. No great skill in deciphering human character is required to
+tell his past or foretell his future history, or even to read the few
+poor spent thoughts that flicker in his brain. His father--some city
+merchant--died last year, and left him a man of leisure, with a fortune
+on his hands to spend in idleness and dissipation. This is the first
+anniversary of the old gentleman's decease and departure to another and
+better world, and the hopeful heir of his bank-stock and buildings has,
+as a matter of etiquette, come out here from the city this morning to
+pass an hour of solemn meditation--as he calls the sixty minutes in
+which he does not smoke or swear--by the old man's grave. I observe him
+every moment forming a firm resolution to fix his feeble thoughts upon
+sober things and his latter end, and breaking it the second afterwards:
+the effort is too much for the exhausted condition of his mind, and
+results in a total failure. He is evidently well pleased that any
+attention is directed towards him, and fancies that I regard him as a
+very dutiful son, and his appearance here, so early in the morning
+and long before breakfast, a remarkable example of posthumous filial
+affection. To intensify, if possible, this sentiment in my breast, he
+has just now pulled out a white cambric handkerchief and pretends to be
+wiping tears from his eyes. Poor fellow! you have no natural talent for
+the solemn parts in acting, or you would know that the expression
+which your face now wears is not that of sorrow, solemnity, meekness,
+gentleness, humility, or any other sober Christian grace or virtue. But
+I leave you, for I see something more attractive now. Stand thy hour
+out, young man! we shall meet again.
+
+"In the other world?"
+
+No: to-morrow evening, as I am taking my accustomed walk into the
+country, I shall be wellnigh run over by a swiftly driven team; I shall
+spring suddenly aside, when thou wilt pass, O bogus son of Jehu, with
+thy dog-cart and two-forty span of bays, dashing down the road, thy
+thoughts fixed on horse-flesh instead of eternity, and thy soul bounded,
+north by thy cigar, east and west by the wheels thy vehicle, and south
+by the dumb beasts that drag thee along.
+
+But, not to introduce the reader to more solemn scenes of affliction and
+sorrow which are witnessed here during the first vigil of the day, we
+pass to a later hour. The mourners who come hither in the early morning
+to decorate the graves of the recent dead, and to weep over them
+undisturbed by visitors, have now departed. The sun is already high, the
+dew has disappeared from the trees and the shrubs, and the paths and
+walks and avenues begin to be thronged with loungers and sight-seers
+from the city.
+
+I had stopped at the forks of a lane and was hesitating which branch
+to take and what to do with myself, when a tall and beautiful Willow,
+standing upon a knoll a few rods distant, with thick drooping boughs
+sweeping the ground on every side, beckoned to me. On approaching him,
+he extended a branch, shook me cordially by the hand, and invited me
+to accept the shelter and hospitality of his roof. The proposal so
+generously made was at once accepted with profuse thanks, and, parting
+the boughs, I entered the tent and threw myself upon the soft grass.
+
+Do you ever talk with trees? It is a custom of mine, and I usually find
+their conversation much more entertaining and profitable than that of
+most men I know. "Good morning!" I say to an acquaintance. "Fine day,"
+he replies; "how's business?" And so on for an hour, over themes of
+every nature, the current of conversation rippled with trite truisms,
+and whirling in the surface-eddies of Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy."
+But the tree takes the whole of the Tupperian philosophy for granted at
+the start, and the truisms which most men utter, and takes _you_ for
+granted likewise,--supposing neither half of your eyeballs blind,
+and that you have a soul as well as a body,--and enters at once into
+conversation upon the high table-land of science, reason, and poetry.
+The entire talk of a fashionable tea-party, strained from its lees of
+scandal, filtered through a sober reflection of the following morning,
+is not equal in value to the quivering of a single leaf. A tree will
+discourse with you upon botany, physiology, music, painting, philosophy,
+and a dozen arts and sciences besides, none of which it simply chats
+about, but all of which it _is_: and if you do not understand its
+language and comprehend what it tells you about them, so much the worse
+for you; it is not the fault of the tree.
+
+I say, I talk with trees for this reason,--because their wisdom is so
+much greater than that of my ordinary acquaintances,--and further,
+(to put the major after the minor premise,) because they are virtually
+living beings, endowed with instinct, feeling, reason, and display every
+essential attribute of sentient creatures,--in fact, because they have
+souls as well as men, only they are clothed in vegetable flesh.
+
+"That is transcendental moonshine, and you don't believe a word of it!"
+
+Well, my friend, allow me, then, to tell you, in all charity and with
+bowels of compassion, that you hold dangerous and fatal views respecting
+one of the cardinal doctrines of mythology,--yes, to be plain, you are a
+Joveless infidel, and in fearful danger of being locked out of Elysium;
+and I shall offer up a smoking sacrifice, the next time I get a sirloin,
+and pour out a solemn libation, in the presence of my whole family
+seated around the domestic altar early in the morning, for your speedy
+conversion.
+
+Know, then, O obtuse, faithless, and perverse skeptic, that these
+things are so: that ocular and auricular evidence, indubitable and
+overwhelming, exists, that the arboreal and human natures are in
+substance one. Know that once on a time, as Daphne, the lovely daughter
+of Peneus, was amusing herself with a bow and arrows in a forest of
+Thessaly, she was surprised by a rude musician named Phoebus. Timid and
+bashful, as most young ladies are, she turned and fled as fast as her
+[Greek: skelae] could carry her. After running, closely pursued by the
+eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she
+felt inclined to yield: but wishing to faint in a reputable manner, she
+lifted up her hands and asked the gods to help her. Her call was heard
+in a jiffy, and quicker than you could say, "Presto: change!" she was a
+Laurel-tree, which Phoebus married on the spot. This was the Eve of the
+Laurel family, so that all these trees you meet in the world at present
+must be rational beings, since they are the descendants of the beautiful
+Greek maiden Daphne. And to satisfy you that this is no foolish legend,
+but, on the contrary, a well-authenticated fact, clinched and riveted
+in the boiler-head of historical truth, permit me to assure you,--for I
+have seen it myself,--that in the Villa Borghese, near Rome in Italy,
+is an exact representation of the wonderful incident, cut in Carrara
+marble,--the bark of the Laurel growing over the vanishing girl, and her
+hands and fingers sprouting into branches and leaves,--supposed to
+have been copied from a photograph taken on the spot,--for there is a
+photograph in existence exactly like the marble statue.
+
+We know positively--for we have an equally minute account of the
+transaction--that the Cypress originated in a similar way. And is it
+not reasonable to infer, therefore, though we may not find the facts
+stated in _every_ case, that all trees were created out of men and
+women, their bodies being miraculously clothed in woody tissue? In the
+time of Virgil this was certainly the established orthodox belief; for
+he relates an anecdote, expressing no doubt whatever of its truth, of a
+party of travellers who commenced one day in a forest the indiscriminate
+destruction of some young trees, when their roots forthwith began
+to bleed, and voices proceeded from them, begging to be spared from
+laceration. And, in fact, hundreds of instances, similarly weighty as
+evidence, from equally veracious and trustworthy classic authors, might
+be cited to the point, did time and space permit. But we hasten to the
+other proof of their essential humanity, which I set out with assuming
+as an undoubted fact, and which is already foreshadowed in the adventure
+of the Trojan wanderers just related,--namely, that they possess the
+faculty of speech.
+
+Tasso, the author of a well-known metrical history, states distinctly,
+as you shall see in half a moment, that a tree upon one occasion
+discoursed with Major General Tancred,--
+
+  "Pur tragge alfin la spada e con gran forza
+  Percuote l' alta pianta. Oh, maraviglia!
+  ----quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente
+  Un indistinto gemito dolente,
+  Che poi _distinto in voci_."
+
+And then it goes on to tell the General how it once rejoiced in
+extensive hoops, wore a coal-scuttle on its head, and rubbed its face
+with prepared chalk,--(w-w-w-hy! what _was_ I saying? such a mistake! I
+should say)--was a woman by the name of Clorinda, and is still animated
+and sentient both in trunk and limbs, and that he will presently be
+guilty of murder, if he continues to hack her with his sword.
+
+The celebrated explorer, Sir John Mandeville, relates in the history
+of his discoveries that he heard whole groves of trees talking _to one
+another_. And when we come down to the present day, R.W. Emerson, of
+Concord, asseverates that trees have conversed with him,--that they
+speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, and several other
+languages perfectly,--
+
+  "Mountain speech to Highlanders,
+  Ocean tongues to islanders,"--
+
+and that he himself was on one occasion transformed into a Pine (_Pinus
+rigida_) and talked quite a large volume of philosophy while in that
+condition. Walter Whitman, Esq., author of "Leaves of Grass," relates
+similar personal experience. Tennyson, (Alfred,) now the Laureate of
+England, and upon whom the University of Oxford, a few years ago,
+conferred the title of Doctor of Laws, gives us a long conversation he
+once held with an Oak, reporting the exact words it said to him: they
+are excellent English, and corroborate what I said above respecting the
+wisdom of trees.
+
+If all this evidence, and I might add much more equally conclusive, did
+I think it necessary, does not, O skeptic, convince you of the humanity
+of trees, why, let me say that you hold for true a hundred things not
+based upon half so good testimony as this,--that I have seen juries
+persuaded of facts, and bring in verdicts in accordance with them, not
+nearly so well authenticated as these,--and that I have heard clergymen
+preach sermons two hours long, constructed out of arguments which they
+positively persisted you should regard as decisive, that were, to say
+the least, no _better_ than those here advanced. And now, if these
+things be so, in the words of the great Grecian, John P., _what are you
+going to do about it_?
+
+Trees, like animals, are righteously sacrificed only when required to
+supply our wants. A man does not go out into the fields and mutilate or
+destroy his horses and oxen: let him treat the oaks and the elms with
+the same humanity. I would that enough of the old mythology to which I
+have alluded, and which our fathers called religion, still lived among
+us to awaken a virtuous indignation in our breasts when we witnessed the
+wanton destruction of trees. I once remonstrated with a cruel wretch
+whom I saw engaged in taking the life of some beautiful elms inhabiting
+a piece of pasture-land. He replied, that in the hot days of summer the
+cattle did nothing but lie under them and chew their cud, when they
+should be at work feeding on the grass,--that his oxen did not get fat
+fast enough, nor his cows give as much milk as they should give,--"and
+so," said he, "I'm goin' to fix 'em,"--and down came every one of the
+hospitable old trees. We are not half so humane in our conduct towards
+the inferior races and tribes as the old Romans whom we calumniate with
+the epithet of Pagans. The Roman Senate degraded one of its members for
+putting to death a bird that had taken refuge in his bosom: would not
+the Senate of the United States "look pretty," undertaking such a thing?
+A complete Christian believes not only in the dogmas of the Bible, but
+_also_ in the mythology, or religion of Nature, which teaches us, no
+less than it taught our fathers, to regard wanton cruelty towards any
+vegetable or animal creature which lives in the breath and smile of the
+Creator, as a sin against Heaven.
+
+Having in the above paragraph got into the parson's private preserve,
+as I shall be liable anyhow to an action for trespass, I am tempted to
+commit the additional transgression of poaching, and to give you a
+few extracts from a _sermon_ a friend of mine once delivered. [It was
+addressed to a small congregation of Monothelites in a village "out
+West," just after the annual spring freshet, when half the inhabitants
+of the place were down with the chills and fever. It was his maiden
+effort,--he having just left the Seminary,--and did not "take" at
+all, as he learned the next day, when Deacon Jenners (the pious
+philanthropist of the place) called to tell him that his style of
+preaching "would never do," that his thoughts were altogether of too
+worldly a nature, and his language, decidedly unfit for the sacred
+"desk." Besides,--though he would not assume the responsibility
+of deciding that point before he had consulted with the Standing
+Committee,--he did not think his sentiments exactly orthodox. My friend
+was disgusted on the spot, and, being seized with a chill shortly
+afterwards, concluded not to accept the "call," and, packing his
+trunk, started in quest of a healthier locality and a more enlightened
+congregation.]
+
+"And here permit me to add a word or two for the purpose of correcting a
+very prevalent error.
+
+"Most men, I find, suppose that this earth belongs to them,--to the
+human race alone. It does not,--no more than the United States belong to
+Rhode Island. Human life is not a ten-thousand-millionth of the life on
+the planet, nor the race of men more than an infinitesimal fraction of
+the creatures which it nourishes. A swarm of summer flies on a field of
+clover, or the grasshoppers in a patch of stubble, outnumber the men
+that have lived since Adam. And yet we assume the dignity of lords and
+masters of the globe! Is not this a flagrant delusion of self-conceit?
+Let a pack of hungry wolves surround you here in the forest, and who is
+master? Let a cloud of locusts descend upon a hundred square miles
+of this territory, and what means do you possess to arrest their
+ravages?...
+
+"As a matter of _fact_, then, we do not own the world. And now let
+me say, that, as a matter of _right_, we ought not: man was the last
+created of creatures. When our race appeared on the earth, it had been
+for millions of years in quiet, exclusive, undisputed possession of the
+birds, beasts, fishes, and insects: it was _their_ world then, and we
+were intruders and trespassers upon their domain....
+
+"If, then, the other races have a right to exist on the planet as much
+as we, what follows? Surely, that they have a right to their share and
+proportion of the ground and its fruits, and the blessings of Heaven by
+which life here is sustained: man has no right to expect a monopoly of
+them. If we get a week of sunshine which supplies our wants, we have no
+reason to complain of the succeeding week of rain which supplies the
+wants of other races. If we raise a crop of wheat, and the insect
+foragers take tithes of it, we have no right to find fault: a share of
+it belongs to them. If you plant a field with corn, and the weeds spring
+up also along with it, why do you complain? Have not the weeds as much
+right there as the corn? If you encamp in one of the numberless swamps
+which surround this settlement, and get assailed by countless millions
+of robust mosquitoes, why do you rave and swear (as I know most of you
+would do under such circumstances) and want to know 'what in the ----
+mosquitoes were made for'? Why, to puncture the skin of blockheads and
+blasphemers like you, and suck the last drop of blood from their veins.
+Why, let me ask you, did you go out there? That place belonged to the
+mosquitoes, not to you; and you knew you were trespassing upon their
+land. The mosquitoes exist for themselves, and were created for the
+enjoyment of their own mosquito-life. Why was _man_ created? The Bible
+does not answer the question directly; the divines in the Catechism say,
+'To glorify God.' Now I should like to know if a Westminster Catechism
+of the mosquitoes would'nt make as good an answer for them?
+
+"And here I am just in the act of annihilating with a logical stroke
+a multitude of grumblers and croakers. If this world does not belong
+exclusively to man, and the other races have as much right here as he,
+and, consequently, a claim to their proportion of land, water, and sky,
+and their share of food for the sustenance of life, what follows?
+
+"A great many men, taking northeast storms, bleak winds,
+thunder-showers, flies, mosquitoes, Canada thistles, hot sunshine, cold
+snows, weeds, briers, thorns, wild beasts, snakes, alligators, and such
+like things, which they don't happen to like, and putting them all
+together, attempt to persuade you that this green earth is a complete
+failure, a wreck and blasted ruin. Don't you believe that, for it's
+wicked infidelity. I tell you the world is not all so bad as Indiana,
+and especially that part of the State which you, unfortunately, inhabit.
+I have seen, my friends, a large portion of the planet, and if there is
+another spot anywhere quite so infernal as Wabashville, why, I solemnly
+assure you I never found it.--And now for the point which shall prick
+your conscience and penetrate your understanding! Do the bears and
+wolves, the coons and foxes, the owls and wild-geese, find this region
+unhealthy, and get the chills and fever, and go around grumbling and
+cursing? Don't they find this climate especially salubrious and suited
+exactly to their constitutions? Well, then, that's because they belong
+here, _and you don't_. This region was never intended for the habitation
+of man: it belongs exclusively to the wild beasts and the fowls of the
+air, and you have no business here. [Manifest signs of disapprobation
+on part of Deacon Taylor, an extensive owner of town-lots.] And if you
+persist in remaining here, what moral right have you to complain of
+God?...
+
+"Remember, then, in conclusion, that, for millions of years before our
+race existed, mosquitoes, weeds, briers, thorns, thistles, snow-storms,
+and northeast winds prevailed upon this planet, and that during all this
+time it was pronounced by the Deity himself to be '_very good_.' If,
+then, the earth appears to be evil, is it not because 'thine eye is
+evil'? We share this world, my friends, with other races, whose wants
+are different from ours; and we are all of equal importance in the eyes
+of our Maker, who distributes to each its share of blessings--man and
+monster both alike--with impartial favor. Is not thus the fallacy of the
+corruption of Nature exposed, and the lie against our Creator's wisdom,
+love, and goodness dragged into noonday light?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is time to recommence our rambles through the City of the Dead.
+
+Right here I come across on a tombstone,--"All our children. Emma, aged
+1 mo. 23 days. John, 3 years 5 days. Anna, aged 1 year 1 mo." As a
+physiologist, I might make some very instructive comments upon this; but
+I forbear.
+
+And here, upon another, a few rods farther on, is an epitaph in verse:--
+
+  (FIRST VERSE.)
+
+  "Calm be her slumbers near kindred are sighing,
+  A husband deplores in deep anguish of heart,
+  Beneath the cold earth _unconsciously lying_,
+  No murmur can reach her, no tempest can start."
+
+  (SECOND VERSE.)
+
+  "Calm be her sleep as the silence of even
+  When hearts unto deep invocation give birth.
+  With a prayer she has _knelt at the portal of heaven_
+  And found the admission she hoped for on earth_."
+
+Not to speak of the "poetry" just here, how charmingly consistent with
+each other are the ideas contained in the passages I have italicized! In
+the first verse, you observe, the inmate is sleeping unconscious beneath
+the ground: in the second verse, she has ascended to heaven and
+found admittance to mansions in the skies!--A similar confusion and
+contradiction of ideas occur in most of the epitaphs I see. Does our
+theology furnish us with no clear conception of the state of the soul
+after death? The Catholic Church teaches that the spirit at death
+descends into the interior of the earth to a place called Hades, where
+it is detained until the day of judgment, when it is reunited with the
+dust of the body, and ascends to a heaven in the sky. This doctrine
+has the merit of being positive, clear, and comprehensible, and,
+consequently, whenever expressed, it always means something exact and
+well-defined. Has the Protestant Church equally definite notions on the
+subject, or, in fact, any fixed opinions respecting it whatever? If not,
+why, as a matter of good taste, for no weightier reason, in records
+almost imperishable like these, leave the matter alone! Silence
+is better than nonsense. Suppose a few thousand years hence our
+civilization to have become extinct, and that some antiquary from the
+antipodes should visit this desolate hill to excavate, like Layard at
+Nineveh, for relics of the old Americans. Suppose, having collected a
+ship-load of broken tombstones, he should forward them to the Polynesian
+Museum, and set the _savans_ of the age at work deciphering their
+inscriptions, what sense would be made out of these epitaphs? How would
+they interpret our notions of a future state? Taking our own monuments,
+cut with our own hands, inscribed with our own signs-manual, what would
+they infer our system of religion to have been? If the Egyptians were as
+vague and careless as we in this matter, our archaeologists must have
+made some amusing blunders.
+
+Here are two epitaphs which suggest something else:--
+
+  No. I.
+
+  "I loved him in his beauty,
+  A _mother_ boy while here,
+  I knew he was an angel bright
+  Formed for another sphere."
+
+  No. II.
+
+  "Farewell my wife and children dear
+  God calls you home to rest.
+  Still Angels _wisper_ in my ear
+  We'll meet in heavenly bliss."
+
+I want to make two annotations upon these. In No. 1 you will notice that
+a possessive _'s_ is wanting, and in No. 2 that the _h_ is omitted from
+_whisper_. A marble-cutter told me once, that a Pennsylvania Dutchman
+came to him one day to have an inscription cut upon a gravestone for his
+daughter, whose name was Fanny. The father, upon learning that the price
+of the inscription would be ten cents a letter, insisted that Fanny
+should be spelt with one _n_, as he should thereby save a dime! The
+marble-cutter, unable to overcome the obstinacy of the frugal Teuton,
+and unwilling to set up such a monument of his ignorance of spelling,
+compromised the matter by conforming to the current orthography, and
+inserted the superfluous consonant for nothing. And my second annotation
+shall consist of an inquiry: What is there in corrupt and diseased human
+nature which makes persons prefer such execrable rhyme as that quoted
+above, and that which I find upon two-thirds of the tombstones here, to
+decent English prose, which one would suppose might have been produced
+at a much less expenditure of intellectual effort? But since it is an
+unquestionable fact that we are thus totally depraved in taste and
+feeling, why don't some of our bards, to whom the Muse has not been
+propitious in other departments of metrical composition, and who, to be
+blunt, are good for nothing else, such as ----, or ----, and many
+others you know, come out here among the marble-cutters and open an
+_epitaph-shop_? Mournful stanzas might then be procured of every size
+and pattern, composed with decent reverence for the rules of grammar,
+respect for the feet and limbs of the linear members, and possibly some
+regard for consistency in the ideas they might chance occasionally to
+express. Genin the hatter, and Cockroach Lyon, each keeps a poet. Why
+cannot the marble-cutters procure some of the Heliconian fraternity as
+partners? Bards would thus serve the cause of education, benefit future
+antiquaries, and earn more hard dimes ten times over than they do in
+writing lines for the blank corners of newspapers and the waste spaces
+between articles in magazines. I throw this hint out of the window of
+the "Atlantic," in the fervent hope that it will be seen, picked up,
+and pocketed by some reformer who is now out of business; and I would
+earnestly urge such individual to agitate the question with all his
+might, and wake up the community to the vital importance, by making use
+of "poetic fire" and "inspired frenzy" now going to waste, or some other
+instrumentality, of a reformation in epitaphic necrology.
+
+Seriously, modern epitaphs are a burlesque upon religion, a caricature
+of all things holy, divine, and beautiful, and an outrage upon the
+common sense and culture of the community. A collection of comic
+churchyard poetry might be made in this place which would eclipse the
+productions of Mr. K.N. Pepper, and cause a greater "army of readers to
+explode" than his "Noad to a Whealbarrer" or the "Grek Slaiv" has done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During our rambles among the tombstones the sun has long since passed
+the meridian, and the streets and avenues of the cemetery are crowded
+with carriages and thronged with pedestrians, the tramping of horses'
+feet, the rumbling of wheels, and the voices of men fill the air, and
+the place which was so silent and deserted this morning is now as noisy
+and bustling as the metropolis yonder. And soon begin to arrive thick
+and fast the funeral trains. Many of the black-plumed hearses are
+followed by only a single hired coach or omnibus, others by long trails
+of splendid equipages. Upon the broad slope of a hill, whither the
+greater number of the processions move, entirely destitute of trees
+and flooded with sunshine, many thousand graves, mostly unmarked by
+headstones, lie close together, resembling in appearance a corn-field
+which has been permitted to run to grass unploughed. Standing upon an
+elevated point near the summit, and looking down those acres of hillocks
+to where the busy laborers are engaged in putting bodies into the
+ground, covering them with earth, and rounding the soil over them, one
+is perhaps struck for the first time with the full force, meaning,
+and beauty of the language of Paul in his first letter to the
+Corinthians:--"That which thou sowest is not that body which shall be,
+but bare grain. It [the human body] is sown in corruption, is sown in
+dishonor, is sown in weakness. It is sown a natural body; it is raised
+[or springs up, to complete the figure] a spiritual body. Flesh
+and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."--I once heard a
+distinguished botanist dispute the accuracy of this simile, inasmuch, he
+said, as the seed, when it is sown in the ground, does not _die_, but in
+fact then first begins to _live_ and to display the vital force which
+was previously asleep in it; while the human body decays and is resolved
+into its primitive gaseous, mineral, and vegetable elements, the
+particles of which, disseminated everywhere, and transferred through
+chemical affinities into other and new organisms, lose all traces of
+their former connection.--In answer to such a finical criticism as this,
+intended to invalidate the authority of the great Apostolic Theologian,
+I replied, that Paul was not an inspired _botanist_,--in fact, that
+he probably knew nothing whatever about botany as a science,--but an
+inspired religious teacher, who employed the language of his people and
+the measure of knowledge to which his age had attained, to expound to
+his contemporaries the principles of his Master's religion. I am not
+familiar with the nicer points of strict theological orthodoxy, but,
+from modern sermons and commentaries, I should infer that few doctors
+of even the most straitest school of divinity hold to the doctrine of
+verbal inspiration. That the Prophets and Apostles were acquainted with
+botany, chemistry, geology, or any other modern science, is a notion
+as unfounded in truth as it is hostile and foreign to the object and
+purpose of Revelation, which is strictly confined to religion and
+ethics. Those persons, therefore, (and they are a numerous class,) who
+resort to the Bible, assuming that it professes to be an inspired manual
+of universal knowledge, and then, because they find in its figurative
+Oriental phraseology, or in its metaphors and illustrations, some
+inaccuracies of expression or misstatements of scientific facts, would
+throw discredit upon the essential religious dogmas and doctrines which
+it is its object to state and unfold, are, to say the least, extremely
+disingenuous, if not deficient in understanding.
+
+But a much more prolific source of injury to the character of the Bible
+than that just mentioned is the injudicious and impertinent labors of
+many who volunteer in its defence. "Oh, save me from my friends!" might
+the Prophets and Apostles, each and all, too often exclaim of their
+supporters.--It is said that all men are insane upon some point: so are
+classes and communities. The popular monomania which at present prevails
+among a class of persons whose zeal surpasses their prudence and
+knowledge is a foolish fear and trembling lest the tendencies of science
+should result in the overthrow of the Bible. They seem, somehow, to be
+fully persuaded that the inspired word of God has no inherent power to
+stand alone,--that it has fallen among thieves and robbers,--is being
+pelted with fossil coprolites, suffocated with fire-mist and primitive
+gases, or beaten over the head with the shank-bones of Silurian
+monsters, and is bawling aloud for assistance. Therefore, not stopping
+to dress, they dash out into the public notice without hat or coat, in
+such unclothed intellectual condition as they happen to be in,--in their
+shirt, or stark naked often,--and rush frantically to its aid.
+
+The most melancholy case of this intellectual _delirium tremens_
+that probably ever came under the notice of any reader is found in a
+professed apology for the Scriptures, recently published, under
+the pompous and bombastic title of "COSMOGONY, OR THE MYSTERIES OF
+CREATION."--A volume of such puerile trash, such rubbish, twaddle,
+balderdash, and crazy drivelling[A] as this, was never before vomited
+from the press of any land, and beside it the "REVELATIONS" of Andrew
+Jackson Davis, the "Poughkeepsie Seer," rises to the lofty grandeur of
+the "Novum Organon,"--a sight that makes one who really respects the
+Bible hang his head for shame.
+
+[Footnote A: As the reader may never have seen this unique volume, and
+will be amused by a specimen of its grammar, rhetoric, wisdom, and
+learning, let him take a _morceau_ or two from the commencement of
+a chapter entitled, "_Naturalists.--Their Classification of Man and
+Beasts_."--"We look upon the animal in no different light from that of
+a vegetable, a plant, or a rock-crystal, which forms under the Creative
+hand, performs its part for the use of man, dissolves and reproduces by
+its parts another comfort for him. The animal bears _no resemblance_ to
+man, not even in his brain."--"One tree may bear apples, and another
+acorns, but they are not to be compared, the one as bearing a relation
+to the other, because they have each a body and limbs. They are distinct
+trees, and one will always produce apples and the other acorns, as long
+as they produce anything." (Indeed!)--"The usual classification of
+animals, is that of Vertebrata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata.
+This is not only offensive to man,--_but is impiety towards God_."
+(Why?)--"We are told by these naturalists that man belongs to the class
+called 'Vertebrata.' So does the snake, the monkey, the lizard and
+crocodile, and many other low and mean animals.--Have these creatures
+the reasoning faculties of man? Do they walk erect like man? Have they
+feet, hands, legs, arms, _hair upon their heads, or beards upon their
+faces_? Do they speak languages and _congregate and worship at the
+altar_?" (!!)--"Those who are ambitious of such relations, may plant
+their heraldic coat-of-arms in the serpent, the lizard, the crocodile,
+or the monkey, but we disclaim such relationship--we do not think it
+_good taste or good morals_ to place the fair daughters of Eve on
+a level with horrid and hideous animals, simply from some apparent
+similarity, which we are certain never existed."]
+
+The belligerent pundit who has flung in the face of peaceful geologists
+this octavo _camouflet_ of his scientific lucubrations professes to
+have scoured the surface and ravaged the bottom (in a suit of patent
+sub-marine Scriptural armor) of a no less abysmal subject than the
+cryptology of Genesis,--to have undermined with his sapping intellect
+and blown up with his explosive wisdom the walled secrets of time and
+eternity, carrying away with him in the shape of plunder a whole cargo
+of the plans and purposes of the Omnipotent in the Creation. I have not
+the least doubt, if he were respectfully approached and interrogated
+upon the subject, he would answer with the greatest ease and accuracy
+the famous question with which Dean Swift posed the theological tailor.
+The man who can tell us all about the institution of the law of gravity,
+how the inspired prophet thought and felt while writing his history, and
+who knows everything respecting "affinity and attraction when they
+were in Creation's womb," could not hesitate a moment to measure an
+arch-angel for a pair of breeches.--But I was talking of _funerals_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend once assured me that the heartiest laugh of which he was ever
+guilty on a solemn occasion occurred at a funeral. A trusty Irish
+servant, who had lived with him for many years, and for whom he had
+great affection, died suddenly at his house. As he was attending the
+funeral in the Catholic burial-place, and stood with his wife and
+children listening to the service which the priest was reading, his
+heart filled with grief and his eyes moist with tears, the inscription
+on a gravestone just before him happened to attract his attention. It
+was this_:--"Gloria in Excelsis Deo!_ Patrick Donahoe died July 12.
+18--." Now the exclamation-point after _"Deo"_ and the statement of
+the fact of Mr. D.'s demise following immediately thereafter made the
+epitaph to read, "Glory to God in the highest! Patrick is dead." This,
+which at another time would perhaps have caused no more than a smile,
+struck him as irresistibly funny, and drove in a moment every trace
+of sadness from his face and sorrow from his heart,--to give place to
+violent emotions of another nature, which his utmost exertions could not
+conceal.
+
+["I beg your pardon! I've been afloat," was the graceful parenthetical
+apology which a distinguished naval officer used to make, when by
+mistake he let drop one of "those big words which lie at the bottom of
+the best man's vocabulary," in conversation with sensitive persons whose
+ears he feared it might offend. I ought possibly, at the end of the
+following anecdote, to make some such excuse to the scrupulous reader,
+whose notions of propriety it will perhaps slightly infringe: "I beg
+your pardon! I couldn't help telling it."]
+
+An eminent divine once described to me a scene he witnessed at a
+funeral, which he said nearly caused him to expire with--well, you shall
+see. An intimate acquaintance of his, who belonged to a neighboring
+parish, having died, he was naturally induced to assist at the
+burial-service. The rector of this parish was a man who, though
+sensitive in the extreme to the absurdities of others,--being, in fact,
+a regular son of Momus,--was entirely unconscious of his own amusing
+eccentricities. Among these, numerous and singular, he had the habit
+of suddenly stopping in the middle of a sentence, while preaching, and
+calling out to the sexton, across the church, "Dooke, turn on more gas!"
+or "Dooke, shut that window!" or "Dooke, do"--something else which
+was pretty sure to be wanting itself done during the delivery of his
+discourse. Nearly every Sunday, strangers not acquainted with his ways
+were startled out of their propriety by some such unexpected behavior.
+
+On the occasion referred to, the funeral procession having entered the
+churchyard, and my informant and the officiating clergyman having taken
+their places at the head of the grave, the undertaker and his assistants
+having removed the coffin from the hearse, and the mourners, of whom
+there was a large crowd, having gathered into a circular audience, the
+Reverend Doctor ---- began the service.
+
+"'Man that is born of a woman'--Oh, stop those carriages! don't you see
+where they are going to?" (he suddenly broke out, rushing from the place
+where he stood, frantically, among the bystanders; and then returning to
+his former position, continued,)--"'hath but a short time to live, and
+is full of misery. He cometh up'--Oh, don't let that coffin down
+yet! wait till I tell you to," (addressed to the undertaker, who was
+anticipating the proper place in the service,)--"'and is cut down like a
+flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow,'--Please to hold the umbrella
+a little further over my head," (_sotto voce_ to the man who was
+endeavoring to protect his head from the sun,)-"'and never continueth in
+one stay.'--Hold the umbrella a little higher, will you?" (_sotto voce_
+again to the man holding the umbrella.)--"'In the midst of life we are
+in death.'--Stand down from there, boys, and be quiet!" (addressed to
+some urchins who were crowding and pushing one another about the grave,
+in their efforts to look at the coffin.) At length he had proceeded
+without further interruptions as far as the sentence, "'We therefore
+commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
+dust,'"--when Dooke, the sexton,--a queer, impetuous fellow,--who was
+vainly endeavoring to keep the boys away from the edge of the grave,
+seized suddenly the rope with which the coffin had just been lowered
+down, and, stooping forward, laid it like a whip-lash, "cut!" across the
+shins of a dozen youngsters, making them leap with "Oh! oh! oh!" a
+foot from the ground, and scatter in short order,--"'looking for
+the'"--(turning to my friend, as he witnessed the successful exploit of
+his favorite sexton, and whispering in his ear,) "_Dooke made 'em hop
+that time, didn't he!_--'general resurrection in the last day, and the
+life of the world to come.'"
+
+Dooke's mode of dispersing the boys, and the officiating clergyman's
+comment upon it, parenthesized into the middle of the most solemn
+sentence of the burial-service, were too much for the usual stern
+gravity of my clerical friend, and, under pretence of shedding tears, he
+buried his face in his handkerchief and his handkerchief in his hat and
+shook with laughter.
+
+Speaking of funerals reminds me of a congenial subject.--Nothing in New
+York astonishes visitors from the country so much as the magnificent
+coffin-shops, rivalling, in the ostentatious and tempting display of
+their wares, the most elegant stores on Broadway. Model coffins, of the
+latest style and pattern, are set up on end in long rows and protected
+by splendid show-cases, with the lids removed to exhibit their rich
+satin lining. Fancy coffins, decorated with glittering ornaments, are
+placed seductively in bright plate-glass windows, and put out for
+baiting advertisements upon the side-walks: as much as to say, "Walk in,
+walk in, ladies and gentlemen! Now's your chance! here's your fine, nice
+coffins!"--while in ornamental letters upon extensive placards hung
+about the doors, "IRON COFFINS," "ROSEWOOD COFFINS," "AIR-TIGHT
+COFFINS," "MAHOGANY COFFINS," "PATENT SARCOPHAGI," address the eyes
+and appeal to the purses of the passers-by. And I saw in one of these
+places, the other day, painted on glass and inclosed in an elegant gilt
+frame, "ICE COFFINS," which struck me as queer enough. As though it were
+not sufficiently cool to be dead!
+
+It seems to me, that, in this matter, the undertakers, digging a little
+too deep below the surface of the present age, have thrown out some of
+the mystical and grotesque remains of a very antique religious faith,
+which look as singular just now to the eyes of common people as would an
+Egyptian temple with its sacred Apis in Broadway, or a Sphinx on Boston
+Common. To the eyes of an old Egyptian, no object could be more grateful
+than the sarcophagus in which he was to repose at death. He purchased it
+as early in life as he could raise the means, and displayed it in his
+parlor as an attractive and costly ornament. Indeed, I do not know but
+it was useful as well, and the children kept their playthings in it, or
+the young ladies their knitting-work and embroidery.
+
+Are we not, in this class of our tastes and feelings, becoming rapidly
+Egyptianized? Why, I expect in a year or two to see coffins introduced
+into the parlors of the Fifth Avenue, and to find them, when their
+owners fail or absquatulate, advertised for sale at auction, with the
+rest of the household furniture, at a great sacrifice on the original
+cost.
+
+"--> ONE SUPERB COFFIN OF ELEGANT PATTERN AND SUPERIOR WORKMANSHIP, AS
+GOOD AS NEW. TWO DITTO, SLIGHTLY DAMAGED."
+
+And then the fashion will become popular with the less aristocratic
+portion of the community, and you will see crowds of servant-girls and
+street-loungers around the windows of our magnificent coffin-bazaars,
+and hear from them such exclamations as these: "Oh! do look here,
+Matilda! Wouldn't you like to have such a nice coffin as that?" or,
+"What a dear, sweet sarcophagus that one is there!" or, "Faith, I should
+like to own that air-tight!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the day is now far advanced. The funeral processions have ceased to
+arrive, and the husbandmen, having sown the immortal seed furnished by
+the metropolis, with shovels and empty dinner-pails, are on their way,
+whistling and talking in groups, homeward. The number of loungers and
+sight-seers is rapidly diminishing as the light in the more thickly
+shaded walks becomes dim, and the clock at the gateway indicates the
+near approach of the hour when the portals will be closed.
+
+--Alone with the dead! Alone in the night among tombs and graves! How
+many readers do not at the sight of these words feel an involuntary
+_soupcon_ of a shudder? Would not the cause of this indefinable secret
+dread of the darkness which covers a graveyard be a curious matter
+of inquiry? Let one ever so cultivated and skeptical, familiar as a
+physician or a soldier with the spectacle of death, ever so full of
+mental and physical courage, passing alone late at night through a
+graveyard, hear the least sound among the graves, or see a moving object
+of any kind, especially a white one, and he will instantly feel an
+_alloverishness_ foreign to ordinary experience, and I will not answer
+for him that his hair does not stand on end and his flesh grow rough as
+a nutmeg-grater. A company of three or four persons would feel far less
+disturbed. This proves the emotion to be genuine _fear_. And with this
+recognized as a fact, ask the question, Of what are you afraid? What
+makes your feet stick to the ground so fast, or inspires you to take to
+your legs and run for your life? "A ridiculous, foolish superstition,"
+reason answers.
+
+I do not intend by this to intimate that you, reader, bold and
+courageous person that I know you to be, would not dare to go through a
+graveyard at night. By no means. I only predicate the existence within
+you of this ridiculous, foolish superstition, and maintain that you
+would do so under _all_ circumstances with peculiar feelings which you
+did not possess before you entered it and which you will not possess
+as soon as you have left it, and under _certain_ circumstances with a
+trembling of the nerves and a palpitation of the heart, and that the
+occasion _might_ occur when you would be still _more_ strongly and
+strangely affected. To illustrate the latter case I have an anecdote
+_a-propos_.
+
+A college class-mate, (Poor B----! the shadows of the Pyramids now fall
+upon his early grave!) a young man easily agitated, to be sure, and
+possibly timid, on his way home, late one autumn night, from the
+house of a relative in the country, was hurrying past a dismal old
+burying-yard in the midst of a gloomy wood, when he was suddenly
+startled by a strange noise a short distance from the road. Turning
+his head, alarmed, in the direction whence it proceeded, he was
+horror-struck at seeing through the darkness a white object on the
+ground, struggling as if in the grasp of some terrible monster.
+Instantly the blood froze in his veins; he stood petrified,--the
+howlings of the wind, clanking of chains, and groans of agony, filling
+his ears,--with his eyes fixed in terror upon the white shape rolling
+and plunging and writhing among the tombs. Attempting to run, his feet
+refused to move, and he swooned and fell senseless in the road. A party
+of travellers, happening shortly to pass, stumbled over his body.
+Raising him upon his feet, they succeeded by vigorous shakes in
+restoring him to a state of consciousness.
+
+While explaining to them the cause of his fright, the noise was renewed.
+The men, although somewhat alarmed, clubbed their individual courage,
+climbed the wall, and found--nearly in the centre of the graveyard--_an
+old white horse_ thrown down by his fetters and struggling violently to
+regain his feet.
+
+B---- assured me, the explanation of the spectacle instinctively
+occurring to his mind at the moment as indubitable was that some
+reprobate had just been buried there, and that the Devil, coming for
+his body, was engaged in binding his unwilling limbs, preparatory to
+carrying him away!
+
+The reader may smile at the weakness and folly displayed in this case,
+but the assertion may nevertheless be safely ventured, that there is not
+one person in a hundred who would not under the same circumstances have
+been greatly disturbed, or would have invented a much less frightfully
+absurd solution of the phenomenon than poor B----'s.
+
+I think the singular feelings associated with graveyard darkness, which
+the wisest and bravest of men find slumbering beneath all their courage
+and philosophy, would be found upon investigation to proceed principally
+from two sources,--a constitutional inclination to religious
+superstition, and an acquired educational belief in the reality of the
+dreams and fancies of poets, mingled, of course, with some natural
+cowardice.
+
+The dryest and hardest men have more poetry in them than they or we
+begin to suspect. Indeed, if we could take our individual or collective
+culture to pieces and award to each separate influence its due and just
+share of results, I should not be surprised at finding that the poet had
+done more in the way of fashioning our education than the scientist
+or any other teacher. Milton, to give but a single example, with his
+speculations concerning the Fall,--its effects upon humanity, the brute
+creation, and physical nature,--and his imaginary conflicts between
+the hostile armies of heaven, and his celestial and Satanic
+personifications, has had so much influence in Anglo-Saxon culture, that
+nine-tenths of the people believe, without knowing it, as firmly in
+"Paradise Lost" as in the text of the Bible. The Governor of Texas,
+citing in his proclamation a familiar passage in Shakspeare as emanating
+from the inspired pen of the Psalmist, is not to so great extent
+an example of ignorance as an illustration of the lofty peerage
+instinctively assigned the great dramatist in the ordinary associations
+of our thoughts. This faith in the visionary world of poets is instilled
+into us (and it is for this reason that Rousseau, in his masterly
+work on education, the "Emile," reprobates the custom as promotive of
+superstition) in early infancy by our parents and nurses with their
+stories of nymphs, fairies, elves, dwarfs, giants, witches, hobgoblins,
+and the like fabulous beings, and, as soon as we are able to read, by
+the tales of genii, sorcerers, demons, ghouls, enchanted caves and
+castles, and monsters and monstrosities of every name. The exceedingly
+impressible and poetical nature of children (for all children are poets
+and talk poetry as soon as they can lisp) appropriates and absorbs with
+intense relish these fanciful myths, and for years they believe more
+firmly in their truth than in the realities of the actual world. And I
+more than suspect that this child-credulity rather slumbers in the grown
+man, smothered beneath superimposed skepticisms and cognitions, than is
+ever eradicated from his mind, and thus, upon the shock of an emergency
+disturbing him suddenly to the foundation, is ready to burst up through
+the crevices of his shattered practical experience and appear on the
+surface of his judgment and understanding.
+
+In addition, then, to an instinctive tendency to religious superstition,
+(of which I shall here say nothing,) to the fairy mythology of the
+nursery, and the phantom machinery invented by poets to clothe with the
+semblance of reality their dreams and fancies, can be traced in a great
+measure the existence in the mind of the _credulity_ which renders the
+_fear_ in question possible, opening an introduction for it into the
+heart excited by inexplicable phenomena or circumstanced where such
+phenomena might, according to our superstitious beliefs, easily occur.
+
+Without entering into an analysis of the _fear_ itself, beyond the
+remark that any extraordinary sight or sound not immediately explicable
+by the eye or ear to the understanding (as a steamboat to the Indians or
+a comet to our ancestors) is a legitimate cause of the emotion, as well
+as the _possibility_ of the occurrence of such sights and sounds,
+for believing which we have seen man prepared, first by natural
+superstitious inclination, and secondly by a peculiar education,--I will
+only further add, for the purpose of a brief introduction to an anecdote
+I wish to relate, that there is another fountain of knowledge, from
+which we drink at a later period than childhood, as well as then, whose
+waters are strongly impregnated with this superstitious, fear-provoking
+credulity: I mean the stories of _ghosts_ which have been seen and heard
+in all ages and countries, revealing important secrets, pointing out
+the places where murder has been committed or treasure concealed,
+foretelling deaths and calamities, and forewarning men of impending
+dangers. Hundreds of books familiar to all have been written upon this
+subject and form an extensive department of our literature, especially
+of our older literature.
+
+The philosopher attempts to account for such phenomena by referring them
+to optical illusions or a disordered condition of the brain, making them
+_subjective_ semblances instead of _objective_ realities. But one is
+continually being puzzled and perplexed with evidence contradicting this
+hypothesis, which, upon any other subject _a priori_ credible to the
+reason and judgment, would be received as satisfactory and decisive
+without a moment's hesitation. In truth, with all the light which
+science is able to shed upon it, and all the resolute shutting of the
+eyes at points which no elucidating theory is available to explain,
+there are facts in this department of supernaturalism which stagger the
+unbelief of the stoutest skeptic.
+
+It is constantly urged, among other objections to the credibility
+of supernatural apparitions, that the names of the witnesses have
+singularly and suspiciously disappeared,--that you find them, upon
+investigation, substantiated thus: A very worthy gentleman told another
+very worthy gentleman, who told a very intelligent lady, who told
+somebody else, who told the individual who finally communicated the
+incident to the world. There are, however, as just intimated, instances
+in which such ambiguity is altogether wanting. Among these is one so
+well authenticated by well-known witnesses of undoubted veracity, that,
+having never before been published, I venture to relate it here.
+
+My informant was Professor Tholuck, of Halle University, the most
+eminent living theologian in Germany, and the principal ecclesiarch of
+the Prussian Church. He prefaced the account by assuring me that it
+was received from the lips of De Wette himself, immediately after the
+occurrence,--that De Wette was an intimate personal friend, a plain,
+practical man, of remarkably clear and vigorous intellect, with no more
+poetry and imagination in his nature than just sufficient to keep him
+alive,--in a word, that he would rely upon his coolness of judgment
+and accuracy of observation, under any possible combination of
+circumstances, as confidently as upon those of any man in the world.
+
+Dr. De Wette, the famous German Biblical critic, returning home one
+evening between nine and ten o'clock, was surprised, upon arriving
+opposite the house in which he resided, to see a bright light burning in
+his study. In fact, he was rather more than surprised; for he distinctly
+remembered to have extinguished the candles when he went out, an hour or
+two previously, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, which,
+upon feeling for it, was still there. Pausing a moment to wonder by
+what means and for what purpose any one could have entered the room, he
+perceived the shadow of a person apparently occupied about something in
+a remote corner. Supposing it to be a burglar employed in rifling his
+trunk, he was upon the point of alarming the police, when the man
+advanced to the window, into full view, as if for the purpose of looking
+out into the street. _It was De Wette himself!_--the scholar, author,
+professor,--his height, size, figure, stoop,--his head, his face, his
+features, eyes, mouth, nose, chin, every one,--skullcap, study-gown,
+neck-tie, all, everything: there was no mistaking him, no deception
+whatever: there stood Dr. De Wette in his own library, and he out in
+the street:--why, he must be _somebody else!_ The Doctor instinctively
+grasped his body with his hands, and tried himself with the
+psychological tests of self-consciousness and identity, doubtful, if
+he could believe his senses and black were not white, that he longer
+existed his former self, and stood, perplexed, bewildered, and
+confounded, gazing at his other likeness looking out of the window. Upon
+the person's retiring from the window, which occurred in a few moments,
+De Wette resolved not to dispute the possession of his study with
+the other Doctor before morning, and ringing at the door of a house
+opposite, where an acquaintance resided, he asked permission to remain
+over night.
+
+The chamber occupied by him commanded a full view of the interior of
+his library, and from the window he could see his other self engaged
+in study and meditation, now walking up and down the room, immersed in
+thought, now sitting down at the desk to write, now rising to search
+for a volume among the book-shelves, and imitating in all respects
+the peculiar habits of the great Doctor engaged at work and busy with
+cogitations. At length, when the cathedral clock had finished striking
+through first four and then eleven strokes, as German clocks are wont
+to do an hour before twelve, De Wette Number Two manifested signs of
+retiring to rest,--took out his watch, the identical large gold one the
+other Doctor in the other chamber felt sure was at that moment safe
+in his waistcoat-pocket, and wound it up, removed a portion of his
+clothing, came to the window, closed the curtains, and in a few moments
+the light disappeared. De Wette Number One, waiting a little time until
+convinced that Number Two had disposed himself to sleep, retired also
+his-self to bed, wondering very much what all this could mean.
+
+Rising the next morning, he crossed the street, and passed up-stairs to
+his library. The door was fastened; he applied the key, opened it, and
+entered. No one was there; everything appeared in precisely the same
+condition in which he had left it the evening before,--his pen lying
+upon the paper as he had dropped it on going out, the candles on the
+table and the mantel-piece evidently not having been lighted, the
+window-curtains drawn aside as he had left them; in fine, there was not
+a single trace of any person's having been in the room. "Had he been
+insane the night before? He must have been. He was growing old;
+something was the matter with his eyes or brain; anyhow, he had been
+deceived, and it was very foolish of him to have remained away all
+night." Endeavoring to satisfy his mind with some such reflections
+as these, he remembered he had not yet examined his bed-room. Almost
+ashamed to make the search, now convinced it was all an hallucination of
+the senses, he crossed the narrow passageway and opened the door. He
+was thunderstruck. The ceiling, a lofty, massive brick arch, had fallen
+during the night, filling the room with rubbish and crushing his bed
+into atoms. De Wette the Apparition had saved the life of the great
+German scholar.
+
+Tholuck, who was walking with me in the fields near Halle when relating
+the anecdote, added, upon concluding, "I do not pretend to account
+for the phenomenon; no knowledge, scientific or metaphysical, in my
+possession, is adequate to explain it; but I have no more doubt it
+actually, positively, literally did occur, than I have of the existence
+of the sun _im Himmel da_."
+
+
+
+
+CULTURE.
+
+
+The word of ambition at the present day is Culture. Whilst all the world
+is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture
+corrects the theory of success. A man is the prisoner of his power. A
+topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, a disputant;
+skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces
+these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the
+dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches
+success. For performance Nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the
+performer to get it done,--makes a dropsy or a tympany of him. If she
+wants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs, and any
+excess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some defect
+in a contiguous part.
+
+Our efficiency depends so much on our concentration, that Nature
+usually, in the instances where a marked man is sent into the world,
+overloads him with bias, sacrificing his symmetry to his working power.
+It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect,
+it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances. If she create
+a policeman like Fouche, he is made up of suspicions and of plots to
+circumvent them. "The air," said Fouche, "is full of poniards." The
+physician Sanctorius spent his life in a pair of scales, weighing his
+food. Lord Coke valued Chaucer highly, because the Canon Yeman's Tale
+illustrates the Statute _Hen. V. Chap. 4_, against Alchemy. I saw a man
+who believed the principal mischiefs in the English state were derived
+from the devotion to musical concerts. A freemason, not long since, set
+out to explain to this country, that the principal cause of the success
+of General Washington was the aid he derived from the freemasons.
+
+But, worse than the harping on one string, Nature has secured
+individualism by giving the private person a high conceit of his weight
+in the system. The pest of society is egotists. There are dull and
+bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. 'Tis a disease
+that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions. In the distemper
+known to physicians as _chorea_, the patient sometimes turns round
+and continues to spin slowly on one spot. Is egotism a metaphysical
+varioloid of this malady? The man runs round a ring formed by his own
+talent, falls into an admiration of it, and loses relation to the world.
+It is a tendency in all minds. One of its annoying forms is a craving
+for sympathy. The sufferers parade their miseries, tear the lint from
+their bruises, reveal their indictable crimes, that you may pity them.
+They like sickness, because physical pain will extort some show of
+interest from the bystanders; as we have seen children, who, finding
+themselves of no account when grown people come in, will cough till they
+choke, to draw attention.
+
+This distemper is the scourge of talent,--of artists, inventors, and
+philosophers. Eminent spiritualists shall have an incapacity of putting
+their act or word aloof from them, and seeing it bravely for the nothing
+it is. Beware of the man who says, "I am on the eve of a revelation!" It
+is speedily punished, inasmuch as this habit invites men to humor it,
+and, by treating the patient tenderly, to shut him up in a narrower
+selfism, and exclude him from the great world of God's cheerful fallible
+men and women. Let us rather be insulted, whilst we are insultable.
+Religious literature has eminent examples; and if we run over our
+private list of poets, critics, philanthropists, and philosophers, we
+shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we
+ought to have tapped.
+
+This goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons, that we
+must infer some strong necessity in Nature which it subserves,--such as
+we see in the sexual attraction. The preservation of the species was a
+point of such necessity, that Nature has secured it at all hazards by
+immensely overloading the passion, at the risk of perpetual crime and
+disorder. So egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which
+each individual persists to be what he is.
+
+This individuality is not only not inconsistent with culture, but is the
+basis of it. Every valuable nature is there in its own right; and the
+student we speak to must have a mother-wit invincible by his culture,
+which uses all books, arts, facilities, and elegancies of intercourse,
+but is never subdued and lost in them. He only is a well-made man who
+has a good determination. And the end of culture is, not to destroy
+this,--God forbid!--but to train away all impediment and mixture,
+and leave nothing but pure power. Our student must have a style and
+determination, and be a master in his own specialty. But, having this,
+he must put it behind him. He must have a catholicity, a power to see
+with a free and disengaged look every object. Yet is this private
+interest and self so overcharged, that, if a man seeks a companion
+who can look at objects for their own sake, and without affection
+or self-reference, he will find the fewest who will give him that
+satisfaction; whilst most men are afflicted with a coldness, an
+incuriosity, as soon as any object does not connect with their
+self-love. Though they talk of the object before them, they are thinking
+of themselves, and their vanity is laying little traps for your
+admiration.
+
+But after a man has discovered that there are limits to the interest
+which his private history has for mankind, he still converses with his
+family, or a few companions,--perhaps with half a dozen personalities
+that are famous in his neighborhood. In Boston, the question of life is
+the names of some eight or ten men. Have you seen Mr. Allston, Doctor
+Channing, Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, Mr. Greenough? Have you heard Everett,
+Garrison, Father Taylor, Theodore Parker? Have you talked with Messieurs
+Turbinewheel, Summitlevel, and Lacofrupees? Then you may as well die. In
+New York, the question is of some other eight, or ten, or twenty. Have
+you seen a few lawyers, merchants, and brokers,--two or three scholars,
+two or three capitalists, two or three editors of newspapers? New
+York is a sucked orange. All conversation is at an end, when we have
+discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities, domestic or imported,
+which make up our American existence. Nor do we expect anybody to be
+other than a faint copy of these heroes.
+
+Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men
+together again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating
+and calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confusion
+of insanities would come up! The "causes" to which we have sacrificed,
+Tariff or Democracy, Whiggism or Abolition, Temperance or Socialism,
+would show like roots of bitterness and dragons of wrath: and our
+talents are as mischievous as if each had been seized upon by some bird
+of prey, which had whisked him away from fortune, from truth, from the
+dear society of the poets, some zeal, some bias, and only when he was
+now gray and nerveless was it relaxing its claws, and he awaking to
+sober perceptions.
+
+Culture is the suggestion from certain best thoughts, that a man has a
+range of affinities, through which he can modulate the violence of any
+master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor
+him against himself. Culture redresses his balance, puts him among his
+equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns
+him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.
+
+'Tis not a compliment, but a disparagement, to consult a man only on
+horses, or on steam, or on theatres, or on eating, or on books, and,
+whenever he appears, considerately to turn the conversation to the
+bantling he is known to fondle. In the Norse heaven of our forefathers,
+Thor's house had five hundred and forty floors: and Man's house has five
+hundred and forty floors. His excellence is facility of adaptation,
+and of transition through many related points to wide contrasts and
+extremes. Culture kills his exaggeration, his conceit of his village or
+his city. We must leave our pets at home when we go into the street, and
+meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense. No performance
+is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy
+goods called fine arts and philosophy. In the Norse legend, Allfadir did
+not get a drink of Mimir's spring, (the fountain of wisdom,) until he
+left his eye in pledge. And here is a pedant that cannot unfold his
+wrinkles, nor conceal his wrath at interruption by the best, if their
+conversation do not fit his impertinency,--here is he to afflict us with
+his personalities. 'Tis incident to scholars, that each of them fancies
+he is pointedly odious in his community. Draw him out of this limbo of
+irritability. Cleanse with healthy blood his parchment skin. You restore
+to him his eyes which he left in pledge at Mimir's spring. If you are
+the victim of your doing, who cares what you do? We can spare your
+opera, your gazetteer, your chemic analysis, your history, your
+syllogisms. Your man of genius pays dear for his distinction. His head
+runs up into a spire, and, instead of a healthy man, merry and wise, he
+is some mad dominie. Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has
+points to carry, she carries them. To wade in marshes and sea-margins is
+the destiny of certain birds; and they are so accurately made for this,
+that they are imprisoned in those places. Each animal out of its
+habitat would starve. To the physician, each man, each woman, is an
+amplification of one organ. A soldier, a locksmith, a bank-clerk, and
+a dancer could not exchange functions. And thus we are victims of
+adaptation.
+
+The antidotes against this organic egotism are--the range and variety
+of attractions, as gained by acquaintance with the world, with men of
+merit, with classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons, and
+with the high resources of philosophy, art, and religion: books, travel,
+society, solitude.
+
+The hardiest skeptic, who has seen a horse broken, a pointer trained, or
+who has visited a menagerie, or the exhibition of the Industrious Fleas,
+will not deny the validity of education. "A boy," says Plato, "is the
+most vicious of all wild beasts"; and, in the same spirit, the old
+English poet Gascoigne says, "A boy is better unborn than untaught." The
+city breeds one kind of speech and manners; the back-country a different
+style; the sea another; the army a fourth. We know that an army which
+can be confided in may be formed by discipline,--that by systematic
+discipline all men may be made heroes. Marshal Lannes said to a French
+officer, "Know, Colonel, that none but a poltroon will boast that he
+never was afraid." A great part of courage is the courage of having done
+the thing before. And, in all human action, those faculties will be
+strong which are used. Robert Owen said, "Give me a tiger, and I will
+educate him." 'Tis inhuman to want faith in the power of education,
+since to meliorate is the law of Nature; and men are valued precisely as
+they exert onward or meliorating force. On the other hand, poltroonery
+is the acknowledging an inferiority to be incurable.
+
+Incapacity of melioration is the only mortal distemper. There are people
+who can never understand a trope, or any second or expanded sense given
+to your words, or any humor,--but remain literalists, after hearing the
+music and poetry and rhetoric and wit of seventy or eighty years. They
+are past the help of surgeon or clergy. But even these can understand
+pitchforks and the cry of "Fire!"--and I have noticed in some of this
+class a marked dislike of earthquakes.
+
+Let us make our education brave and preventive. Politics is an
+after-work, a poor patching. We are always a little late. The evil is
+done, the law is passed, and we begin the up-hill agitation for repeal
+of that of which we ought to have prevented the enacting. We shall
+one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our
+root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only
+medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up,--namely, in Education.
+
+Our arts and tools give to him who can handle them much the same
+advantage over the novice as if you extended his life ten, fifty, or a
+hundred years. And I think it the part of good sense to provide every
+fine soul with such culture, that it shall not, at thirty or forty
+years, have to say, "This which I might do is made hopeless through my
+want of weapons."
+
+But it is conceded that much of our training fails of effect,--that all
+success is hazardous and rare,--that a large part of our cost and pains
+is thrown away. Nature takes the matter into her own hands, and, though
+we must not omit any jot of our system, we can seldom be sure that it
+has availed much, or that as much good would not have accrued from a
+different system.
+
+Books, as containing the finest records of human wit, must always enter
+into our notion of culture. The best heads that ever existed, Pericles,
+Plato, Julius Caesar, Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, were well-read,
+universally educated men, and quite too wise to undervalue letters.
+Their opinion has weight, because they had means of knowing the opposite
+opinion. We look that a great man should be a good reader, or in
+proportion to the spontaneous power should be the assimilating power.
+Good criticism is very rare, and always precious. I am always happy to
+meet persons who perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakspeare
+over all other writers. I like people who like Plato. Because this love
+does not consist with self-conceit.
+
+But books are good only as far as a boy is ready for them. He sometimes
+gets ready very slowly. You send your child to the schoolmaster; but
+'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin
+class; but much of his tuition comes on his way to school, from the
+shop-windows. You like the strict rules and the long terms; and he finds
+his best leading in a by-way of his own, and refuses any companions but
+of his choosing. He hates the grammar and _Gradus_, and loves guns,
+fishing-rods, horses, and boats. Well, the boy is right; and you are not
+fit to direct his bringing-up, if your theory leaves out his gymnastic
+training. Archery, cricket, gun and fishing-rod, horse and boat, are all
+educators, liberalizers; and so are dancing, dress, and the street-talk;
+and--provided only the boy has resources, and is of a noble and
+ingenuous strain--these will not serve him less than the books. He
+learns chess, whist, dancing, and theatricals. The father observes that
+another boy has learned algebra and geometry in the same time. But the
+first boy has acquired much more than these poor games along with them.
+He is infatuated for weeks with whist and chess; but presently will find
+out, as you did, that, when he rises from the game too long played, he
+is vacant and forlorn, and despises himself. Thenceforward it takes
+place with other things, and has its due weight in his experience. These
+minor skills and accomplishments--for example, dancing--are tickets of
+admission to the dress-circle of mankind, and the being master of them
+enables the youth to judge intelligently of much on which otherwise he
+would give a pedantic squint. Landor said, "I have suffered more from my
+bad dancing than from all the misfortunes and miseries of my life
+put together." Provided always the boy is teachable, (for we are not
+proposing to make a statue out of punk,) football, cricket, archery,
+swimming, skating, climbing, fencing, riding, are lessons in the art of
+power, which it is his main business to learn,--riding specially, of
+which Lord Herbert of Cherbury said, "A good rider on a good horse is as
+much above himself and others as the world can make him." Besides, the
+gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse constitute, among all who use them,
+secret freemasonries.
+
+They are as if they belonged to one club.
+
+There is also a negative value in these arts. Their chief use to the
+youth is, not amusement, but to be known for what they are, and not to
+remain to him occasions of heartburn. We are full of superstitions. Each
+class fixes its eyes on the advantages it has not: the refined, on rude
+strength; the democrat, on birth and breeding. One of the benefits of a
+college-education is, to show the boy its little avail. I knew a leading
+man in a leading city, who, having set his heart on an education at the
+university and missed it, could never quite feel himself the equal
+of his own brothers who had gone thither. His easy superiority to
+multitudes of professional men could never quite countervail to him this
+imaginary defect. Balls, riding, wine-parties, and billiards pass to a
+poor boy for something fine and romantic, which they are not; and a free
+admission to them on an equal footing, if it were possible, only once or
+twice, would be worth ten times its cost, by undeceiving him.
+
+I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run
+away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run
+back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For
+the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have
+no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious
+things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think there is a
+restlessness in our people which argues want of character. All educated
+Americans, first or last, go to Europe,--perhaps because it is their
+mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An
+eminent teacher of girls said, "The idea of a girl's education is
+whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this
+tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our country-men? One sees very
+well what their fate must be. He that does not fill a place at home
+cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a larger
+crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you have
+not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do you
+suppose there is any country where they do not scald milkpans, and
+swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is
+true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can
+find only so much beauty or worth as he carries.
+
+Of course, for some men travel may be useful. Naturalists, discoverers,
+and sailors are born. Some men are made for couriers, exchangers,
+envoys, missionaries, bearers of despatches, as others are for farmers
+and working-men. And if the man is of a light and social turn, and
+Nature has aimed to make a legged and winged creature, framed for
+locomotion, we must follow her hint, and furnish him with that breeding
+which gives currency as sedulously as with that which gives worth. But
+let us not be pedantic, but allow to travel its full effect. The boy
+grown up on the farm which he has never left is said in the country to
+have had _no chance_, and boys and men of that condition look upon work
+on a railroad or drudgery in a city as opportunity. Poor country-boys of
+Vermont and Connecticut formerly owed what knowledge they had to their
+peddling-trips to the Southern States. California and the Pacific Coast
+are now the university of this class, as Virginia was in old times. "To
+have _some chance_" is their word. And the phrase, "to know the world,"
+or to travel, is synonymous with all men's ideas of advantage and
+superiority. No doubt, to a man of sense travel offers advantages. As
+many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades,
+so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison
+where-from to judge his own. One use of travel is, to recommend the
+books and works of home; (we go to Europe to be Americanized;) and
+another, to find men. For as Nature has put fruits apart in latitudes,
+a new fruit in every degree, so knowledge and fine moral quality she
+lodges in distant men. And thus, of the six or seven teachers whom each
+man wants among his contemporaries, it often happens that one or two of
+them live on the other side of the world.
+
+Moreover, there is in every constitution a certain solstice, when the
+stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required
+some foreign force, some diversion or alternative, to prevent
+stagnation. And, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best. Just
+as a man witnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and,
+meditating on the contingencies of wounds, cancers, lockjaws, rejoices
+in Dr. Jackson's benign discovery, so a man who looks at Paris, at
+Naples, or at London, says, "If I should be driven from my own home,
+here, at least, my thoughts can be consoled by the most prodigal
+amusement and occupation which the human race in ages could contrive and
+accumulate."
+
+Akin to the benefit of foreign travel, the aesthetic value of railroads
+is to unite the advantages of town and country life, neither of which we
+can spare. A man should live in or near a large town, because, let his
+own genius be what it may, it will repel quite as much of agreeable and
+valuable talent as it draws, and, in a city, the total attraction of all
+the citizens is sure to conquer, first or last, every repulsion, and
+drag the most improbable hermit within its walls some day in the
+year. In town he can find the swimming-school, the gymnasium, the
+dancing-master, the shooting-gallery, opera, theatre, and panorama,--the
+chemist's shop, the museum of natural history, the gallery of fine arts,
+the national orators in their turn, foreign travellers, the libraries,
+and his club. In the country he can find solitude and reading, manly
+labor, cheap living, and his old shoes,--moors for game, hills for
+geology, and groves for devotion. Aubrey writes, "I have heard Thomas
+Hobbes say, that, in the Earl of Devon's house, in Derbyshire, there was
+a good library and books enough for him, and his Lordship stored the
+library with what books he thought fit to be bought. But the want
+of good conversation was a very great inconvenience, and, though he
+conceived he could order his thinking as well as another, yet he found
+a great defect. In the country, in long time, for want of good
+conversation, one's understanding and invention contract a moss on them,
+like an old paling in an orchard."
+
+Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the
+nonsense out of a man. A great part of our education is sympathetic and
+social. Boys and girls who have been brought up with well-informed and
+superior people show in their manners an inestimable grace. Fuller says,
+that "William, Earl of Nassau, won a subject from the King of Spain
+every time he put off his hat." You cannot have one well-bred man
+without a whole society of such. They keep each other up to any
+high point. Especially women: it requires a great many cultivated
+women,--saloons of bright, elegant, reading women, accustomed to ease
+and refinement, to spectacles, pictures, sculpture, poetry, and to
+elegant society,--in order that you should have one Madame de Stael.
+The head of a commercial house, or a leading lawyer or politician, is
+brought into daily contact with troops of men from all parts of the
+country,--and those, too, the driving-wheels, the business-men of each
+section,--and one can hardly suggest for an apprehensive man a
+more searching culture. Besides, we must remember the high social
+possibilities of a million of men. The best bribe which London offers
+to-day to the imagination is, that, in such a vast variety of people
+and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic
+character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope
+to confront their counterparts.
+
+I wish cities could teach their best lesson,--of quiet manners. It is
+the foible especially of American youth,--pretension. The mark of the
+man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he
+takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly,
+promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his
+fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil
+tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather
+and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and
+the unlocking of his learning and philosophy. How the imagination is
+piqued by anecdotes of some great man passing incognito, as a king in
+gray clothes!--of Napoleon affecting a plain suit at his glittering
+levee!--of Burns, or Scott, or Beethoven, or Wellington, or Goethe,
+or any container of transcendent power, passing for nobody!--of
+Epaminondas, "who never says anything, but will listen eternally!"--of
+Goethe, who preferred trifling subjects and common expressions in
+intercourse with strangers, worse rather than better clothes, and to
+appear a little more capricious than he was! There are advantages in the
+old hat and box-coat. I have heard, that, throughout this country, a
+certain respect is paid to good broadcloth: but dress makes a little
+restraint; men will not commit themselves. But the box-coat is like
+wine; it unlocks the tongue, and men say what they think. An old poet
+says,--
+
+  "Go far and go sparing;
+  For you'll find it certain,
+  The poorer and the baser you appear,
+  The more you'll look through still."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Beaumont and Fletcher: The Tamer Tamed.]
+
+Not much otherwise Milnes writes, in the "Lay of the Humble":--
+
+  "To me men are for what they are,
+  They wear no masks with me."
+
+'Tis odd that our people should have--not water on the brain,--but
+a little gas there. A shrewd foreigner said of the Americans, that
+"whatever they say has a little the air of a speech." Yet one of the
+traits down in the books, as distinguishing the Anglo-Saxon, is a trick
+of self-disparagement. To be sure, in old, dense countries, among a
+million of good coats, a fine coat comes to be no distinction, and you
+find humorists. In an English party, a man with no marked manners or
+features, with a face like red dough, unexpectedly discloses wit,
+learning, a wide range of topics, and personal familiarity with good men
+in all parts of the world, until you think you have fallen upon some
+illustrious personage. Can it be that the American forest has refreshed
+some weeds of old Pictish barbarism just ready to die out,--the love of
+the scarlet feather, of beads, and tinsel? The Italians are fond of
+red clothes, peacock-plumes, and embroidery; and I remember, one rainy
+morning in the city of Palermo, the street was in a blaze with scarlet
+umbrellas. The English have a plain taste. The equipages of the grandees
+are plain. A gorgeous livery indicates new and awkward city-wealth. Mr.
+Pitt, like Mr. Pym, thought the title of _Mister_ good against any king
+in Europe. They have piqued themselves on governing the whole world in
+the poor, plain, dark committee-room which the House of Commons sat in
+before the fire.
+
+Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found,
+cities degrade us by magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town
+a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the
+horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He
+has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile
+to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and
+disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects
+are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to a cloud of
+insignificant annoyances:--
+
+  "Mirmidons, race feconde,
+  Mirmidons,
+  Enfins nous commandons;
+  Jupiter livre le monde
+  Aux mirmidons, aux mirmidons."[B]
+
+  [Footnote B: Beranger.]
+
+  'Tis heavy odds
+  Against the gods,
+  When they will match with myrmidons.
+  We spawning, spawning myrmidons,
+  Our turn to-day; we take command:
+  Jove gives the globe into the hand
+  Of myrmidons, of myrmidons.
+
+What is odious but noise, and people who scream and bewail?--people
+whose vane points always east, who live to dine, who send for the
+doctor, who raddle themselves, who toast their feet on the register,
+who intrigue to secure a padded chair and a corner out of the draught?
+Suffer them once to begin the enumeration of their infirmities, and the
+sun will go down on the unfinished tale. Let these triflers put us out
+of conceit with petty comforts. To a man at work, the frost is but a
+color; the rain, the wind, he forgot them when he came in. Let us learn
+to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of
+dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.
+Neither will we be driven into a quiddling abstemiousness. 'Tis a
+superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the
+same chemical atoms.
+
+A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants. How can you mind
+diet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the figure you make in
+company, or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think
+how paltry are the machinery and the workers? Wordsworth was praised to
+me, in Westmoreland, for having afforded to his country neighbors an
+example of a modest household, where comfort and culture were secured
+without display. And a tender boy who wears his rusty cap and outgrown
+coat, that he may secure the coveted place in college and the right
+in the library, is educated to some purpose. There is a great deal of
+self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and
+country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that
+keeps the earth sweet,--that saves on superfluities, and spends on
+essentials,--that goes rusty, and educates the boy,--that sells the
+horse, but builds the school,--works early and late, takes two looms in
+the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the
+paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.
+
+We can ill spare the commanding social benefits of cities; they must be
+used,--yet cautiously, and haughtily,--and will yield their best values
+to him who best can do without them. Keep the town for occasions, but
+the habits should be formed to retirement. Solitude, the safeguard of
+mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter
+where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He
+who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling
+with the souls of other men,--from living, breathing, reading, and
+writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning,
+solitude," said Pythagoras,--that Nature may speak to the imagination,
+as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make
+acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to
+serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus,
+Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth did not live in a crowd,
+but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise
+instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul, in the
+disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits
+of solitude. The high advantage of university-life is often the mere
+mechanical one, I may call it, of a separate chamber and fire,--which
+parents will allow the boy without hesitation at Cambridge, but do not
+think needful at home. We say solitude, to mark the character of the
+tone of thought; but if it can be shared between two, or more than two,
+it is happier, and not less noble. "We four," wrote Neander to his
+sacred friends, "will enjoy at Halle the inward blessedness of a
+_civitas Dei_, whose foundations are forever friendship. The more I know
+you, the more I dissatisfy and must dissatisfy all my wonted companions.
+Their very presence stupefies me. The common understanding withdraws
+itself from the one centre of all existence."
+
+Solitude takes off the pressure of present importunities, that more
+catholic and humane relations may appear. The saint and poet seek
+privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of
+culture, to interest the man more in his public than in his private
+quality. Here is a new poem, which elicits a good many comments in
+the journals and in conversation. From these it is easy, at last, to
+eliminate the verdict which readers passed upon it; and that is, in the
+main, unfavorable. The poet, as a craftsman, is interested only in the
+praise accorded to him, and not in the censure, though it be just; and
+the poor little poet hearkens only to that, and rejects the censure, as
+proving incapacity in the critic. But the poet _cultivated_ becomes a
+stockholder in both companies,--say Mr. Curfew,--in the Curfew stock,
+and in the _humanity_ stock; and, in the last, exults as much in the
+demonstration of the unsoundness of Curfew as his interest in the former
+gives him pleasure in the currency of Curfew. For the depreciation of
+his Curfew stock only shows the immense values of the humanity stock.
+As soon as he sides with his critic against himself, with joy, he is a
+cultivated man.
+
+We must have an intellectual quality in all property and in all action,
+or they are nought. I must have children, I must have events, I must
+have a social state and history, or my thinking and speaking want body
+or basis. But to give these accessories any value, I must know them as
+contingent and rather showy possessions, which pass for more to the
+people than to me. We see this abstraction in scholars, as a matter
+of course: but what a charm it adds when observed in practical men!
+Bonaparte, like Caesar, was intellectual, and could look at every object
+for itself, without affection. Though an egotist _a l'outrance_, he
+could criticize a play, a building, a character, on universal grounds,
+and give a just opinion. A man known to us only as a celebrity in
+politics or in trade gains largely in our esteem, if we discover that he
+has some intellectual taste or skill: as when we learn of Lord Fairfax,
+the Long Parliament's general, his passion for antiquarian studies; or
+of the French regicide Carnot, his sublime genius in mathematics; or of
+a living banker, his success in poetry; or of a partisan journalist,
+his devotion to ornithology. So, if, in travelling in the dreary
+wildernesses of Arkansas or Texas, we should observe on the next seat a
+man reading Horace, or Martial, or Calderon, we should wish to hug him.
+In callings that require roughest energy, soldiers, sea-captains, and
+civil engineers sometimes betray a fine insight, if only through a
+certain gentleness when off duty: a good-natured admission that there
+are illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We only
+vary the phrase, not the doctrine, when we say that culture opens the
+sense of beauty. A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and,
+however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be
+said to have arrived at self-possession. I suffer, every day, from the
+want of perception of beauty in people. They do not know the charm with
+which all moments and objects can be embellished,--the charm of manners,
+of self-command, of benevolence. Repose and cheerfulness are the badge
+of the gentleman,--repose in energy. The Greek battle-pieces are calm;
+the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene
+aspect: as we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed. A cheerful,
+intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough; for it
+indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.
+
+When our higher faculties are in activity, we are domesticated,
+and awkwardness and discomfort give place to natural and agreeable
+movements. It is noticed that the consideration of the great periods and
+spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind and an indifference
+to death. The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains,
+appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. Even a high dome,
+and the expansive interior of a cathedral, have a sensible effect
+on manners. I have heard that stiff people lose something of their
+awkwardness under high ceilings and in spacious halls. I think sculpture
+and painting have an effect to teach us manners and abolish hurry.
+
+But, over all, culture must reinforce from higher influx the empirical
+skills of eloquence, or of politics, or of trade and the useful arts.
+There is a certain loftiness of thought and power to marshal and
+adjust particulars, which can come only from an insight of their whole
+connection. The orator who has once seen things in their divine order
+will never quite lose sight of this, and will come to affairs as from a
+higher ground, and, though he will say nothing of philosophy, he will
+have a certain mastery in dealing with them, and an incapableness of
+being dazzled or frighted, which will distinguish his handling from that
+of attorneys and factors. A man who stands on a good footing with the
+heads of parties at Washington reads the rumors of the newspapers and
+the guesses of provincial politicians with a key to the right and
+wrong in each statement, and sees well enough where all this will end.
+Archimedes will look through your Connecticut machine at a glance, and
+judge of its fitness. And much more, a wise man who knows not only what
+Plato, but what Saint John can show him, can easily raise the affair
+he deals with to a certain majesty. Plato says, Pericles owed this
+elevation to the lessons of Anaxagoras. Burke descended from a higher
+sphere when he would influence human affairs. Franklin, Adams,
+Jefferson, Washington, stood on a fine humanity, before which the brawls
+of modern senates are but pot-house politics.
+
+But there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the
+apprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave.
+We must know our friends under ugly masks. The calamities are our
+friends. Ben Jonson specifies in his address to the Muse:--
+
+  "Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill-will,
+  And, reconciled, keep him suspected still,
+  Make him lose all his friends, and, what is worse,
+  Almost all ways to any better course;
+  With me thou leav'st a better Muse than thee,
+  And which thou brought'st me, blessed Poverty."
+
+We wish to learn philosophy by rote, and play at heroism. But the wiser
+God says, Take the shame, the poverty, and the penal solitude that
+belong to truth-speaking. Try the rough water, as well as the smooth.
+Rough water can teach lessons worth knowing. When the state is unquiet,
+personal qualities are more than ever decisive. Fear not a revolution
+which will constrain you to live five years in one. Don't be so tender
+at making an enemy now and then. Be willing to go to Coventry sometimes,
+and let the populace bestow on you their coldest contempts. The finished
+man of the world must eat of every apple once. He must hold his hatreds
+also at arm's length, and not remember spite. He has neither friends nor
+enemies, but values men only as channels of power.
+
+He who aims high must dread an easy home and popular manners. Heaven
+sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as
+the burr that protects the fruit. If there is any great and good thing
+in store for you, it will not come at the first or the second call, nor
+in the shape of fashion, ease, and city drawing-rooms. Popularity is for
+dolls. "Steep and craggy," said Porphyry, "is the path of the gods."
+Open your Marcus Antoninus. In the opinion of the ancients, he was the
+great man who scorned to shine, and who contested the frowns of Fortune.
+They preferred the noble vessel too late for the tide, contending with
+winds and waves, dismantled and unrigged, to her companion borne into
+harbor with colors flying and guns firing. There is none of the social
+goods that may not be purchased too dear, and mere amiableness must not
+take rank with high aims and self-subsistency.
+
+Bettine replies to Goethe's mother, who chides her disregard of
+dress,--"If I cannot do as I have a mind, in our poor Frankfort, I shall
+not carry things far." And the youth must rate at its true mark the
+inconceivable levity of local opinion. The longer we live, the more we
+must endure the elementary existence of men and women: and every brave
+heart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.
+
+"All that class of the severe and restrictive virtues," said Burke, "are
+almost too costly for humanity." Who wishes to be severe? Who wishes
+to resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor and low and
+impolite? and who that dares do it can keep his temper sweet, his frolic
+spirits? The high virtues are not debonair, but have their redress in
+being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring, and the
+tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their
+contemporaries! The measure of a master is his success in bringing all
+men round to his opinion twenty years later.
+
+Let me say here, that culture cannot begin too early. In talking with
+scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of
+boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and
+infinite quality in their esteem. I find, too, that the chance for
+appreciation is much increased by being the son of an appreciator, and
+that these boys who now grow up are caught not only years too late, but
+two or three births too late, to make the best scholars of. And I think
+it a presentable motive to a scholar, that, as, in an old community, a
+well-born proprietor is usually found, after the first heats of youth,
+to be a careful husband, and to feel an habitual desire that the estate
+shall suffer no harm by his administration, but shall be delivered
+down to the next heir in as good condition as he received it,--so,
+a considerate man will reckon himself a subject of that secular
+melioration by which mankind is mollified, cured, and refined, and will
+shun every expenditure of his forces on pleasure or gain, which will
+jeopardize this social and secular accumulation.
+
+The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms,
+and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their
+dwelling-place,--and that the lower perish, as the higher appear. Very
+few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry
+sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped
+organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men.
+Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music
+that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears
+and joy,--if Want with his scourge,--if War with his cannonade,--if
+Christianity with its charity,--if Trade with its money,--if Art with
+its portfolios,--if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of
+space and time, can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on
+the tough chrysalis can break its walls and let the new creature emerge
+erect and free,--make way, and sing paean! The age of the quadruped is
+to go out,--the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in.
+The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be
+organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material. He
+is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.
+The formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if one
+shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature
+to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in
+the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not
+overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and
+gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the hells into
+benefit.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
+
+
+  Between the dark and the daylight,
+  When the night is beginning to lower,
+  Comes a pause in the day's occupations
+  That is known as the Children's Hour.
+
+  I hear in the chamber above me
+  The patter of little feet,
+  The sound of a door that is opened,
+  And voices soft and sweet.
+
+  From my study I see in the lamplight,
+  Descending the broad hall-stair,
+  Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
+  And Edith with golden hair.
+
+  A whisper, and then a silence:
+  Yet I know by their merry eyes
+  They are plotting and planning together
+  To take me by surprise.
+
+  A sudden rush from the stairway,
+  A sudden raid from the hall!
+  By three doors left unguarded
+  They enter my castle wall!
+
+  They climb up into my turret
+  O'er the arms and back of my chair;
+  If I try to escape, they surround me;
+  They seem to be everywhere.
+
+  They almost devour me with kisses,
+  Their arms about me entwine,
+  Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
+  In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
+
+  Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
+  Because you have scaled the wall,
+  Such an old moustache as I am
+  Is not a match for you all?
+
+  I have you fast in my fortress,
+  And will not let you depart,
+  But put you down into the dungeons
+  In the round-tower of my heart.
+
+  And there will I keep you forever,
+  Yes, forever and a day,
+  Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
+  And moulder in dust away!
+
+
+
+
+THREE-MILE CROSS.
+
+
+It seems but yesterday, although more than thirteen years have gone
+by, since I first opened the little garden-gate and walked up the path
+leading to Mary Russell Mitford's cottage at Three-Mile Cross. A friend
+in London had given me his card to the writer of "Our Village," and I
+had promised to call on my way to Oxford, and have a half-hour's chat
+over her geraniums with the charming person whose sketches I had read
+with so much interest in my own country. Her cheerful voice at the
+head of the stairs, telling her little maid to show me the way to her
+sitting-room, sounded very musically, and I often observed in later
+interviews how like a melody her tones always appeared in conversation.
+Once when she read a lyrical poem, not her own, to a group of friends
+assembled at her later residence, in Swallowfield, of which number it
+was my good-fortune to be one, the verses came from her lips like an
+exquisite chant. Her laugh had a ringing sweetness in it, rippling out
+sometimes like a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told
+a comic story, which she often did with infinite tact and grace, she
+joined in with the jollity at the end, her eyes twinkling with delight
+at the pleasure her narrative was always sure to bring. Her enjoyment of
+a joke was something delicious, and when she heard a good thing for
+the first time her exultant mirth was unbounded. As she sat in her
+easy-chair, listening to a Yankee story which interested her, her "Dear
+me! dear me! dear me!" (three times repeated always)
+
+  "Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair."
+
+The sunny summer-day was falling full on her honeysuckles, lilies, and
+roses, when I first saw her face in the snug cottage at Three-Mile
+Cross. As we sat together at the open casement, looking down on the
+flowers that sent up their perfumes to her latticed window like fragrant
+tributes from a fountain of distilled sweet waters, she pointed out,
+among the neighboring farm-houses and villas, the residences of her
+friends, in all of whom she seemed to have the most affectionate
+interest. I noticed, as the village children went by her window, they
+all stopped to bow and curtsy. One curly-headed urchin made bold to take
+off his well-worn cap and wait to be recognized as "little Johnny,"--"no
+great scholar," said the kind-hearted old lady to me, "but a sad rogue
+among our flock of geese. Only yesterday, the young marauder was
+detected by my maid with a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his
+pocket!" While she was thus discoursing of Johnny's peccadilloes, the
+little fellow looked up with a knowing expression, and very soon caught
+in his cap a gingerbread dog, which the old lady threw to him from the
+window. "I wish he loved his book as well as he relishes sweet cake,"
+sighed she, as the boy kicked up his heels and disappeared down the
+lane.
+
+Full of anecdote, her conversation that afternoon ran on in a perpetual
+flow of good-humor, until it was time for me to be on my way toward the
+University City. From that time till she died, our friendship continued,
+and, during other visits to England, I saw her frequently, driving about
+the country with her in her pony-chaise, and spending many happy hours
+under her cottage-roof. She was always the same cheerful spirit,
+enlivening our intercourse with shrewd and pertinent observations and
+reminiscences, some of which it may not be out of place to reproduce
+here. Country life, its scenery and manners, she was never tired of
+depicting; but not infrequently she loved to talk of those celebrities
+in literature and art whom she had known intimately, with a vivacity and
+sweetness of temper never-failing and delightful. I well remember, one
+autumn evening, when half a dozen friends were sitting in her library
+after dinner, talking with her of Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon, then
+lately published, how graphically she described to us the eccentric
+painter, whose genius she was among the fore-most to recognize.
+The flavor of her discourse I cannot reproduce; but I was too much
+interested in what she was saying to forget the main incidents she drew
+for our edification, during those pleasant hours now far away in the
+past.
+
+"I am a terrible forgetter of dates," she used to say, when any one
+asked her of the time when; but for the _manner how_ she was never at a
+loss. "Poor Haydon!" she began. "He was an old friend of mine, and I am
+indebted to Sir William Elford, one of my dear father's correspondents
+during my girlhood, for a suggestion which sent me to look at a picture
+then on exhibition in London, and thus was brought about my knowledge of
+the painter's existence. He, Sir William, had taken a fancy to me, and
+I became his child-correspondent. Few things contribute more to that
+indirect after-education, which is worth all the formal lessons of the
+school-room a thousand times told, than such good-humored condescension
+from a clever man of the world to a girl almost young enough to be his
+granddaughter. I owe much to that correspondence, and, amongst other
+debts, the acquaintance of Haydon. Sir William's own letters were most
+charming,--full of old-fashioned courtesy, of quaint humor, and
+of pleasant and genial criticism on literature and on art. An
+amateur-painter himself, painting interested him particularly, and
+he often spoke much and warmly of the young man from Plymouth, whose
+picture of the 'Judgment of Solomon' was then on exhibition in London.
+'You must see it,' said he, 'even if you come to town on purpose.'"--The
+reader of Haydon's Life will remember that Sir William Elford, in
+conjunction with a Plymouth banker named Tingecombe, ultimately
+purchased the picture. The poor artist was overwhelmed with astonishment
+and joy when he walked into the exhibition-room and read the label,
+"Sold," which had been attached to his picture that morning before
+he arrived. "My first impulse," he says in his Autobiography, "was
+gratitude to God."
+
+"It so happened," continued Miss Mitford, "that I merely passed through
+London that season, and, being detained by some of the thousand and one
+nothings which are so apt to detain women in the great city, I arrived
+at the exhibition, in company with a still younger friend, so near the
+period of closing, that more punctual visitors were moving out, and the
+doorkeeper actually turned us and our money back. I persisted, however,
+assuring him that I only wished to look at one picture, and promising
+not to detain him long. Whether my entreaties would have carried
+the point or not, I cannot tell; but half a crown did; so we stood
+admiringly before the 'Judgment of Solomon.' I am no great judge of
+painting; but that picture impressed me then, as it does now, as
+excellent in composition, in color, and in that great quality of telling
+a story which appeals at once to every mind. Our delight was sincerely
+felt, and most enthusiastically expressed, as we kept gazing at the
+picture, and seemed, unaccountably to us at first, to give much pleasure
+to the only gentleman who had remained in the room,--a young and very
+distinguished-looking person, who had watched with evident amusement our
+negotiation with the doorkeeper. Beyond indicating the best position to
+look at the picture, he had no conversation with us; but I soon surmised
+that we were seeing the painter, as well as his painting; and when, two
+or three years afterwards, a friend took me by appointment to view the
+'Entry into Jerusalem,' Haydon's next great picture, then near its
+completion, I found I had not been mistaken.
+
+"Haydon was, at that period, a remarkable person to look at and listen
+to. Perhaps your American word _bright_ expresses better than any other
+his appearance and manner. His figure, short, slight, elastic, and
+vigorous, looked still more light and youthful from the little
+sailor's-jacket and snowy trousers which formed his painting costume.
+His complexion was clear and healthful. His forehead, broad and
+high, out of all proportion to the lower part of his face, gave an
+unmistakable character of intellect to the finely placed head. Indeed,
+he liked to observe that the gods of the Greek sculptors owed much of
+their elevation to being similarly out of drawing! The lower features
+were terse, succinct, and powerful,--from the bold, decided jaw, to the
+large, firm, ugly, good-humored mouth. His very spectacles aided the
+general expression; they had a look of the man. But how shall I attempt
+to tell you of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid, energetic
+manner, of his quick turns of thought, as he flew on from topic to
+topic, dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas? Slow and quiet
+persons were a good deal startled by this suddenness and mobility. He
+left such people far behind, mentally and bodily. But his talk was so
+rich and varied, so earnest and glowing, his anecdotes so racy, his
+perception of character so shrewd, and the whole tone so spontaneous and
+natural, that the want of repose was rather recalled afterwards than
+felt at the time. The alloy to this charm was a slight coarseness of
+voice and accent, which contrasted somewhat strangely with his constant
+courtesy and high breeding. Perhaps this was characteristic. A defect
+of some sort pervades his pictures. Their great want is equality and
+congruity,--that perfect union of qualities which we call _taste_. His
+apartment, especially at that period when he lived in his painting-room,
+was in itself a study of the most picturesque kind. Besides the great
+picture itself, for which there seemed hardly space between the walls,
+it was crowded with casts, lay figures, arms, tripods, vases, draperies,
+and costumes of all ages, weapons of all nations, books in all tongues.
+These cumbered the floor; whilst around hung smaller pictures, sketches,
+and drawings, replete with originality and force. With chalk he could do
+what he chose. I remember he once drew for me a head of hair with nine
+of his sweeping, vigorous strokes! Among the studies I remarked that
+day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just lost her only
+child,--a most masterly rendering of an unspeakable grief. A sonnet,
+which I could not help writing on this sketch, gave rise to our long
+correspondence, and to a friendship which never flagged. Everybody feels
+that his life, as told by Mr. Taylor, with its terrible catastrophe, is
+a stern lesson to young artists, an awful warning that cannot be set
+aside. Let us not forget that amongst his many faults are qualities
+which hold out a bright example. His devotion to his noble art, his
+conscientious pursuit of every study connected with it, his unwearied
+industry, his love of beauty and of excellence, his warm family
+affection, his patriotism, his courage, and his piety, will not easily
+be surpassed. Thinking of them, let us speak tenderly of the ardent
+spirit whose violence would have been softened by better fortune, and
+who, if more successful, would have been more gentle and more humble."
+
+And so with her vigilant and appreciative eye she saw, and thus in her
+own charming way she talked of the man, whose name, says Taylor, as a
+popularizer of art, stands without a rival among his brethren.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her passion for the Drama continued through life, and to see a friend's
+play would take her up to London when nothing else would tempt her to
+leave her cottage. It was delightful to hear her talk of the old actors,
+many of whom she had known. She loved to describe John Kemble, Mrs.
+Siddons, Miss O'Neill, and Edmund Kean, as they were wont to electrify
+the town. Elliston was a great favorite, and she had as many good things
+to tell of him as Elia ever had. One autumn afternoon she related all
+the circumstances attending the "first play" she ever saw,--which, by
+the way, was a tragedy enacted in a barn somewhere in the little town of
+Alresford, where she was born. The winking candles dividing the stage
+from the audience, she used to say, were winking now in her memory,
+although fifty years had elapsed since her father took her, a child of
+four years, to see "Othello." Her talent at mimicry made her always most
+interesting, when she spoke of Munden and his pleasant absurdities on
+the stage. For Bannister, Johnstone, Fawcett, and Emery she had a most
+exquisite relish, and she said they had made comedy to her a living art
+full of laughter and tears. Her passion for the stage, and overclouded
+prospects for the future, led her in early youth to write a play. She
+had already written a considerable number of verses which had been
+printed, and were honored by being severely castigated by Gifford in the
+"Quarterly."
+
+"I didn't mind the great reviewer's blows at all," she used to say. "My
+poems had been republished in America; and Coleridge had prophesied that
+I should one day write a tragedy."
+
+Talfourd was then, though a young man, a most excellent critic, and lent
+a helping hand to the young authoress. Her anxieties attending the first
+representation of her play at Covent Garden she was always fond of
+relating, and in such a manner that we who listened fell into such
+boisterous merriment with her, that I have known carriages stop in front
+of her window, and their inmates put out anxiously inquiring heads, to
+learn, if possible, what it all meant inside the cottage.
+
+She never forgot "the warm grasp of Mrs. Charles Kemble's hand, when she
+saw her, all life and heartiness, at her house in Soho Square,--or the
+excellent acting of Young and Kemble and Macready, who did everything
+actors could do to secure success for her."
+
+"These are the things," she once wrote, "one thinks of, when sitting
+calm and old by the light of a country fire."
+
+The comic and the grotesque that were mingled up with her first
+experiences of the stage as a dramatic author were inimitably rendered
+by herself, whenever she sat down to relate the story of that visit to
+London for the purpose of bringing out her tragedy. The rehearsals,
+where "the only grave person present was Mr. Liston!--the tragic
+heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in bonnets and thick
+shawls,--the untidy ballet-girls" (there was a dance in "Foscari")
+"walking through their quadrille to the sound of a solitary
+fiddle,"--she was never weary of calling up for the amusement of her
+listeners.
+
+The old dramatists she had grown up to worship,--Shakspeare first, as in
+all loyalty bound, and after him Fletcher. "Affluent, eloquent, royally
+grand," she used to call both Beaumont and Fletcher; and whole scenes
+from favorite plays she knew by heart. Dr. Valpy was her neighbor, he
+being in the days of her youth headmaster of Reading School. A family
+intimacy of long standing had existed between her father's household and
+that of the learned and excellent scholar, so that his well-known taste
+for the English dramatists had no small influence on Doctor Mitford's
+studious daughter. "He helped me also," she said, "to enter into the
+spirit of those mighty masters who dealt forth the stern Tragedies of
+Destiny."
+
+One of the dearest friends of her youth was Miss Porden, (afterwards
+married, as his first wife, to Sir John Franklin,) and at her suggestion
+Miss Mitford wrote "Rienzi." I have heard her say, that, going up
+to London to bring out that play, she saw her old friend, then Mrs.
+Franklin, working a flag for the captain's ship, then about to sail on
+one of his early adventurous voyages. The agitation of parting with
+her husband was too great for her delicate temperament, and before the
+expedition was out of the Channel Mrs. Franklin was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Often and often, when the English lanes were white with blossoms, I
+have sat by her side while her faithful servant guided her low-wheeled
+pony-chaise among the pleasant roads about Reading and Swallowfield.
+Once we went to a cricket-ground together, and as we sat under the
+trees, looking on as the game proceeded, she, who fell in love with
+Nature when a child, and had studied the landscape till she knew
+familiarly every flower and leaf that grows on English soil, assembled
+all that was best in poesy from her memory to illustrate the beautiful
+scene before us, and to prove how much better and more truly the great
+end of existence is answered in a rural life than in the vexatious cares
+of city occupation. As we sat looking at the vast lawn, magnificent in
+its green apparel, she quoted Irving as one who had understood English
+country-life perhaps more deeply and fully than any other foreign author
+who had ever written.
+
+Speaking, one day, of the slowness of poetical fame, she said,--
+
+"It always takes ten years to make a poetical reputation in England; but
+America is wiser and bolder, and dares say at once, '_This is fine!_'"
+
+She rejoiced greatly in several of the American poets, and was never
+weary of quoting certain ringing couplets which she has celebrated in
+her "Notes of a Literary Life." "Is there anything under the sun," she
+exclaims, "that Dr. Holmes cannot paint?"
+
+During the last six years of her life she became a great invalid and
+moved about only with severe pain. "It is not age," she said, "that has
+thus prostrated me, but the hard work and increasing anxieties of thirty
+years of authorship, during which my poor labors were all that my dear
+father and mother had to look to; besides which, for the greater part of
+that time I was constantly called upon to attend the sick bed, first of
+one parent, and then of the other. I have only to be intensely thankful
+that the power of exertion did not fail until the necessity for such
+exertion was removed."
+
+"I love poetry and people as well at sixty as I did at sixteen," she
+said one day, when I gave her a new volume by an American friend, "and
+can never be sufficiently grateful to God for having permitted me to
+retain the two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy." The
+"Ballad of Cassandra Southwick" she esteemed as one of the finest things
+of our time; and of "Astrea" she said,--"Nobody in England can write
+the glorious resonant metre of Dryden like that strain, nowadays."
+
+Pope was a great favorite with her, and she took me one morning to an
+old house where he was a frequent guest, and where Arabella Fermor, the
+heroine of the "Rape of the Lock," passed her married life. On the way
+she often quoted the poet, whose works she seemed to know by heart.
+Returning at sunset, she was very anxious that I should hear my first
+nightingale among the woody lanes of her pretty country; but we were
+both disappointed. We listened long, but, although the air was full of
+birdsongs that evening, the sweet-voiced warbler was not of the choir.
+She talked much, as we rode along, of Kingsley and Ruskin, both of whom
+she loved as friends as well as authors. "John Ruskin," she said, "is
+good and kind, and charming beyond the common lot of mortals, and there
+are pages of his prose, to my thinking, more eloquent than any thing out
+of Jeremy Taylor."
+
+Speaking of Humor, she said,--"Between ourselves, I always have a little
+doubt of genius, when there is none of that quality: certainly, in the
+very highest poetry, the two go together."
+
+She greatly admired Beranger, and often spoke of him as the beautiful
+old man, the truest and best type of perfect independence. Hazlitt she
+ranked highly as an essayist, and she mentioned that she had heard both
+Charles Lamb and Talfourd praise him as not only the most brilliant, but
+the soundest of critics.
+
+Among modern romances, those by the author of "The Scarlet Letter"
+seemed to impress her almost more than any others; and when "The House
+of the Seven Gables" was translated into Russian, she was filled with
+delight. Indeed, she was always among the first to cry, "Bravo!" over
+any good words for American literature.
+
+"Do coax Mr. Hawthorne and Dr. Holmes," she said one day, "into visiting
+England. I want them to be welcomed as they deserve, and as they are
+sure to be."
+
+Her interest in the French Emperor's career amounted to enthusiasm, and
+one day she told us a very pretty story about him which she knew to
+be true. She said, when he was in England after Strasbourg and before
+Boulogne, he spent a twelvemonth at Leamington, living in the quietest
+manner. One of the principal persons in that town, Mr. H., a very
+liberal and accomplished man, made a point of showing every attention in
+his power to the Prince; and they very soon became intimate. There
+was in the town an old officer of the Emperor's Polish Legion, who,
+compelled to leave France after Waterloo, had taken refuge in England,
+and, having a natural talent for languages, maintained himself by
+teaching French, Italian, and German in different families. The old
+exile and the young one found each other out, and the language-master
+was soon an habitual guest at the Prince's table, where he was treated
+with the most affectionate attention. At last Louis Napoleon was obliged
+to repair to London, but before he went he called on his friend Mr. H.
+to take leave. After warm thanks to him for all the pleasure he had
+experienced in his society, the Prince said,--
+
+"I am about to prove to you my entire reliance upon your unfailing
+kindness by leaving you a legacy. I wish to ask that you would transfer
+to my poor old friend the goodness you have lavished on me. His health
+is failing,--his means are small; pray, call upon him sometimes, and see
+that the lodging-house people do not neglect him. Draw upon me for what
+may be wanting for his needs or for his comforts."
+
+Mr. H. promised, and faithfully replaced the Prince in his kind
+attentions to his old friend. The poor old man grew ill at last, and
+died, Mr. H. defraying all the charges of his illness and of his
+funeral. "I would willingly have paid them myself," said he, "but I knew
+that would have offended and grieved the Prince. I found that provision
+had been made at his banker's to answer my drafts to a much larger
+amount than the actual debt."
+
+Miss Mitford used to say that she kept this anecdote for non-admirers of
+the Emperor.
+
+One day she came limping into the room, with her dog Fanchon following
+in the same lame plight,--she laughing heartily at their similarity of
+gait, and holding up a letter just in from the post.
+
+"Here," said she, "is an epistle from my dear old friend, Lady M.,"
+(Gibbon's correspondent,) "who at the age of eighty-three is caught
+by new books, and is as enthusiastic as a girl. She commissions me to
+inquire of you all about your new authoress, the writer of 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin,' who she is, and all you know of her. So let me hear what you
+have to say about the lady."
+
+During a brief visit to her cottage not long before she died, the chase
+was started one evening to find, if possible, the origin of the line
+quoted by Byron,--
+
+"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."
+
+In vain we searched among the poets, and at last all the party gave up
+in despair. I went up to London soon after, thinking no more of the lost
+line. In a few days, however, came a brief note, as follows:--
+
+"Hurrah, dear friend! I have found the line without any other person's
+aid or suggestion! Last night it occurred to me that it was in some
+prologue or epilogue; and my little book-room being very rich in the
+drama, I have looked through many hundreds of those bits of rhyme, and
+at last made a discovery, which, if it have no other good effect, will
+at least have 'emptied my head of Corsica,' as Johnson said to Boswell;
+for never was the great biographer more haunted by the thought of Paoli
+than I by that line. It occurs in an epilogue by Garrick, on quitting
+the stage, June, 1776, when the performance was for the benefit of sick
+and aged actors.
+
+"Not finding it quoted in Johnson convinced me that it would probably
+have been written after the publication of the Dictionary, and
+ultimately guided me to the right place. It is singular that epilogues
+were just dismissed at the first representation of one of my plays,
+'Foscari,' and prologues at another, 'Rienzi.'
+
+"Ever most affectionately yours,
+
+"M.R. MITFORD.
+
+"P.S. I am still a close prisoner in my room. But when fine weather
+comes, I will get down in some way or other, and trust myself to that
+which never hurts anybody, the honest open air. Spring, and even the
+approach of spring, sets me dreaming. I see leafy hedges in my sleep,
+and flowery banks, and then I long to make the vision a reality.
+I remember that my dog Flush, Fanchon's father, who was a famous
+sporting-dog, used, at the approach of the covering season, to hunt in
+his sleep, doubtless by the same instinct that works in me. So, as soon
+as the sun tells the same story with the primroses, I shall make a
+descent after some fashion, and, no doubt, aided by Sam's stalwart arm,
+successfully."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After leaving Three-Mile Cross for Swallowfield, her health, never of
+late years robust, seemed failing. In one of her letters to me she gives
+this pleasant picture of her home:--
+
+"Ill as I am, my spirits are as good as ever; and just at this moment I
+am most comfortably seated under the acacia-tree at the corner of the
+house,--the beautiful acacia literally loaded with its snowy chains. The
+flowering-trees this summer, the lilacs, laburnums, and rhododendrons,
+have been one mass of blossoms, but none are so graceful as this
+waving acacia. On one side is a syringa, smelling and looking like an
+orange-tree,--a jar of roses on the table before me,--fresh gathered
+roses,--the pride of my gardener's heart. Little Fanchon is at my
+feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with which I am trying to tempt
+her,--biscuits from Boston, sent to me by kind Mrs. S., and which
+Fanchon ought to like; but you know her laziness of old, and she
+improves in it every day."
+
+It was about this period that Walter Savage Landor sent to her these
+exquisite lines:--
+
+  "The hay is carried; and the Hours
+  Snatch, as they pass, the linden-flowers;
+  And children leap to pluck a spray
+  Bent earthward, and then run away.
+  Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves,
+  About whose frocks the fragrant leaves,
+  Sticking and fluttering here and there,
+  No false nor faltering witness bear.
+
+  "I never view such scenes as these
+  In grassy meadow girt with trees,
+  But comes a thought of her who now
+  Sits with serenely patient brow
+  Amid deep sufferings: none hath told
+  More pleasant tales to young and old.
+  Fondest was she of Father Thames,
+  But rambled to Hellenic streams;
+  Nor even there could any tell
+  The country's purer charms so well
+  As Mary Mitford.
+
+  "Verse! go forth
+  And breathe o'er gentle hearts her worth.
+  Needless the task: but should she see
+  One hearty wish from you and me,
+  A moment's pain it may assuage,--
+  A rose-leaf on the couch of Age."
+
+In the early days of the year 1855 she sent, in her own handwriting,
+kind greetings to her old friends only a few hours before she died.
+Sweetness of temper and brightness of mind, her never-failing
+characteristics, accompanied her to the last; and she passed on in her
+usual cheerful and affectionate mood, her sympathies uncontracted by
+age, narrow fortune, and pain.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR.
+
+
+The two meeting-houses which faced each other like a pair of
+fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other for a
+considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been dyspeptic and
+low-spirited of late, and was too languid for controversy. The Reverend
+Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with his benevolent associations,
+and had discoursed chiefly on practical matters, to the neglect of
+special doctrinal subjects. His senior deacon ventured to say to him
+that some of his people required to be reminded of the great fundamental
+doctrine of the worthlessness of all human efforts and motives. Some of
+them were altogether too much pleased with the success of the Temperance
+Society and the Association for the Relief of the Poor. There was a
+pestilent heresy about, concerning the satisfaction to be derived from
+a good conscience,--as if anybody ever did anything which was not to be
+hated, loathed, despised, and condemned.
+
+The old minister listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his
+deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had
+gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon his
+first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great deal of
+hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state which is so
+common in good ministers,--that, namely, in which they contrive to
+switch off their logical faculties on the narrow side-track of their
+technical dogmas, while the great freight-train of their substantial
+human qualities keeps in the main highway of common-sense, in which
+kindly souls are always found by all who approach them by their human
+side.
+
+The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, paternal interest: it was
+well argued from his premises. Here and there he dashed his pen through
+a harsh expression. Now and then he added an explanation or qualified
+a broad statement. But his mind was on the logical side-track, and he
+followed the chain of reasoning without fairly perceiving where it would
+lead him, if he carried it into real life.
+
+He was just touching up the final proposition, when his granddaughter,
+Letty, once before referred to, came into the room with her smiling face
+and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia Forrester was a city-bred
+girl of some fifteen or sixteen years old, who was passing the summer
+with her grandfather for the sake of country air and quiet. It was a
+sensible arrangement; for, having the promise of figuring as a belle
+by-and-by, and being a little given to dancing, and having a voice which
+drew a pretty dense circle around the piano when she sat down to play
+and sing, it was hard to keep her from being carried into society before
+her time, by the mere force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had
+some quiet as well as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass
+two or three of the summer months in the country, where she was much
+better bestowed than she would have been at one of those watering-places
+where so many half-formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice of
+self-consciousness.
+
+Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a young
+girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic pattern
+which is the classical type of certain excellent young females, often
+the subjects of biographical memoirs. But the old minister was proud of
+his granddaughter for all that. She was so full of life, so graceful, so
+generous, so vivacious, so ready always to do all she could for him and
+for everybody, so perfectly frank in her avowed delight in the pleasures
+which this miserable world offered her in the shape of natural beauty,
+of poetry, of music, of companionship, of books, of cheerful cooperation
+in the tasks of those about her, that the Reverend Doctor could not
+find it in his heart to condemn her because she was deficient in those
+particular graces and that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes
+noticed in feeble young persons suffering from various chronic diseases
+which impaired their vivacity and removed them from the range of
+temptation.
+
+When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study,
+he glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her,
+it flashed across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and
+unnatural about the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking at,
+with his features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. Technically,
+according to the fifth proposition of the sermon on Human Nature, very
+bad, no doubt. Practically, according to the fact before him, a very
+pretty piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and soul. Was it not a
+conceivable thing that the divine grace might show itself in different
+forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, and in that poor thing he had
+visited yesterday, half-grown, half-colored, in bed for the last year
+with hip-disease? Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl,
+with life throbbing all over her, _could_, without a miracle, be good
+according to the invalid pattern and formula?
+
+And yet there were mysteries in human nature which pointed to some
+tremendous perversion of its tendencies,--to some profound, radical vice
+of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as you will have it, but
+positive, at any rate, as the leprosy, breaking out in the blood of
+races, guard them ever so carefully. Did he not know the case of a young
+lady in Rockland, daughter of one of the first families in the place,
+a very beautiful and noble creature to look at, for whose bringing-up
+nothing had been spared,--a girl who had had governesses to teach her at
+the house, who had been indulged almost too kindly,--a girl whose father
+had given himself up to her, he being himself a pure and high-souled
+man?--and yet this girl was accused in whispers of having been on the
+very verge of committing a fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all
+who knew the dark hints which had been let fall about her, and there
+were some that believed--Why, what was this but an instance of the total
+obliquity and degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it
+be owing, but to an innate organic tendency?
+
+"Busy, grandpapa?" said Letty, and without waiting for an answer
+kissed his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little
+function,--fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a
+finish of pretty dimples, the rosebud lips of girlhood's June.
+
+The old gentleman looked at his granddaughter. Nature swelled up from
+his heart in a wave that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle to his
+eye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as we are winding up a
+string of propositions with the grand conclusion which is the statement
+in brief of all that has gone before: our own starting-point, into which
+we have been trying to back our reader or listener as one backs a horse
+into the shafts.
+
+"_Video meliora, proboque_,--I see the better, and approve it;
+_deteriora sequor_,--I follow after the worse: 'tis that natural
+dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted
+selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of"--
+
+Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty.
+
+"Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a poor
+old black woman wants to see you so much!"
+
+The good minister was as kind-hearted as if he had never groped in the
+dust and ashes of those cruel old abstractions which have killed out so
+much of the world's life and happiness, "With the heart man believeth
+unto righteousness"; a man's love is the measure of his fitness for good
+or bad company here or elsewhere. Men are tattooed with their special
+beliefs like so many South-Sea Islanders; but a real human heart, with
+Divine love in it, beats with the same glow under all the patterns of
+all earth's thousand tribes!
+
+The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and laid the Quarto Cruden on
+it. He rose from his desk, and, looking once more at the young girl's
+face, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to himself that she was
+a little angel,--which was in violent contradiction to the leading
+doctrine of his sermon on Human Nature. And so he followed her out of
+the study into the wide entry of the old-fashioned country-house.
+
+An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble visitors
+waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy. She was old, but how
+old it would be very hard to guess. She might be seventy. She might be
+ninety. One could not swear she was not a hundred. Black women remain at
+a stationary age (to the eyes of _white_ people, at least) for thirty
+years. They do not appear to change during this period any more than
+so many Trenton trilobites. Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long
+upper-lip, projecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, long
+arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers,
+it was impossible not to see in this old creature a hint of the
+gradations by which life climbs up through the lower natures to the
+highest human developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because
+we do not understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own.
+No doubt they see a great deal in each other's faces that we
+cannot,--changes of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and
+sudden betrayals of feeling,--just as these two canaries know what
+their single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that
+variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals.
+
+This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her
+class. Old as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing. She wore a
+red-and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of
+gold in her ears, and beads of gold about her neck, and an old funeral
+ring upon her finger. She had that touching stillness about her which
+belongs to animals that wait to be spoken to and then look up with a
+kind of sad humility.
+
+"Why, Sophy!" said the good minister, "is this you?"
+
+She looked up with the still expression on her face. "It's old Sophy,"
+she said.
+
+"Why," said the Doctor, "I did not believe you could walk so far as this
+to save the Union. Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine's good for
+old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or preaching a
+good while."
+
+The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the
+great pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each
+communion-service was brought to the minister's house. With much toil
+she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled. The
+minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers.
+
+"I wan' to see you 'n' talk wi' you all alone," she said presently.
+
+The minister got up and led the way towards his study. "To be sure," he
+said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked her
+into the library. The young girl took her gently by the arm, and helped
+her feeble steps along the passage. When they reached the study, she
+smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old woman sit
+down in it. Then she tripped lightly away, and left her alone with the
+minister.
+
+Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend Doctor Honeywood's church.
+She had been put through the necessary confessions in a tolerably
+satisfactory manner. To be sure, as her grandfather had been a cannibal
+chief, according to the common story, and, at any rate, a terrible wild
+savage, and as her mother retained to the last some of the prejudices
+of her early education, there was a heathen flavor in her Christianity,
+which had often scandalized the elder of the minister's two deacons.
+But the good minister had smoothed matters over: had explained that
+allowances were to be made for those who had been long sitting without
+the gate of Zion,--that, no doubt, a part of the curse which descended
+to the children of Ham consisted in "having the understanding darkened,"
+as well as the skin,--and so had brought his suspicious senior deacon to
+tolerate old Sophy as one of the communion of fellow-sinners.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+----Poor things! How little we know the simple notions with which these
+rudiments of souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness! Did not Mrs.
+Professor come home this very blessed morning with a story of one of her
+old black women?
+
+"And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?"
+
+"Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head all the time." (What
+doctors call _tinnitus aurium_.)
+
+"She's got a cold in the head," said old Mrs. Rider.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear! Whatever I'm thinking about, it's all this singing,
+this music. When I'm thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all turns into
+this singing and music. When the clark came to see me, I asked him if
+he couldn't cure me, and he said, No,--it was the Holy Spirit in me,
+singing to me; and all the time I hear this beautiful music, and it's
+the Holy Spirit a-singing to me."----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The good man waited for Sophy to speak; but she did not open her lips as
+yet.
+
+"I hope you are not troubled in mind or body," he said to her at length,
+finding she did not speak.
+
+The poor old woman took out a white handkerchief, and lifted it to her
+black face. She could not say a word for her tears and sobs.
+
+The minister would have consoled her; he was used to tears, and could in
+most cases withstand their contagion manfully; but something choked his
+voice suddenly, and when he called upon it, he got no answer, but a
+tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than silence.
+
+At last she spoke.
+
+"Oh, no, no, no! It's my poor girl, my darling, my beauty, my baby,
+that's grown up to be a woman; she will come to a bad end; she will do
+something that will make them kill her or shut her up all her life. Oh,
+Doctor, Doctor, save her, pray for her! It a'n't her fault. It a'n't
+her fault. If they knew all that I know, they wouldn't blame that poor
+child. I must tell you, Doctor: if I should die, perhaps nobody else
+would tell you. Massa Venner can't talk about it. Doctor Kittredge won't
+talk about it. Nobody but old Sophy to tell you, Doctor; and old Sophy
+can't die without telling you."
+
+The kind minister soothed the poor old soul with those gentle, quieting
+tones which had carried peace and comfort to so many chambers of
+sickness and sorrow, to so many hearts overburdened by the trials laid
+upon them.
+
+Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and proceeded to tell her
+story. She told it in the low half-whisper which is the natural voice
+of lips oppressed with grief and fears; with quick glances around the
+apartment from time to time, as if she dreaded lest the dim portraits on
+the walls and the dark folios on the shelves might overhear her words.
+
+It was not one of those conversations which a third person can report
+minutely, unless by that miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers
+of stories made out of authors' brains. Yet its main character can be
+imparted in a much briefer space than the old black woman took to give
+all its details.
+
+She went far back to the time when Dudley Venner was born,--she being
+then a middle-aged woman. The heir and hope of a family which had been
+narrowing down as if doomed to extinction, he had been surrounded with
+every care and trained by the best education he could have in New
+England. He had left college, and was studying the profession which
+gentlemen of leisure most affect, when he fell in love with a young girl
+left in the world almost alone, as he was. The old woman told the story
+of his young love and his joyous bridal with a tenderness which had
+something more, even, than her family sympathies to account for it. Had
+she not hanging over her bed a small paper-cutting of a profile--jet
+black, but not blacker than the face it represented--of one who would
+have been her own husband in the small years of this century, if the
+vessel in which he went to sea, like Jamie in the ballad, had not sailed
+away and never come back to land? Had she not her bits of furniture
+stowed away which had been got ready for her own wedding,--_two_
+rocking-chairs, one worn with long use, one kept for him so long that it
+had grown a superstition with her never to sit in it,--and might he not
+come back yet, after all? Had she not her chest of linen ready for her
+humble house-keeping, with store of serviceable huckaback and piles of
+neatly folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed so white against
+her black face was taken, for that she knew her eyes would betray her in
+"the presence"?
+
+All the first part of the story the old woman told tenderly, and yet
+dwelling upon every incident with a loving pleasure. How happy this
+young couple had been, what plans and projects of improvement they had
+formed, how they lived in each other, always together, so young and
+fresh and beautiful as she remembered them in that one early summer when
+they walked arm in arm through the wilderness of roses that ran riot in
+the garden,--she told of this as loath to leave it and come to the woe
+that lay beneath.
+
+She told the whole story;--shall I repeat it? Not now. If, in the
+course of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, _it tells
+itself_, perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of producing a
+painful impression on some of those susceptible readers whom it would be
+ill-advised to disturb or excite, when they rather require to be amused
+and soothed. In our pictures of life, we must show the flowering-out of
+terrible growths which have their roots deep, deep underground. Just
+how far we shall lay bare the unseemly roots themselves is a matter of
+discretion and taste, in which none of us are infallible.
+
+The old woman told the whole story of Elsie, of her birth, of her
+peculiarities of person and disposition, of the passionate fears and
+hopes with which her father had watched the course of her development.
+She recounted all her strange ways, from the hour when she first tried
+to crawl across the carpet, and her father shrank from her with an
+involuntary shudder as she worked her way towards him. With the memory
+of Juliet's nurse she told the story of her teething, and how, the woman
+to whose breast she had clung dying suddenly about that time, they
+had to struggle hard with the child before she would learn the
+accomplishment of feeding with a spoon. And so of her fierce plays and
+fiercer disputes with that boy who had been her companion, and the whole
+scene of the quarrel when she struck him with those sharp white teeth,
+frightening her, old Sophy, almost to death; for, as she said, the boy
+would have died, if it hadn't been for the old Doctor's galloping over
+as fast as he could gallop and burning the places right out of his arm.
+Then came the story of that other incident, sufficiently alluded to
+already, which had produced such an ecstasy of fright and left such a
+nightmare of apprehension in the household. And so the old woman came
+down to this present time. That boy she never loved nor trusted was
+grown to a dark, dangerous-looking man, and he was under their roof. He
+wanted to marry our poor Elsie, and Elsie hated him, and sometimes she
+would look at him over her shoulder just as she used to look at that
+woman she hated; and she, old Sophy, couldn't sleep for thinking she
+should hear a scream from the white chamber some night and find him in
+spasms such as that woman came so near dying with. And then there was
+something about Elsie she did not know what to make of: she would sit
+and hang her head sometimes, and look as if she were dreaming; and she
+brought home books they said a young gentleman up at the great school
+lent her; and once she heard her whisper in her sleep, and she talked as
+young girls do to themselves when they're thinking about somebody they
+have a liking for and think nobody knows it.
+
+She finished her long story at last. The minister had listened to it in
+perfect silence. He sat still even when she had done speaking,--still,
+and lost in thought. It was a very awkward matter for him to have a hand
+in. Old Sophy was his parishioner, but the Venners had a pew in the
+Reverend Mr. Fairweather's meeting-house. It would seem that he, Mr.
+Fairweather, was the natural adviser of the parties most interested. Had
+he sense and spirit enough to deal with such people? Was there enough
+capital of humanity in his somewhat limited nature to furnish sympathy
+and unshrinking service for his friends in an emergency? or was he too
+busy with his own attacks of spiritual neuralgia, and too much occupied
+with taking account of stock of his own thin-blooded offences, to forget
+himself and his personal interests on the small scale and the large,
+and run a risk of his life, if need were, at any rate give himself up
+without reserve to the dangerous task of guiding and counselling these
+distressed and imperilled fellow-creatures?
+
+The good minister thought the best thing to do would be to call and talk
+over some of these matters with Brother Fairweather,--for so he would
+call him at times, especially if his senior deacon were not within
+earshot. Having settled this point, he comforted Sophy with a few words
+of counsel and a promise of coming to see her very soon. He then called
+his man to put the old white horse into the chaise and drive Sophy back
+to the mansion-house.
+
+When the Doctor sat down to his sermon again, it looked very differently
+from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. When he came to
+think of it, he did not feel quite so sure _practically_ about that
+matter of the utter natural selfishness of everybody. There was Letty,
+now, seemed to take a very unselfish interest in that old black woman,
+and indeed in poor people generally; perhaps it would not be too much to
+say that she was always thinking of other people. He thought he had
+seen other young persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others; it
+seemed to be a family trait in some he had known.
+
+But most of all he was exercised about this poor girl whose story Sophy
+had been telling. If what the old woman believed was true,--and it
+had too much semblance of probability,--what became of his theory of
+ingrained moral obliquity applied to such a case? If by the visitation
+of God a person receives any injury which impairs the intellect or the
+moral perceptions, is it not monstrous to judge such a person by our
+common working standards of right and wrong? Certainly, everybody will
+answer, in cases where there is a palpable organic change brought about,
+as when a blow on the head produces insanity. Fools! How long will it be
+before we shall learn that for every wound which betrays itself to the
+sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple,
+each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy
+told and believed was the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing
+enough, what tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost,
+blighted, hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom
+as perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of humanity shared
+with her?
+
+The minister thought these matters over until his mind was bewildered
+with doubts and tossed to and fro on that stormy deep of thought heaving
+forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas. He laid by his old sermon.
+He put back a pile of old commentators with their eyes and mouths and
+hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then he opened the book of
+Genesis at the eighteenth chapter and read that remarkable argument
+of Abraham's with his Maker, in which he boldly appeals to first
+principles. He took as his text, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth
+do right?" and began to write his sermon, afterwards so famous,--"On the
+Obligations of an Infinite Creator to a Finite Creature."
+
+It astonished the good people, who had been accustomed so long to repeat
+mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to hear their
+worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of the old
+Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with reference to
+his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to his Maker, and
+a great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if he had yielded the
+whole matter, and pretended that men had not rights as well as duties.
+The same logic which had carried him to certain conclusions with
+reference to human nature, this same irresistible logic carried him
+straight on from his text until he arrived at those other results, which
+not only astonished his people, as was said, but surprised himself. He
+went so far in defence of the rights of man, that he put his foot into
+several heresies, for which men had been burned so often, it was time,
+if ever it could be, to acknowledge the demonstration of the _argumentum
+ad ignem_. He did not believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did
+not believe a new-born infant was morally answerable for other people's
+acts. He thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to
+account for not walking erect. He thought, if the crook was in his
+brain, instead of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any
+consequence of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might
+call it. He argued, that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, body,
+and disposition, and had perfect teaching from infancy, that person
+could do nothing more than keep the moral law perfectly. But supposing
+that the Creator allows a person to be born with an hereditary or
+ingrafted organic tendency, and then puts this person into the hands of
+teachers incompetent or positively bad, is not what is called _sin_ or
+transgression of the law necessarily involved in the premises? Is not
+a Creator bound to guard his children against the ruin which inherited
+ignorance might entail on them? Would it be fair for a parent to put
+into a child's hands the title-deeds to all its future possessions, and
+a bunch of matches? And are not men children, nay, babes, in the eye of
+Omniscience?--The minister grew bold in his questions. Had not he as
+good right to ask questions as Abraham?
+
+This was the dangerous vein of speculation in which the Reverend Doctor
+Honeywood found himself involved, as a consequence of the suggestions
+forced upon him by old Sophy's communication. The truth was, the good
+man had got so humanized by mixing up with other people in various
+benevolent schemes, that, the very moment he could escape from his old
+scholastic abstractions, he took the side of humanity instinctively,
+just as the Father of the Faithful did,--all honor be to the noble old
+Patriarch for insisting on the worth of an honest man, and making the
+best terms he could for a very ill-conditioned metropolis, which might
+possibly, however, have contained ten righteous people, for whose sake
+it should be spared!
+
+The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and seemingly
+self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and cane and went
+forth to call on his heretical brother. The old minister took it for
+granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew the private history of
+his parishioner's family. He did not reflect that there are griefs
+men _never_ put into words,--that there are fears which must not be
+spoken,--intimate matters of consciousness which must be carried, as
+bullets that have been driven deep into the living tissues are sometimes
+carried, for a whole life-time,--_encysted_ griefs, if we may borrow the
+chirurgeon's term, never to be reached, never to be seen, never to be
+thrown out, but to go into the dust with the frame that bore them about
+with it, during long years of anguish, known only to the sufferer and
+his Maker. Dudley Venner had talked with his minister about this child
+of his. But he had talked cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy,
+looking out for those indications of tact and judgment which would
+warrant him in some partial communication, at least, of the origin of
+his doubts and fears, and never finding them.
+
+There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which repressed
+all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this something was,
+Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it distinctly, and it sealed
+his lips. He never got beyond certain generalities connected with
+education and religious instruction. The minister could not help
+discovering, however, that there were difficulties connected with this
+girl's management, and he heard enough outside of the family to convince
+him that she had manifested tendencies, from an early age, at variance
+with the theoretical opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in
+a dim way of holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the
+human being.
+
+About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs began
+to cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around its
+nucleus. Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, had it not
+been for the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every Sunday, on his
+way to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of worshippers, swarming into the
+pews like bees, filling all the aisles, running over at the door like
+berries heaped too full in the measure,--some kneeling on the steps,
+some standing on the side-walk, hats off, heads down, lips moving, some
+looking on devoutly from the other side of the street! Oh, could he
+have followed his own Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that
+steaming throng, and bowed his head while the priests intoned their
+Latin prayers! could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and
+felt that he was in the great ark which holds the better half of the
+Christian world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some
+struggling against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected
+rafts, and some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out
+the flood which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon their own
+private, individual life-preservers!
+
+Such was the present state of mind of the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather,
+when his clerical brother called upon him to talk over the questions to
+which old Sophy had called his attention.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIRWEATHER.
+
+
+For the last few months, while all these various matters were going on
+in Rockland, the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with the
+records of ancient councils and the writings of the early fathers. The
+more he read, the more discontented he became with the platform upon
+which he and his people were standing. They and he were clearly in
+a minority, and his deep inward longing to be with the majority was
+growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned especially towards the
+good old unquestioning, authoritative Mother Church, with her articles
+of faith which took away the necessity for private judgment, with her
+traditional forms and ceremonies, and her whole apparatus of stimulants
+and anodynes.
+
+About this time he procured a breviary and kept it in his desk under
+the loose papers. He sent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a small
+crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He ordered his new coat to be
+cut very narrow in the collar and to be made single-breasted. He began
+an informal series of religious conversations with Miss O'Brien, the
+young person of Irish extraction already referred to as Bridget, maid
+of all work. These not proving very satisfactory, he managed to fall in
+with Father McShane, the Catholic priest of the Rockland church. Father
+McShane encouraged his nibble very scientifically. It would be such
+a fine thing to bring over one of those Protestant heretics, and a
+"liberal" one too!--not that there was any real difference between
+them, but it sounded better to say that one of these rationalizing
+free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert than any of those
+half-way Protestants who were the slaves of catechisms instead of
+councils and of commentators instead of popes. The subtle priest played
+his disciple with his finest tackle. It was hardly necessary: when
+anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a bare hook and a coarse line
+are all that is needed.
+
+If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty,
+if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And
+the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a
+heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice
+which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life
+we shirk it by forming _habits_, which take the place of
+self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of
+much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters
+there are great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist
+ready with his bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be
+at peace. The more absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the
+temptation becomes to those who have been long tossed among doubts and
+conflicts.
+
+So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the great
+ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the hulks
+and the razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. They rock
+peacefully as children in their cradles on the subdued swell that comes
+feebly in over the bar at the harbor's mouth, slowly crusting with
+barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if they really wanted to be
+free, but better contented to remain bound as they are. For these no
+more the round unwalled horizon of the open sea, the joyous breeze
+aloft, the furrow, the foam, the sparkle that track the rushing keel!
+They have escaped the dangers of the wave, and lie still henceforth,
+evermore. Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief
+beatitude!
+
+America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But
+political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still
+mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was
+born to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right
+of self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its
+intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of its liberty to
+a spiritual dictatorship which always proves to rest, in the last
+analysis, on _a majority vote_, nothing more nor less, commonly an old
+one, passed in those barbarous times when men cursed and murdered each
+other for differences of opinion, and of course were not in a condition
+to settle the beliefs of a comparatively civilized community.
+
+In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. We forget that weakness
+is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may call for our
+most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate infirmity. Who of us
+does not look with great tenderness on the young chieftain in the "Fair
+Maid of Perth," when he confesses his want of courage? All of us love
+companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much. All of us
+are more or less imaginative in our theology. Some of us may find the
+aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a necessity. The boldest
+thinker may have his moments of languor and discouragement, when he
+feels as if he could willingly exchange faiths with the old beldame
+crossing herself at the cathedral-door,--nay, that, if he could drop
+all coherent thought, and lie in the flowery meadow with the brown-eyed
+solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to the sky, and all their simple
+consciousness staining itself blue, then down to the grass, and life
+turning to a mere greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,--no
+individual mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great
+calm cattle-sense of all time and all places that know the milky smell
+of herds,--if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven
+home by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient
+Babylon. Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those
+who leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek
+non-combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions. Age, illness,
+too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us to
+this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our own
+individuality against every human combination, let as not forget to
+caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice which is
+criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge. God
+help him over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the sad
+supplication, _Requiescat in pace_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study-door called his eyes
+from the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if expecting a
+welcome guest.
+
+The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., entered the study of the
+Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr.
+Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer,
+and pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a paper
+lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and welcomed,
+a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor.
+
+"Good evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a
+very cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of those
+eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear."
+
+"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a languid
+tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which belonged to
+it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and then, and which
+says as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am a suffering
+individual. I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and imposed upon by
+mankind and the powers of the universe generally. But I endure all. I
+endure _you_. Speak. I listen. It is a burden to me, but I even approve.
+I sacrifice myself. Behold this movement of my lips! It is a smile."
+
+The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of Mr. Fairweather's, and was
+not troubled by it. He proceeded to relate the circumstances of his
+visit from the old black woman, and the fear she was in about the young
+girl, who being a parishioner of Mr. Fairweather's, he had thought it
+best to come over and speak to him about old Sophy's fears and fancies.
+
+In telling the old woman's story, he alluded only vaguely to those
+peculiar circumstances to which she had attributed so much importance,
+taking it for granted that the other minister must be familiar with
+the whole series of incidents she had related. The old minister was
+mistaken, as we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had been settled in
+the place only about ten years, and, if he had heard a strange hint now
+and then about Elsie, had never considered it as anything more than
+idle and ignorant, if not malicious, village-gossip. All that he fully
+understood was that this had been a perverse and unmanageable child, and
+that the extraordinary care which had been bestowed on her had been so
+far thrown away that she was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all
+feared and almost all shunned, as if she carried with her some malignant
+influence.
+
+He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, that Elsie had always
+given trouble. There seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about
+her. Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. Never amenable to good
+influences. Had sent her good books from the Sunday-school library.
+Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of one of them, and kept
+it, and flung the book out of the window. It was a picture of Eve's
+temptation; and he recollected her saying that Eve was a good
+woman,--and she'd have done just so, if she'd been there. A very sad
+child,--very sad; bad from infancy.--He had talked himself bold, and
+said all at once,--
+
+"Doctor, do you know I am almost ready to accept your doctrine of the
+congenital sinfulness of human nature? I am afraid that is the only
+thing which goes to the bottom of the difficulty."
+
+The old minister's face did not open as approvingly as Mr. Fairweather
+had expected.
+
+"Why, yes,--well,--many find comfort in it,--I believe;--there is much
+to be said,--there are many bad people,--and bad children,--I can't
+be so sure about bad babies,--though they cry very malignantly at
+times,--especially if they have the stomach-ache. But I really don't
+know how to condemn this poor Elsie; she may have impulses that act
+in her like instincts in the lower animals, and so not come under the
+bearing of our ordinary rules of judgment."
+
+"But this depraved tendency, Doctor,--this unaccountable perverseness.
+My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right about human nature.
+Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in iniquity,' and the rest!
+What are we to do with them,--we who teach that the soul of a child is
+an unstained white tablet?"
+
+"King David was very subject to fits of humility, and much given to
+self-reproaches," said the Doctor, in a rather dry way. "We owe you and
+your friends a good deal for calling attention to the natural graces,
+which, after all, may, perhaps, be considered as another form of
+manifestation of the divine influence. Some of our writers have pressed
+rather too hard on the tendencies of the human soul toward evil as such.
+It may be questioned whether these views have not interfered with the
+sound training of certain young persons, sons of clergymen and others.
+I am nearer of your mind about the possibility of educating children so
+that they shall become good Christians without any violent transition.
+That is what I should hope for from bringing them up 'in the nurture and
+admonition of the Lord.'"
+
+The younger minister looked puzzled, but presently answered,--
+
+"Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but,
+after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at the
+root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about many
+young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like genuine
+goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward your view,
+that these human affections, as we see them in our children,--ours, I
+say, though I have not the fearful responsibility of training any of my
+own,--are only a kind of disguised and sinful selfishness."
+
+The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart had been softened by
+the sweet influences of children and grandchildren. He thought of
+a half-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the fine, brave,
+noble-hearted boy he laid in it thirty years before,--the sweet,
+cheerful child who had made his home all sunshine until the day when he
+was brought home, his long curls dripping, his fresh lips purpled in
+death,--foolish dear little blessed creature to throw himself into the
+deep water to save the drowning boy, who clung about him and carried him
+under! Disguised selfishness! And his granddaughter too, whose disguised
+selfishness was the light of his household!
+
+"Don't call it my view!" he said, "Abstractly, perhaps, all Nature may
+be considered vitiated; but practically, as I see it in life, the divine
+grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from infancy in many
+natures. Besides, this perversion itself may often be disease, bad
+habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary misfortune, as
+with this Elsie we were talking about."
+
+The younger minister was completely mystified. At every step he made
+towards the Doctor's recognized theological position, the Doctor took
+just one step towards his. They would cross each other soon at this
+rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once
+wished they would, it may be remembered.
+
+The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally
+puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored
+to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly
+influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His
+sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished.
+Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his own
+spiritual interests.
+
+A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather rose
+and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught something,
+which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with a string of
+beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian features of Father
+McShane presented themselves, and from their centre proceeded the
+clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, _Pax vobiscum!_
+
+The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his disciple
+together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_Autobiographical Recollections_. By the late CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE,
+R.A. Edited, with a Prefatory Essay on Leslie as an Artist, and
+Selections from his Correspondence, by TOM TAYLOR, Esq., Editor of the
+"Autobiography of Haydon." With Portrait. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+1860. pp. lviii., 363.
+
+Those who remember the excellent judgment with which Mr. Taylor selected
+his material for the Autobiography of Haydon from the papers left by
+that artist need not be told that this work is executed with spirit and
+discrimination. It is a delicate task to publish just so much of the
+letters and reminiscences of a man lately dead as shall consist with
+good taste and gentlemanly feeling, to discriminate between legitimate
+anecdote and what at second-hand becomes tale-bearing gossip, and not to
+break faith with the dead by indiscreet confidences about the living.
+If the dead have any privilege, it ought to be that of holding their
+tongues; yet an unseemly fashion has prevailed lately of making
+them gabble for years in Diaries, Remains, Correspondences, and
+Recollections, perpetuating in a solid telltale record all they may
+have said and written thoughtlessly or in a momentary pet, giving to a
+fleeting whim the printed permanence of a settled opinion, and robbing
+the grave of what is sometimes its only consoling attribute, the dignity
+of reserve. We know of no more unsavory calling than this, unless it be
+that of the Egyptian dealers in mummy, peddling out their grandfathers
+to be ground into pigment. Obsequious to the last moment, the jackal
+makes haste to fill his belly from the ribs of his late lion almost
+before he is cold.
+
+Mr. Taylor is too manly and well-bred to be guilty of any indiscretions,
+much more of any indecencies. He let Haydon tell his own story, nor
+assumed the function of a judge. And wisely, as we think; for, commonly,
+when men take it upon themselves uncalled, their inability to conceive
+the special weakness that is not theirs, (and which, perhaps, was but
+the negative of a strength equally alien to them.) their humanly narrow
+and often professionally back-attic view of character and circumstance,
+their easy after-dinner superiority to what was perhaps a loathing
+compromise with famine and the jail, fit them rather for the office of
+_advocatus diaboli_ than of the justice which must be all-seeing that it
+may be charitable. It is so hard to see that a sin is sometimes but a
+thwarted and misdirected virtue! When Burns sighed that "the light that
+led astray was light from Heaven," he was but unconsciously repeating
+what a poet who of all men least needed the apology had said centuries
+before.
+
+We do not admit, that, because a man has published a volume or a
+picture, he has published himself, excommunicated his soul from the
+sanctuary of privacy, and made his life as common as a tavern-threshold
+to every blockhead in the parish,--or that any Pharisee who kept
+carefully to windward of his virtues, out of the way of infection, has
+thereby earned the right to mismoralize his failings after he is dumbly
+defenceless. The moral compasses that are too short for the aberration
+may be, must be, unequal to the orbit. We would not deny that Burns was
+a chamberer and a drunkard because he was a great poet; but we would not
+admit that whiskey and wenches made him any the less the most richly
+endowed genius of his century, with just title to the love and
+admiration of men. It is not for us to decide whether he, who, by
+doubling the suggestive and associative power of any thought, fancy,
+feeling, or natural object, has so far added permanently to the sum of
+human happiness, is not as sure of a welcome and a well-done from the
+Infinite Fatherliness as he that has turned an honest penny by printing
+a catechism; but we are sure that it is a shallow cant which holds up
+the errors of men of genius as if they were especial warnings, and
+proofs of how little the rarest gifts avail. Is it intended to put men
+on their guard against being geniuses? That is scarcely called for till
+those who yield to the temptation become more numerous. Do they mean,
+We, too, might have been geniuses, but we chose rather to be good and
+dull? Self-denial is always praiseworthy, and we reconcile ourselves to
+the Ovid lost in consideration of the Deacon gained. But if it be meant
+that the danger was in the genius, we deny it altogether. Burns's genius
+was the one good thing he had, and it was always, as it always must be,
+good, and only good, the leaven of uncontaminate heaven in him that
+would not let him sink contentedly into the sty of oblivion with the
+million other tipplers and loose-livers of his century. It was his
+weakness of character, and not his strength or pride of intellect, that
+betrayed him; and to call his faults errors of genius is a mischievous
+fallacy. If they were, then they were no lesson for the rest of us; if
+they were not, to call them so is to encourage certain gin-and-water
+philosophers who would fain extenuate their unpleasant vices by the plea
+that they are the necessary complement of unusual powers,--as if the
+path to immortality were through the kennel, and fine verses were to be
+written only at the painful sacrifice of bilking your washerwoman.
+
+We are over-fond of drawing monitory morals from the lives of gifted
+persons, tacking together our little ten-by-twelve pinfolds to impound
+breachy human nature in, but it is only because we know more than we
+have any business to know of the private concerns of such persons
+that we have the opportunity. We are thankful that the character of
+Shakspeare is wrapped safely away from us in un-Boswellable night.
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge the man stood forever in the way of Samuel
+Taylor Coleridge the poet and metaphysician, and the fault of the
+poppy-juice in his nature is laid at the door of the laudanum he bought
+of the apothecary. Yet all the drowsy juices of Circe's garden could not
+hinder De Quincey from writing his twenty-five volumes. To us nothing is
+more painful, and nothing seems more cruelly useless, than the parading
+of mortal weaknesses, especially of those to whom we are indebted
+for delight and teaching. For an inherent weakness has no lesson of
+avoidance in it, being helpless from the first, and by the doom of its
+own nature growing more and more helpless to the last, not more so in
+the example than in him who is to profit by it, and who is more likely
+to have his appetite flattered by good company than his fear aroused by
+the evil consequence. Because the swans have a vile habit of over-eating
+themselves, shall we nail them to the barn-door as a moral lesson to the
+crows?
+
+There is, doubtless, a great deal to be taught by biography; but it is
+by the mistakes of men that we learn, and not by their weaknesses. To
+see clearly an error of judgment and its consequences may be of positive
+service to us in the conduct of life, while a vice of temperament
+concerns us not at all in private men, and only so far in statesmen
+and rulers as it may have been influential in history as a modifier of
+action, or is essential to an understanding of it as an explainer of
+motive.
+
+The Autobiography of Leslie seems to us in some sort the complement
+of Haydon's, and throws the defiant struggle of that remarkable
+self-portraiture into stronger relief by the contrast of its equable
+good-fortune and fireside tranquillity. The causes of the wide
+difference in the course and the result of these two lives are on the
+surface and are instructive. Comparing the two men at the outset, we
+should have said that all the chances were on Haydon's side. If he had
+not genius, he had at least the temperament and external characteristics
+that go along with it. He had what is sometimes wanting to it in its
+more purely aesthetic manifestation, the ambition that spurs and the
+unflagging energy that seemed a guerdon of unlimited achievement.
+Yet the ambition fermented into love of notoriety and soured into a
+fraudulent self-assertion, that grew boastful as it grew distrustful of
+its claims and could bring less proof in support of them; the energy
+degenerated into impudence, evading the shame of spendthrift bankruptcy
+to-day by shifts that were sure to bring a more degrading exposure
+tomorrow; and the whole ended at last in a suicide whose tragic pang
+is deadened to us by the feeling that so much of the mixed motive that
+drove him to it as was not cowardice was a hankering after melodramatic
+effect, the last throb of a passion for making his name the theme of
+public talk, and his fate the centre of a London day's sensation.
+Chatterton makes us lenient to a life of fraud by the dogged and cynical
+uncomplainingness of the despair that drove him to cut it short; but
+Haydon continues his self-autopsy to the last moment, and in pulling the
+trigger seems to be only firing the train for an explosion that shall
+give him a week longer of posthumous notoriety. The egotism of Pepys was
+but a suppressed garrulity, which habitual caution, fostered by a period
+of political confusion and the mystery of office, drove inward to a kind
+of soliloquy in cipher; that of Montaigne was metaphysical,--in studying
+his own nature and noting his observations he was studying man, and that
+with a singular insouciance of public opinion; but Haydon appears to
+have written his journals with a deliberate intention of their some day
+advertising himself, and his most private aspirations are uttered with
+an eye to the world. Yet it was a genuine instinct that led him to the
+pen, and his lifelong succession of half-successes that are worse than
+defeats was due to the initial error of mistaking a passion for a power.
+A fine critic, a vivid sketcher of character, and a writer of singular
+clearness, point, and eloquence was spoiled to make an artist, sometimes
+noble in conception, but without sense of color, and utterly inadequate
+to any but the most confused expression of himself by the pencil. His
+very sense of the power which he was conscious of somewhere in himself
+harassed and hampered him, as time after time he refused to see that his
+failure was due, not to injustice or insensibility on the part of the
+world, but to his having chosen the wrong means of making his ability
+felt and acknowledged. His true place would have been that of Professor
+and Lecturer in the Royal Academy. The world is not insensible or
+unjust, but it knows what it wants, and will not long be put off with
+less. There is always a public for success; there never is, and never
+ought to be, for inadequacy. Haydon was in some respects a first-rate
+man, but the result of his anxious, restless, and laborious life was
+almost zero, as far as concerned its definite aims. It does not convey
+the moral of neglected genius, or of loose notions of money-obligations,
+ending in suicide, but simply of a mischosen vocation, leading sooner or
+later to utter and undeniable failure. _Pas meme academicien_! Plenty of
+neglected geniuses have found it good to be neglected, plenty of Jeremy
+Diddlers (in letters and statesmanship as often as in money-matters)
+have lived to a serene old age, but the man who in any of the unuseful
+arts insists on doing what Nature never asked him to do has no place in
+the world. Leslie, a second-rate man in all respects, but with a genuine
+talent rightly directed, an obscure American, with few friends, no
+influential patrons, and a modesty that would never let him obtrude his
+claims, worked steadily forward to competence, to reputation, and the
+Council of the Academy. The only blunder of his life was his accepting
+the Professorship of Drawing at West Point, a place for which he was
+unsuited. But this blunder he had the good sense and courage to correct
+by the frank acknowledgment of resignation. Altogether his is a career
+as pleasant as Haydon's is painful to contemplate, the more so as we
+feel that his success was fairly won by honest effort directed by
+a contented consciousness of the conditions and limitations of his
+faculty.
+
+Nothing can be more agreeable than the career of a successful artist.
+His employment does not force upon him the solitude of an author; it
+is eminently companionable; from its first design, through all the
+processes that bring his work to perfection, he is not shut out from the
+encouragement of sympathy; his success is definite and immediate; he
+can see it in the crowd around his work at the exhibition; and his very
+calling brings him into pleasant contact with beauty, taste, and (if a
+portrait-painter) with eminence in every department of human activity.
+
+Leslie's passage through the world was of that equal temper which is
+happiest for the man and unhappiest for the biographer. With no dramatic
+surprises of fortune, and no great sorrows, his life had scarce any
+other alternation than that it went round with the earth through night
+and day, and would have been tame but for his necessary labor in an
+art which he loved wisely and with the untumultuous sentiment of
+an after-honey-moon constancy. We should say that his leading
+characteristic was Taste, an external quality, it is true, but one which
+is often the indication of more valuable ones lying deeper. In the
+conduct of life it insures tact, and in Art a certain gentlemanlike
+equipoise, incapable of what is deepest and highest, but secure also
+from the vulgar, the grotesque, and the extravagant. Leslie, we think,
+was more at home with Addison than with Cervantes.
+
+His autobiographical reminiscences are very entertaining, especially
+that part of them which describes a voyage home to America, varied by
+a winter in Portugal, during the early part of his life. The Scotch
+captain, who, with his scanty merchant-crew, beats off a Bordeaux
+privateer, and then, crippled and half-sinking, clears for action with
+what he supposes to be a French frigate, but which turns out to be
+English, is a personage whose acquaintance it is pleasant to make. The
+sketches of life in Lisbon, too, are very lively, and the picture of
+the decayed Portuguese nobleman's family, for whose pride of birth an
+imaginary dinner-table was set every day in the parlor with the remains
+of the hereditary napery and plate, the numerous covers hiding nothing
+but the naked truth, while their common humanity, squatting on the floor
+in the kitchen, fished its scanty meal from an earthen pot with pewter
+spoons, is pathetically humorous and would have delighted Caleb
+Balderstone. In after-life, Leslie's profession made him acquainted with
+some of the best London life of his time, and the volume is full of
+agreeable anecdotes of Scott, Irving, Turner, Rogers, Wilkie, and
+many more. It contains also several letters of Irving, of no special
+interest, and some from a sort of Lesmahago of a room-mate of Leslie's,
+named Peter Powell, so queer, individual, and shrewd, that we are sorry
+not to have more of them and their writer. Altogether the book is one of
+the pleasantest we have lately met with.
+
+
+_The Old Battle-Ground_. By J.T. TROWBRIDGE, Author of "Father
+Brighthopes," "Neighbor Jackwood," etc. New York: Sheldon & Company.
+1860. pp. 276.
+
+Mr. Trowbridge's previous works have made him known to a large circle of
+appreciating readers as a writer of originality and promise. His "Father
+Brighthopes" we have never read, but we have heard it spoken of as one
+of the most wholesome children's books ever published in America, and
+our knowledge of the author makes us ready to believe the favorable
+opinion a just one. Parts of "Neighbor Jackwood" we read with sincere
+relish and admiration; they showed so true an eye for Nature and so
+thorough an appreciation of the truly humorous elements of New England
+character, as distinguished from the vulgar and laughable ones. The
+domestic interior of the Jackwood family was drawn with remarkable truth
+and spirit, and all the working characters of the book on a certain
+average level of well-to-do rusticity were made to think and talk
+naturally, and were as full of honest human nature as those of the
+conventional modern novel are empty of it. An author who puts us in the
+way to form some just notion of the style of thought proper to so large
+a class as our New England country-people, and of the motives likely to
+influence their social and political conduct, does us a greater service
+than we are apt to admit. And the power to conceive the leading
+qualities that make up an average representative and to keep them
+always clearly in view, so as to swerve neither toward tameness nor
+exaggeration, is by no means common. This power, it seems to us, Mr.
+Trowbridge possesses in an unusual degree. The late Mr. Judd, in his
+remarkable romance of "Margaret," gave such a picture as has never been
+equalled for truth of color and poetry of conception, of certain phases
+of life among a half-gypsy family in the outskirts of a remote village,
+and growing up in the cold penumbra of our civilization and material
+prosperity. But his scene and characters were exceptional, or, if
+typical, only so of a very limited class, and his book, full of fine
+imagination as it is, is truly a romance, an ideal and artistic
+representation, rather a poem than a story of manners general and
+familiar enough to be called real.
+
+Mr. Trowbridge, we think, fails in those elements of (we had almost said
+creative) power in which Mr. Judd was specially rich. If the latter had
+possessed the shaping spirit as fully as he certainly did the essential
+properties of imagination, he would have done for the actual, prosaic
+life of New England what Mr. Hawthorne has done for the ideal essence
+that lies behind and beneath it. But, with all his marvellous fidelity
+of dialect, costume, and landscape, and his firm clutch of certain
+individual instincts and emotions, his characters are wanting in any
+dramatic unity of relation to each other, and seem to be "moving about
+in worlds not realized," each a vivid reality in itself, but a very
+shadow in respect of any prevailing intention of the story. With the
+innate sentiments of a kind of aboriginal human nature Mr. Judd was
+at home; with the practical working of every-day motives he seemed
+strangely unfamiliar. It is just here that Mr. Trowbridge's strength
+and originality lie; but, with that not uncommon tendency to overvalue
+qualities that we do not possess, and to attempt their display, to the
+neglect, and sometimes at the cost, of others quite as valuable, but
+which seem cheap, because their exercise is easy and habitual,--and
+therefore, we may be sure, natural and pleasing,--he insists on being a
+little metaphysical and over-fine. What he means for his more
+elevated characters are tiresome with something of that melodramatic
+sentimentality with which Mr. Dickens has infected so much of the
+lighter literature of the day. Here and there the style suffers from
+that overmuchness of unessential detail and that exaggeration of
+particulars which Mr. Dickens brought into fashion and seems bent on
+wearing out of it,--a style which is called graphic and poetical by
+those only who do not see that it is the cheap substitute, in all
+respects equal to real plate, (till you try to pawn it for lasting
+fame,) introduced by writers against time, or who forget that to be
+graphic is to tell most with fewest penstrokes, and to be poetical is
+to suggest the particular in the universal. We earnestly hope, that,
+instead of trying to do what no one can do well, Mr. Trowbridge will
+wisely stick close to what he has shown that no one can do better.
+
+"The Old Battle-Ground," whose name bears but an accidental relation to
+the story, is an interesting and well-constructed tale, in which Mr.
+Trowbridge has introduced what we believe is a new element in American
+fiction, the French Canadian. The plot is simple and not too improbable,
+and the characters well individualized. Here, also, Mr. Trowbridge
+is most successful in his treatment of the less ambitiously designed
+figures. The relation between the dwarf Hercules fiddler and the
+heroine Marie seems to be a suggestion from Victor Hugo's Quasimodo and
+Esmeralda, though the treatment is original and touching. Indeed, there
+is a good deal of pathos in the book, marred here and there with the
+sentimental extract of Dickens-flowers, unpleasant as _patchouli_.
+Generally, however, it has the merit of unobtrusiveness,--a rare piece
+of self-denial nowadays, when authors have found out, and the public has
+not, how very easy it is to make the public cry, and how much the simple
+creature likes it, as if it had not sorrows enough of its own. But it is
+in his more ordinary characters that Mr. Trowbridge fairly shows himself
+as an original and delightful author. His boys are always masterly.
+Nothing could be truer to Nature, more nicely distinguished as to
+idiosyncrasy, while alike in expression and in limited range of ideas,
+or more truly comic, than the two that figure in this story. Nick
+Whickson, too, the good-natured ne'er-do-well, who is in his own and
+everybody's way till he finds his natural vocation as an aid to a dealer
+in horses, is a capital sketch. The hypochondriac Squire Plumworthy
+is very good, also, in his way, though he verges once or twice on the
+"heavy father," with a genius for the damp handkerchief and long-lost
+relative line.
+
+We are safe in assigning to Mr. Trowbridge a rank quite above that of
+our legion of washy novelists; he seems to have a definite purpose and
+an ambition for literary as well as popular success, and we hope that
+by study and observation he will be true to a very decided and peculiar
+talent. We violate no confidence in saying that the graceful poem, "At
+Sea," which first appeared in the "Atlantic," and which, under the name
+of now one, now another author, has been deservedly popular, was written
+by Mr. Trowbridge.
+
+
+
+
+JULY REVIEWED BY SEPTEMBER.
+
+
+The Editors of the "Atlantic," of course, have universal knowledge
+(with few exceptions) at their fingers' ends,--that is, they possess
+an Encyclopaedia, gapped here and there by friends fond of portable
+information and familiar with that hydrostatic paradox in which the
+motion of solids up a spout is balanced by a very slender column of the
+liquidating medium. The once goodly row of quartos looks now like a set
+of mineral teeth that have essayed too closely to simulate Nature by
+assaulting a Boston cracker; and the intervals of vacuity among the
+books, as among the incisors, deprive the owner of his accustomed
+glibness in pronouncing himself on certain topics. Among the missing
+volumes is one of those in M, and accordingly our miss-information [A]
+on all subjects from Mabinogion to Mustard is not to be entirely relied
+upon. Under these painful circumstances, and with the chance of still
+further abstractions from our common stock of potential learning, we
+have engaged a staff of consulting engineers, who contract, for certain
+considerations, to know every useless thing from A to Z, and every
+obsolete one from Omega to Alpha. In these gentlemen we repose unlimited
+confidence in proportion to their salaries; for a considerable
+experience of mankind has taught us that omniscience is a much commoner
+and easier thing than science, especially in this favored country and
+under democratic institutions, which give to every man the inestimable
+right of knowing as much as he pleases. Everything was going on well
+when our Man of Science unaccountably disappeared, and our Aesthetic
+Editor experienced in all its terrors the Scriptural doom of being left
+to himself. This latter gentleman is tolerably _shady_ in scientific
+matters, nay, to say sooth, light-proof, or only so far penetrable as
+to make darkness visible. Between science and nescience the difference
+seems to his mind little, if _n e_, and he would accept as perfectly
+satisfactory a statement that "the ponderability of air in a vitreous
+table-tipping medium (the abnormal variation being assumed as $ x-b
+.0000001) is exactly proportioned to the squares of the circumambient
+distances, provided the perihelia are equal, and the evolution of
+nituretted carbogen in the boomerang be carefully avoided during
+evaporation; the power of the parallax being represented, of
+course, according to the well-known theorem of Rabelais, by H.U.M.
+Hemsterhuysius seems to have been familiar with this pretty experiment."
+The above sentence being shown to the Aesthetic Editor aforesaid, he
+acknowledges that he sees nothing more absurd than common in it, and
+that the theory seems to him as worthy of trial as Hedgecock's quadrant,
+which he took with him once on a journey to New York, arriving safely
+with a single observation of the height of the steamer's funnel.
+
+[Footnote A: MISS-INFORMATION. A higgledy-piggledy want of intelligence
+acquired by young misses at boarding-schools.--_Supplement to Johnson's
+Dictionary._]
+
+This premised, it naturally follows that the Aesthetic Editor (the July
+number falling to his turn) must take advantage of the absence of
+his Guardian Man of Science to publish an article on Meteorology. A
+condition of things in which the _omne scibile_ was left entirely at his
+disposal, to be knocked about as he pleased, appeared to him no small
+omen of a near millennium; and what subject could be more suitable to
+begin with than the weather, a topic of general interest, (since we have
+no choice of weather or no,) in which exact knowledge is comfortably
+impossible, and in which he felt himself at home from his repeated
+experiments in raising the wind in order to lower the due-point? (See
+_The Weathercock, an Essay on Rotation in Office, by Sir Airy Vane._)
+
+Meanwhile, after the mischief was all done and a Provisional Government
+of Chaos Redux comfortably established in Physics, the Man of Science
+turns up suddenly in the following communication. [A council was called
+on the spot, the Autocrat in the chair, and it was decided, with only
+one dissenting voice, that the communication should be printed as a
+lesson to the peccant Editor, who, for the future, was laid under a
+strict interdict in respect of all and singular the onomies and ologies,
+and directed to consider the weather a matter altogether unprophetable,
+except to almanac-makers,--the said Editor to superintend such
+publication, and to be kept on a diet of corn-cob for the body and
+Sylvanus Cobb (or his own works, at his option) for the mind, till it
+be done. The chairman added, that for a second offence he should do
+penance, according to ancient usage, in a blank sheet of the Magazine,
+(a contribution of his own being to that end suppressed,)--a form of
+punishment likely to be as irksome to himself as grateful to the readers
+of that incomparable miscellany.]
+
+"_Abercwmdwddhwm Mine_, 28th July, 1860.
+
+"WELL-MEANING, BUT MISGUIDED, FRIEND!
+
+"An unexpected opportunity of personally investigating a highly nauseous
+kind of mephitic vapor drew me and Jones suddenly hither without time
+to say farewell or make explanations. I made the journey in--10' by
+electric telegraph, and am delighted that I came, for anything more
+unpleasant never met my nostrils, and I am almost sure of adding a new
+element to the enjoyment of the scientific world.
+
+"I have already secured several bottles-full, and shall exhibit it at the
+next meeting of the Association: of course you shall have a sniff in
+advance. I should have returned before this, but unhappily the chain by
+which we descended gave way a few days ago near the top, in hoisting
+out the first series of my observations, and as yet there has been no
+opportunity of replacing it. Communication with the upper world is kept
+up by means of a small cord, however, and in this way we are supplied
+with food for body and mind. As good luck would have it, our butter came
+down wrapped in a half-sheet of your last volume of poems, containing my
+old favorites, 'Modern Greece,' and the 'Ode to a Deserted Churn.' These
+I read aloud several times to the miners, and their longing to return
+sooner to a world where they could get the rest of the volume became so
+strong, that, as I was about to begin my fifth reading, they consented
+to an expedient of escape which I had already proposed once or twice in
+vain. This was to blow us out by means of the fire-damp. The result of
+the experiment I cannot yet fully report, as some confusion ensued.
+Jones has disappeared, having been, as I hope and believe, discharged
+upward, and I have found the remains of only one miner, so that it seems
+to have been a tolerable success, though I myself was blown inward,
+owing to the premature explosion of the train. In one respect the result
+was highly satisfactory to me personally. Jones had all along insisted
+that the vapor was antiphlogistic. Whichever way he went, I think
+(fair-minded as he is) he must be by this time convinced of his error,
+and I shall accordingly enter him in my Report as discharged cured.
+I may add, as an interesting scientific fact, that his ascent was
+accompanied by such a sudden and violent fall of the barometer (which he
+had in his lap) that the instrument was broken. This would seem to prove
+a considerable decrease in the weight of the atmosphere at the moment
+of explosion. The darkness was oppressive at first; but a happy thought
+occurred to me. You know Jones's poodle, and how obese he is? Well, he
+was shot into my lap, where he lay to all appearance dead. I had some
+matches in my pocket and at once kindled the end of his tail, which
+makes a very good candle, quite as good as average dips, _tales,
+quales_. By the light of this I proceed to note down my first series
+of comments as a tail-piece to your meteorological article in the July
+'Atlantic,' of which we received a copy in due course, as the magazine
+has a large circulation among our friars miner down here.
+
+"METEOROLOGY 'MADE EASY.'
+
+"In glancing at the article on 'Meteorology' in the July number of the
+'Atlantic Monthly,' I was so struck by the dashing style in which the
+writer presents what he calls the 'leading principles' of the science,
+that, in spite of portentous errors, I was tempted to follow his
+diversified flight to its very close. Reading pencil in hand, I gathered
+up a long list of mistakes in fact and in philosophy, of which the
+following specimens, although but the first fruits of a not very
+critical examination, may serve to illustrate the carelessness--shall
+I not say ignorance?--of the writer on the topics in regard to which he
+proposes to enlighten the general reader.
+
+"1. According to our essayist, the weight of the atmosphere is about
+43/1000ths that of the globe,--in other words, 1/23d part. Now a simple
+calculation, or a reference to one of the standard works on Physics,
+should have taught him that the weight of the entire air is less than
+one-millionth part of that of the earth,--that is, _fifty thousand times
+less than he states it to be_."
+
+[We are quite sure that our (tor-)Mentor is mistaken in assuming a
+uniform weight for the atmosphere. It differs in different places.
+During our lecturing-tours, we have frequently observed an involuntary
+depression of the eyelids (producing _almost_ an appearance of sleep) in
+a part of the audience, which we were at a loss to attribute to anything
+but the weight of the atmosphere. Water varies in the same way. It is
+hardly necessary to say that Lake Wetter derives its name from the
+superior quality of its dampness.]
+
+"2. Of the specific gravity of the air he seems to be amusingly
+uncertain,--making it first 833 times and afterwards 770 times less than
+that of water; and in the same connection he says, in chosen
+phrase, that 'density, or _closeness_, is another quality of the
+atmosphere,'--as if it were its characteristic, and not common to all
+ponderable matter."
+
+[A very neat way of arriving at specific gravity in its densest form is
+to distil the "funny column" of a weekly newspaper. To arrive at the
+desired result in the speediest way, let the operation be performed in
+what is known among bucolic journalists as a "humorous retort." Density
+and closeness should not be spoken of as equivalent terms. The former is
+a common quality of the human skull, rendering it impervious; whereas a
+man may be very close and yet capable of being stuck,--with bad paper,
+for example.]
+
+"3. In mentioning the _constituents of the atmosphere_, he adopts
+without explanation the loose statement of some of the books, placing
+carburetted hydrogen on the same footing as to constancy and amount with
+carbonic acid, and making no allusion to nitric acid. Yet chemistry has
+shown, that, except in special localities, carburetted hydrogen occurs
+only as a slight trace, the existence of which in most cases is rather
+inferred than actually demonstrated, and that it has no important
+office to perform,--while nitric acid shares with ammonia in the grand
+function of the nourishment of plants. In a later paragraph the error is
+aggravated by the assertion, that 'no chemical combination of oxygen and
+nitrogen has ever been detected in the atmosphere, and it is presumed
+none will be,'--as if every flash of lightning did not produce a notable
+quantity of this compound, which, washed down by the rain, may be
+detected in almost every specimen of rain-water we meet. What would
+Johnstone, Boussingault, Liebig, and the other agricultural chemists say
+to this?"
+
+[For complete proof on this head, be struck by lightning. For
+ourselves, we are convinced, and would rather have some other head
+taken for an experiment by way of illustration. But any of our
+readers who is unsatisfied has only to place himself in front of a
+lightning-express-train with an ordinary conductor. To insure being
+struck, let the experimenter provide himself amply with patent
+safety-rods. At least, this result is pretty sure in houses, and is
+worth trying out of doors.]
+
+"In the same connection he characterizes nitrogen as a substance 'not
+condensible under fifty atmospheres,' leaving the reader to infer
+that the preceding ingredient on the list, oxygen, is condensible
+(liquefiable) within that limit of pressure, and that nitrogen becomes
+liquid at or above it; whereas neither oxygen nor nitrogen has ever yet
+been compressed into a liquid, although a force of more than _fifty
+times fifty_ atmospheres has been brought to act upon them."
+
+[We consider an experiment requiring twenty-five hundred atmospheres,
+when the thermometer marks 93 deg. in the shade, indictable at common law.
+To desire more than one, under such circumstances, is unreasonable, and
+even wicked.]
+
+"4. In referring to the Thermo-barometer as a means of measuring
+heights, the writer confounds the late Professor Edward Forbes with
+Professor James D. Forbes, recently of Edinburgh, but now Provost of
+the University of St. Andrews. The former was a great Zooelogist and
+Botanist, and did not occupy himself with investigations in Physics;
+the latter is an eminent Physicist, the author of the viscous theory of
+Glaciers; and it is he who made the observations here ascribed to the
+'Professor Forbes, whose untimely death the friends of science have
+had so much reason to deplore.' The author adds the further mistake
+of supposing that the numerical constant, 549 feet for each degree,
+determined by James Forbes for Scotland, is equally correct for all
+latitudes."
+
+[This hardly needed confutation. No university requires any numerical
+constant of height as qualification for a degree; and if they did, 549
+feet would be excessive, unless, perhaps, at Warsaw, where everybody is
+tall enough to end in _ski_.]
+
+"5. Our essayist discloses but an imperfect inkling of knowledge on the
+subject of capillarity in barometers, when he speaks of this complex
+action as equivalent to _the attraction between the mercury and the
+glass tube_; and he commits a yet graver mistake, practically speaking,
+in reiterating the long exploded error, that 'the weight of the
+atmosphere at the level of the sea is the same all over the world.' No
+fact in Meteorology is better established than that the mean pressure at
+the sea-level is different for different latitudes. In the vicinity of
+Cape Horn the barometer is three-fourths of an inch lower than at the
+Equator, and according to Schouw the pressure increases from the Equator
+up to a certain latitude (38 deg.) in both hemispheres, and diminishes
+thence towards the Poles."
+
+[The connection between capillarity and the fat of the common bear is
+well known to all manufacturers of trycoverus compounds, and they are
+probably right in advertising that grease of this description restores
+tone to the hair,--of course a fine beary tone. As the weight of the
+bear depends on his fat, the inference to a bear-ometer is obvious. It
+is a familiar fact that the bear supports life during hibernation by
+sucking his paws; but it may not be so generally known that the waste
+thus induced in the anterior extremities is restored by the moral
+consciousness of the animal that the fat he is so carefully hoarding is
+to confer a posthumous blessing on mankind. This is a touching example
+of the adaptation of means to end, and Shakspeare, the great natural
+philosopher, has made use of it for one of his most striking metaphors,
+where he says, "that the thought of something after death must give us
+paws."]
+
+"6. Discoursing on the elasticity of the air, the writer styles it
+'the most compressible of bodies,'--as if it had any advantage in this
+respect over the numerous other species of gaseous matter. As to the
+illustration which he gives, namely, that 'a glass vessel full of air,
+placed under a receiver and then exhausted by the air-pump, will burst
+into atoms,' we can only say, what every schoolboy knows, that the
+_bursting_ would be _inwards_, unless, indeed, our meteorologist means
+that the external receiver was to be exhausted, and in that case he
+should so have expressed himself."
+
+[The theory of exhausted receivers is, in our opinion, worthy only of
+the childhood of science, when chemistry and astronomy were alchemy and
+astrology, and people would believe anything. In this enlightened age of
+the universal subscription-paper, exhausted givers are familiar objects,
+but a receiver who finds the labors of his calling excessive is as
+non-existent as the harpy, his mythological prototype.]
+
+"7. In regard to the extent to which the compression of air has been
+actually carried, he tells us that 'Brockhaus says that air has as yet
+been compressed only into _one-eighth of its original bulk_.' Is
+it possible that a writer on Meteorology is unacquainted with the
+well-known experiments of Dulong and Arago, and the more recent ones
+of Regnault, in which the compression was three times the amount here
+stated, or that he requires to be referred to those of Natterer, who, by
+a powerful condensing apparatus, has lately compressed _seven hundred
+and twenty-six volumes of air into a single volume_?"
+
+[Any man who has succeeded in condensing seven hundred and twenty-six
+volumes into one deserves the applause of the reading public. We
+trust M. Natterer will extend his benevolent labors to all the great
+libraries. With the most perfect apparatus of compression, however, we
+doubt if contemporary literature will yield anything like so high an
+average as 1 in 726.]
+
+"8. In the paragraphs devoted to the optical relations of the
+atmosphere, our author has shown a happy faculty for making his subject
+obscure. After suggesting that the refraction of the rays in the
+atmosphere may be due to what he calls its 'lenticular outline,' he
+defines refraction to be 'the bending of a ray passing obliquely from a
+rarer into a denser medium,'--a good enough popular definition, but for
+its sad defectiveness. Is he not aware that the light is also bent in
+penetrating obliquely from a denser into a rarer medium, as in passing
+from the surface of a low plain to the eye of a spectator on a
+neighboring mountain, and that the bending is just as great in this
+direction of its motion as in the other? And does he not know that it
+changes its course whenever it passes from a vacuum into any ponderable
+medium or in the opposite direction? In future attempts to make
+science easy, let him remember that these are all equally instances of
+refraction, and should be included in its definition.
+
+"Under the same head, we are led to infer that it is only in 'the warm
+and moist nights of summer,' that 'the moon, as she rises above the
+horizon, appears much larger than when at the zenith'; and we are
+taught, in connection with the origin of the mirage and the spectre
+of the Bracken, that 'rainbows are due to this condition of the
+atmosphere.' If, instead of rainbows, we may be allowed to read _halos_,
+we can understand the writer, who, instead of thinking of summer
+showers, appears to have had a _haze_ in his mind while penning this and
+other paragraphs."
+
+[The _dictum_ of our correspondent in regard to light passing from
+a ponderable medium into a vacuum requires some qualification. An
+exception should be made of "Spiritual Mediums," who, being flesh and
+blood, are of course ponderable. Now, if we represent the Medium by A,
+and the head of any one consulting her by B, there can be no doubt that
+the latter is an absolute vacuum; but it is demonstrable that nothing
+like light ever passed from the former to the latter. There is a
+closer analogy between refracted light and a Brocken spectre than our
+scientific friend seems willing to admit. For what follows we refer our
+readers to the remarkable essay of Alderman Moon, "On the Identity of
+Halocination and Lunacy."]
+
+"9. As our author advances in this branch of his subject, he grows far
+too profound for our scientific apprehension. Giving him all credit for
+_wishing to be clear_, we confess to a sad mystification as to what he
+calls the 'Polarity of Light,' where a beam is described as 'revolving
+around poles peculiar to itself' and as producing 'beautiful
+_spectres_,' and we want new illumination from him as to his theory of
+colors. We agree to the statement that 'each object has a particular
+reflecting surface of its own,' as we cannot see how _its_ particular
+surface could be the property of another,--but why this should make the
+surface 'throw back light at its own angle' we do not exactly fathom,
+and we are puzzled to know _which is the owner of the said angle_,
+the light or the surface. No one doubts that 'the modest blush which
+crimsons the cheek of beauty,' to use the author's words, is caused by a
+rush of blood to the skin; but how this produces 'a corresponding change
+in its angle of reflection,' and what such a change has to do with the
+result, are problems too transcendental for the _exact_ sciences."
+
+[On all questions relating to the Poles we reserve our opinion till the
+return of Dr. Hayes's expedition. But we think they have little to hope
+from any future attempt at revolution, especially with such insufficient
+weapons as their axes, which, though they keep up a constant stir about
+them, have been long superseded by the improvements of modern military
+science. We think our correspondent hasty in admitting that "each object
+has a particular reflecting surface of its own." A little inquiry among
+his neighbors would have satisfied him that the human brain seldom
+possesses anything of the kind.]
+
+"But these specimens must suffice as indications of the general
+character of this attempt at _popularizing science_. To do this without
+misleading and confounding the general reader is a task which claims
+the largest and most exact knowledge, and the greatest perspicuity of
+statement, no less than a flowing style and felicitous illustration.
+It is a task in which true success, though apparently frequent, is in
+reality extremely rare."
+
+"P.S. I had written thus far, when the fire suddenly penetrating, I
+suppose, to the nervous system of the poodle, he ran off, leaving me
+in total darkness and with no hope that his tail (like too many in the
+'Atlantic') would be continued. By the brief candle of a match I manage
+to add this, and to subscribe myself
+
+"Yours ever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
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+
+Science a Witness for the Bible. By Rev. W.N. Pendleton, D.D.
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+
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+
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+
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+Introduction by the Rev. F.D. Huntington, D.D., Late Preacher to the
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+
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+Ethica; an Outline of Moral Science for Students and Reflecting Men. By
+John H. Stinson. New York. A.B. Kitson. 16mo. pp. 102. 50 cts.
+
+History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph. By George B.
+Prescott. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 468. $1.75.
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+La Question Irlandaise. By Jean de Paris. Boston. P. Donahoe. 8vo.
+paper, pp. 12. 10 cts.
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+A Journey in the Back Country. By Frederick Law Olmsted. New York. Mason
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. 492. $1.25.
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+Studies in Animal Life. By George Henry Lewes. New York. Harper &
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+The Queens of Society. By Grace and Philip Wharton. Illustrated by
+Charles Altamont Doyle and the Brothers Dalziel. New York. Harper &
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+
+A Run through Europe. By Erastus C. Benedict. New York. Appleton & Co.
+12mo. pp. 552. $1.26.
+
+Centennial Anniversary of the Foundation of Germantown Academy. 1860.
+Philadelphia. C. Sherman & Son. 8vo. paper, pp. 58. 25 cts.
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+Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science. An Address delivered
+before the Massachusetts Medical Society at their Annual Meeting, May
+30, 1860. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 8vo.
+paper, pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Chambers's Encyclopaedia; a Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for
+the People. On the Basis of the Latest Edition of the German
+Conversations-Lexicon. Illustrated with Wood Engravings and Maps. Parts
+XVI. and XVII. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. [each part] pp. 64. 15 cts.
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